19 April 2008
Changing Custom is the Answer
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: Constitution in Peril; Judaeo-Christian Values Under Attack; What's News .
Even though there is now evidence that the phone call about the abuse was a fraud, the state of Texas is still acting as if there is abuse going on. Children marrying too young is something to be dealt with but in no way should this give the government the right to permanently take these children away. This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice I have heard of in my lifetime. In another article I read, these poor women say they are willing to do what it takes to keep their children but it doesn’t seem to matter.
My great aunts who were raised in a different era married at fourteen and fifteen. Over time, those trends changed. We need a focused plan to help bring the FLDS to agree to change that custom. Instead of treating these women like criminals, they need to be allowed to agree not to allow their children to marry younger than eighteen. I do not believe the majority of the stories I am reading about the FLDS Church. I am too familiar with the outlandish lies and twists of anti-Mormonism to swallow what I am hearing.
The Press is handling the situation in a very biased manner. One of many examples is the news of the discovery of a bed for sex in the temple. The news that the bed was not used for sex is not being announced with nearly as much enthusiasm. Most of the articles do not mention that little point. Even in this article that does mention that fact, the temple is identified as a Mormon Temple.
I was very happy to read that an expert on both the FLDS Church and the LDS Church acknowledges that the FLDS Church is more like other churches than the Mormon Church.
Sect children will stay in state custody, judge rules
SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) — Hundreds of children who were taken from a polygamist ranch by Texas child welfare authorities will remain in state custody, a judge ruled Friday night. Officials are now looking for “the very best temporary placements for these children,” said Marleigh Meisner, CPS spokeswoman…
“This is not about religion — this is about keeping children safe from abuse,” she added.
The ranch raid stemmed from a series of phone calls in late March from a 16-year-old officials referred to as Sarah, who said she had been beaten and forced to become the “spiritual” wife to an adult man…
Religious scholar John Walsh also addressed a particularly damning piece of evidence: At least one bed found inside a temple that was allegedly used to consummate such marriages immediately after the ceremony.
“Historically, the only use of a bed in a temple is for temple worship itself,” said Walsh, who said he has studied the FLDS practices for 18 years. “The worship lasts a couple of hours, so all the temples will have a place where someone can lie down.”
But, he said, “To my knowledge, there has never been any sexual activity in a Mormon temple.”
Walsh said he also studies the mainstream Mormon church, which renounced polygamy a century ago and has no ties to the FLDS. He said without the polygamy aspect, the FLDS would resemble the Baptist or Catholic religions.
15 Comments so far...
Concerned American Says:
19 April 2008 at 10:54 am.
I really liked your earlier analogy about slavery and changing thought. These people seem sweet and old fashioned like the Amish. They need help not to be destroyed. This is so heavy handed it just wreaks of out of control Government.
E.E. Says:
19 April 2008 at 11:33 am.
Here is some more on the polygamists. I am glad to read that other people are questioning whether the state has the right to do this. The Constitution is being spit on by those authorities.
How a hunting ground became polygamous nightmare
Some were uncomfortable that the 16-year-old who reportedly called the child abuse hotline wasn’t identified.
Others wondered if it was legal for the agents to keep the sect’s men in their homes the first 24 hours after the raid, without charges. Later, at the group shelter in San Angelo, authorities took the cell phones away from mothers who remained in contact with their husbands back at the ranch.
Since the women hadn’t been charged with a crime, folks asked, did the police have that right?
“A lot of people here are starting to ask those questions,” says Griffin, the oil dealer. “If those women weren’t under arrest, how could the police do that to them?”
Others were less bothered by it. “It’s about time they went in there and busted that thing up,” says Lisa Lopez, a 43-year-old homemaker. “I couldn’t understand how people in Eldorado could sit back and let them have sex with underage girls for so long.”
You’ve got it all wrong, say the people of the YFZ ranch, finding their voices after years of near silence. Children were not abused here. Eldorado — indeed, all the outside world — does not understand.
“We are all Heavenly Father’s children,” says an FLDS mother of two boys, ages 11 and 14, who identified herself only as Brenda. “You have your religion. I have mine. You choose to live how you want. I choose how I live mine. Is this not freedom? Can’t we choose?”
Peter Says:
19 April 2008 at 1:30 pm.
Oh come on, polygamy is illegal. What do you want, to give these people a medal for breaking the law?
Matt Says:
19 April 2008 at 1:44 pm.
Because polygamy leaves a bad taste in my mouth I have to work at separating my emotional response with my ability to logically reason. Looking at the way the MSM is reporting this clearly shows bias, I agree. Seeing that there was no basis for the accusation of abuse from a non-existent 16 year old and that this happened anyway is a travesty of justice.
Benjamin Says:
19 April 2008 at 2:19 pm.
Polygamy laws have been treated like sodomy laws, basically ignored for a long time. They didn’t even pretend to go after these people because of polygamy, it was because of marrying off girls too young and worrying that the girls didn’t have a choice in the matter. If there was any suggestion of physical abuse by now it would have been plastered all over the papers. Until recently the law in Texas allowed people as young as fourteen to marry. Thankfully they changed that but only to sixteen. So basically the problem is that the FLDS are still following the law that recently changed for the age limit and they need to quit doing that. To measure that against the appalling action to permanently take kids from parents is outrageous.
