That's a catchy tune, but I don't think it'll play in a court of law.
Posted on 04/16/2008 6:32:09 PM PDT by claudiustg
Many people who comment about the FLDS call them a bunch of loony kooks trapped in a time warp of misguided beliefs and dated religious and sexual practices. That may be true, but being loony isn’t against the law—if it were, don’t you think it would be a wiser spending of tax dollars to raid the Utah Legislature? Not only are they primarily loony, they fill their pockets at your expense at a greater clip than polygamist groups do.
Worse, our legislators weren’t born into looniness but came into it via that time-worn path of ignorance and self-entitlement. We all hear that wah-wah that polygamists strain the system because their large families need government assistance in any manner of ways from welfare to health care. As you’re astute, you know those are the same things said about illegals. I’d rather give $100 to any part-time needy Jessop, Barlow or Jeffs than give a dime to a full-time greedy legislator like Springville Rep. Aaron Tilton, who has all the time in the world for his special interests, but none for you.
The Legislature doesn’t have time for polygamists, either. Not that it’s fully to blame for what happened in Texas, but virtually every Utah state legislator for decades has done next to nothing regarding polygamy. Not counting whiny speeches, that is. Nary a thumbs up or thumbs down. Utah has been blind and mute regarding polygamy since the LDS Church formally forbade the practice in favor of statehood in the 1890s.
Informally, most everyone around here knows that formality is a joke. Not because modern-day Mormons secretly practice polygamy—and some do, risking excommunication from the LDS Church—but because despite what evils may lurk in the hearts of the polygamist collective, the majority of Utahns remain sympathetic to polygamists. I know I am.
That comes with the turf of being descended from a polygamist, which I’ve never kept secret or tried to deny like certain Leavitts and Romneys try to do. I’m from the lineage of the fifth wife, so without polygamy, I wouldn’t even be here. I know, you’re thanking your lucky stars that Matthew Caldwell felt compelled to marry five times in the 1800s so that you could be reading this. Me, too. Outside of feeling the daily tug of gravity, polygamy is about the only thing I have in common with what is likely half the population of Utah—my fellow descendents of Utah’s halcyon days of plural marriage.
I talk to liberals who say smoking pot shouldn’t be illegal because it doesn’t hurt anyone. Polygamists give a similar defense of their lifestyle. I talk to conservatives who say private property and personal freedoms are sacrosanct. Polygamists say that’s all they really want. Then, come raid time, liberals and conservatives both pounce on the polygamists with equal measures of moral superiority.
Here’s what I don’t understand. Polygamy is against the law, plain and simple. Yet, who gets arrested for polygamy? Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has rounded up a couple of high-profile polygamists, but that’s about it—and what were the charges? Tax evasion? Child abuse? Overdue power bill? Ever heard of a polygamist wife being arrested? From where I’m sitting, I could hit a polygamist even by spitting into the wind, but I see no sign of Mr. Shurtleff. Except on TV where he talks about how he scared the Jeffs family all the way to San Angelo. Nice. About 60,000 to go, Mark.
And, of course, it’s the kids. No child should be abused or forced into any sexual submission ever. But you tell me—that sure was a lot of manpower down there that may yield some bone fide crimes committed at the FLDS compound. Meanwhile, child abuse continues on at a nearly unabated pace in the rest of Texas and Utah. Just as I always use the wrong insecticide and can never eradicate all my garden bugs, the wrong methods were used in Texas—and Hildale and Colorado City—because all you’re getting are the obvious and few. Bugs and child abusers are everywhere. Polygamy is just where they sometimes land.
That's an interesting segue.
That isn't what this was about. Arranged marriages with 13 year old "brides" and 40+ year old men is just wrong. That compound was simply a kiddie brothel for dirty old men under the disguise of religion.
I know I'm not. I don't know if I care that much about 'em to want the state to spend resources rounding them up, but if the polys are sucking on the welfare teat, I have about as much sympathy for them as for illegals. Namely, none.
As a side note, Those of a liberal persuasion that don't like what they're seeing in Texas had better think hard whether they really want to redefine marriage to mean anything other than one man married to one woman. If you allow Adam and Steve to get hitched, then Adam & Eve & Tiffany & Brenda & Julie is coming next to a neighborhood near you.
SLC Weekly: Utah’s very own IndyMedia commie rag.
Is this a joke?
Umm...that would be polyandry and I've never heard of any kind of Mormons, LDS, FLDS, etc. condoning or encouraging that. Hence, the ladies in these polygamous relationships aren't the one's committing polygamy because they only have one "husband".
