However, this scares me; it's another Waco, only the Feds wised-up and had the state troopers do the dirty work this time. Just as they used the excuse of “child abuse” at Waco they're doing the same in this case. I doubt there was a phone call from an abused teen.
As for the age these girls are allegedly getting married, I remind everyone (before you get outraged, and call them pedophiles) that only in the past 150 years or so have we kept our children helpless until age 18. In the Biblical days, 13 was the age of majority, and it remained so through the Middle Ages. Mary was about 15 or 16 when she gave birth to Jesus. In more recent history, young people of 16 years were typically married and productive members of society in colonial America.
In light of the historical (and Biblical) context, I believe these folks have a legitimate right to live according to their beliefs. After all, I haven't heard of anyone who was forced to be a member of their community. We have other Christian communities in this country that seem strange to outsiders; among them: the Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites, and a New England group that seems like the old Shakers. They keep to themselves and have never bothered anyone, I would be willing to bet that a few of these other groups practice early marriage as well.
Meanwhile, our society is bending over backwards to please the homosexuals and other perverts, but we feel we MUST destroy an otherwise peaceful community based on innuendo!
I wonder if the people in this group are not believers in the right to keep and bear arms and have religious scruples against taking drugs. I don't think even caffeine is acceptable to Mormons.
This could well explain the inability of the government to mount an attack by the BATFE or the FBI. All of us would probably be safer if we just stopped exercising our rights.
Well, the children are....
susie
This is not biblical times, middle ages, nor is it the 1800’s. Its 2008.
Incest is illegal. Polygamy is illegal. So is child molestation.
While a I agree with your statement that people in the united states have a legitimate right to live according to their beliefs, they must also respect and uphold the rule of law in this country. You cannot have one without the other.
If I was driving down the freeway at 150mph and the police pulled me over, how legitimite would my defense be that I can drive at that speed because its according to my beliefs and I worship the church of open wheel racing.
Or that back in the 1800’s, there was no speed limits so I should be able to do whatever I want.
Take it from somone who has questioned the Constitutionally of this raid that you will be labled a pedophile if you continue to post this kind of stuff.
You've been warned!
I agree. The State authorities should have investigated the single complaint instead of making a wholesale raid. In that case, as it turns out, there would be no complainant, as she has not been identified or found.
Some State officials are on a high horse and have violated several constitutional rights of these people.
The State goal is not to apprehend statutory child rape and molestation, but to destroy a religious community that has found a way to circumvent laws against polygamy, as well as having kept the Texas Dept. of Social Services ( Socialist Services) out of their community.
Thats dead wrong.
I am also concerned. Consider what is more abusive, being 13 and married or being 5 and ripped from your mother by armed men who come in tanks to kidnap you and your brothers? What is it to be herded onto trucks, on your way to some unknown fate, while your helpless mother cries and pleads? It is a child's worst nightmare come true.
Here's a question. If a cult had a practice of enacting this nightmare scenario on their own children, would the cult be accused of child abuse? I think the answer is yes.
Where is the sense of proportion here? Why is no one called to answer for the damage done by the authorities in comparison to whatever good can be done?
There are larger questions of principle here, but what I keep coming back to is the brutality of the action of the authorities and the effect of that brutality on the children.