Nalvy Says:
19 April 2008 at 2:29 pm.
Peter we aren’t saying to give them medals. Honestly now.
But what I think most of us are saying is that the police handled the situation the wrong way.
There have been some extreme actions taken and I for one do not think the situation was handled at all properly. In any other child abuse case you don’t have police storming into a town and taking away every child! If it happened in some other town in America there would have been outrage right away.
Peter Says:
19 April 2008 at 2:51 pm.
Fine then let’s make it about polygamy because there are no gray areas there. It’s against the law so Texas needs to enforce the law, period.
Carrie Says:
19 April 2008 at 2:55 pm.
Right on Nalvy. Because this happened to an unpopular sect people are glad but if it happened in a regular American town that there were abuse charges that were faked and all these kids were stolen from there families everybody sure would be screaming bloody murder.
E.E. Says:
19 April 2008 at 3:04 pm.
It’s called a measured response. It’s like giving the death penalty to someone who stole a car. Personally I would rather lose my life than my kids. This is unbelievable and to read about all of the exaggerations and also the suspicious mistrust in the community is sad.
We keep talking about comparing their lifestyle to teenage moms on welfare and I still say these are people who are trying to be good people and live pure lives according to their understanding. They need some course correction but they are not evil. This whole thing is taking such a huge bite out of freedom of religion because the government is overstepping their bounds by over reaction. Measured response.
Sid Says:
19 April 2008 at 3:37 pm.
This reminds me of the mistrust and hatred toward the Jews in Germany in the thirties and forties. Their religion was very different and crazy stories started circulating and people were dumb enough to believe them. They got to the point where they didn’t think of the Jews as fellow human beings but as evil pieces of crap who needed to be destroyed. We are all superior now days thinking we know better than then but we don’t recognize that although the names and places have changed, we are seeing the same situation.
A True Evangelical Says:
19 April 2008 at 6:13 pm.
Peter is right. Maybe the people aren’t evil but polygamy is very evil and the things this cult teaches are evil. Their temple is evil and the way they are ruining those kids’ lives is evil.
SGS Says:
19 April 2008 at 7:15 pm.
Peter, the majority of people have multiple sexual partners (could be with either genders!). Many of these people have spouses, mistresses and/or (what do you call male mistress?). In fact, many of them do not even marry at all. So, if you want to make it about polygamy, then you also should make it about having sex with more than one person. The difference, between them, though, is that one is supporting all of their partners, and other does not. I am not saying we should allow polygamy. I am opposed to it. But, it is not the Ultimate Evil as you claim. It is not as evil as having sex for the sake of it and give damn to the consequences. Having sex outside of the boundaries set by God is eviler than polygamy, just like what had gone on in Sodom and Gorromah. We should be chasing all of those wantons before we do with the polygamists. We also should chase all of those adulterers and adulteresses.
Ghost Says:
19 April 2008 at 7:40 pm.
SGS, as Rush would say, right on right on right on. You hit it on the head. Why don’t people get this? A woman can have eight kids from eight fathers and she is admired for holding it together (on welfare) but polygamy is suppose to be worse? I don’t think so. Some of the prophets lived polygamy. I wouldn’t want to but let’s get things in perspective people! Way to go SGS.
avatar Says:
20 April 2008 at 3:39 am.
Not that it matters, but without its polygamous aspect, the FLDS would much more resemble mainstream Mormons than Baptists or Catholics. Not sure why Walsh made that statement. Baptists and Catholics do not believe in the Book of Mormon, do not have temples closed to outsiders, do not believe in eternal marriages, or have a prophet.
I don’t like a lot of what I’ve heard about the FLDS and how it practices such tight control over its members’ personal lives. There was an account of “waterboarding” a baby that was quite disturbing (I don’t believe it happened in Texas, though). But, I still suspect that if this were a secluded group of Amish, Ultra-orthodox Jews or other strange but non-polygamous people, there would not have been this wholesale snatching of the groups’ children, or the running roughshod over due process that has been reported with the adults. Apparently, in 2005, Texas raised the legal age for marriage to 16 (with consent of parents) in direct response to fears aroused by the FLDS’ arrival. Until then, Texas evidently did not care if the occasional girl got married at 15. With the trial and conviction of Jeffs in Utah, though, it became open season on the FLDS, a group branded as polygamous and beyond the pale.
Of course, the issue in Texas was and remains child abuse. It either happened or it didn’t, and I guess time will tell. I don’t fault the authorities for investigating after receiving that phone call; I would fault them for not doing so. I just suspect that most if not all of the FLDS kids at YFZ (lots of acronyms here) could have remained safely with their parents while the investigation proceeded. If the worry was that girls would be raped or married off at puberty, why couldn’t the younger girls, at least, have stayed with their parents? And, why did the boys need to be taken at all? Unless there really is evidence of a real and immediate danger to the children, I just don’t see the justification for putting four hundred children through the trauma of being taken away by strangers.
M.G. Says:
20 April 2008 at 10:18 am.
Avatar, I like your analysis. It seems that when they found out that the call about the abuse proved phony they should have released the kids. They haven’t had any specific reports of abuse about the others so they should wait for that to take drastic action.
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