The news media is all over this story, and mostly in a way that automatically assumes the FLDS is in the wrong. That remains to be seen.
What I have seen so far from the authorities chillingly reminds me of both Waco (when Janet Reno assured us the raid was justified because “children were being abused” by the Branch Davidians), and the seizure of little Elián Gonzalez (when Janet Reno assured us that the agent's machine gun was not really pointed at Elian in the photo).
I can’t help but believe the authorities should have verified the allegations before arbitrarily sweeping all the women and children from the ranch. Or at the least, determining which children might be in danger of abuse. There is something wrong and unsettling about tanks and armored police rounding up children and keeping them from their mothers without physical probable cause.
If you have girls under the age of consent knocked up, that seems like probable cause to me.
This cannot be allowed to stand. Crimes against children must be handed on an individual case. The State cannot say, because we have over 400 children, that we just cannot give them or their parents due process or allow them their full legal rights. This just begs for a giant lawsuit (Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law Under Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242).
Further, an essential point is that the First Amendment, as incorporated, prohibits a State from making eccesisastical determinations. IOW, a State is forbidden from deciding what doctrines it likes or doesn't, outside of simple violations of the law, such as unlawful sexual contact, and setting the age of marriage.
Whatever the child social service bureaucrats think of the FLDS, except for clear violations of the law, they cannot impose their opinion about FLDS religious beliefs, culture or practices upon parents, or the children they take custody of. It would be mind boggling if the State went on to direct the raising of these children in a manner that was contrary to the doctrinal beliefs of the parents. If some higher Court does not stop this, we fact that possibility.
There appear to be a lot of FReeers cheering the authorities on. They too soon forget how Janet Reno assured us that the raid on the Branch Davidians at Waco was to just a an action to protect children and that we should not worry about little Elian because the barrel of the machine gun was not really pointed at him during the raid.
Be extra careful when the target of enforcement efforts is a group with beliefs that make it easy to dislike. Not a single one of our inalienable rights is the subject of a popularity test, nor a test for hypocrisy. As a society, we have taken to turning a blind eye to how hippies, followers of Indian gurus, and followers of Muhammad conduct their private lives on their own property. Yet we are happy that this LDS sect is in deep do-do. We dare not raid Dearborn Michigan to take away any children from the Muslims up there, no matter how many females are have been "circumcised" (FGM'd) while in the US. And we certainly don't even blink an eye when Hugh Heffner brags about living with several women. Some here even cheer him on.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that they had a warrant to search for one unidentified female on the grounds of an unverified complaint, and arrest what turned out to be the wrong man for what, statutory rape?
And what was the woman’s complaint, that her “husband” occasionally beat her and she wanted to leave and that he had other wives of which there is no record? And the man was going to be arrested for what, beating his wife on a previous unverified occasion?
And for this they bring an armored car, helicopters and more than a hundred officers? And the result is they take more than 400 children, unrelated to the subjects of the search and arrest warrant?
That this might be even remotely legal ought to scare the hell out of us all.
Gangs overrun our cities and the police make “treaties” with them. Illegal aliens overrun our country and the politicians turn a blind eye. However, they have the time and resources to tear 416 children from their mothers rank socialist hubris.
Since a lot of these mothers refuse to identify which child is theirs, who are you going to release the children to?!
lets remember here that its not "plural marriage" but polygamy....one man "marrying" many women...most when they are barely old enough to have had their cycles......and forcing pregnancy on young teens...
this is not a two way street...
its not one woman marrying several men.....
if it were one woman taking on several husbands, we would have had the National Guard out in force many years ago.....
lets not forget that its very young, very innocent girls forced into this "marriage"....
the grooms are usually decades older....
while that might appeal to many men, its the ultimate slavery.......
I suppose there would be people defending black slavery as being "good" for the black population...you know, a roof over their heads and food ....
young children must be protected no matter what and allowing them to be forced into sexual liason with some middle-aged fat slob and forced to have children that early in life is a total crime....
and besides, probably many of those children are of marrying age,right?....../sarcasm/
That's a catchy tune, but I don't think it'll play in a court of law.
Seems like everybody who is upset about this being a violation of constitutional rights is hard at tilting at windmills. This group and many many others are nothing but an organized crime group practicing pedophilia. No make that pedophilia as their prime reason for existing.
Since when do we worry about organized criminal gang’s constitutional rights?
Everybody knows what these scum do. Every adult in that compound is guilty.
People worrying about the poor mothers make me sick. Michael Savage, loon that he is, is making this his latest greatest effort at self promotion. Sick sick sick.
The most evil thing of all is that this country has tolerated these white slavers for decades.
BTTT
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