I know that typically, I don't get a good response when I write serious stuff, but I feel pretty strongly about this...
If you don't know about what has been happening in Texas the last few weeks, let me fill you in. The FLDS Church, a break off from the LDS or Mormon Church, has a ranch in Texas, where they live. One of the key parts of the FLDS Church is that they practice polygamy. Technically this practice is against the law, but it is typically regarded as a act of civil disobedience and not much else. The problems enter when the brides are young girls as young as 14 or 15 and they are married to me, many times older than them. While my understanding is that this is the exception to the rule, it does happen.
The current leader of this Church is Warren Jeffs, a man now serving time for being an accompliss to rape in the marriage of a very young girl to a much older man.
Please understand that I do not agree with this practice, and that I think that Warren Jeffs is a desipicable person for doing what he did. But incidents such as thing are the exception rather than the rule.
Several weeks ago, the Police in Texas received a call from a girl who claimed to be living in the Ranch. She claimed that she was routinely beaten by her husband, while one of his other wives held her baby. Allegedly her name is Sarah.
There are a number of problems with the story being told by the media. I'll skip most of them as the whole thing turns out to be false. Sarah was a woman living in Utah or Arizona, and has never been to Texas. The man she accused of the abuse has never been to the Texas ranch, and her name isn't even Sarah. You would think with the invention of caller id, that police would have figured this out early in, but instead they did the following:
They mounted a raid into the ranch to find Sarah. In the process of looking for Sarah, they removed multiple woman and children from the ranch. Overnight the raid grew from a mission to find Sarah to a full blown search of the entire facility.
Sarah was never found, which is to be expected since she didn't actually exist.
The premise for removal of the woman and children is that they are in danger of abuse. The abuse problem is with young teenage girls who are married to older men. But authorities saw fit to extract any child, even infants still nursing from their mothers. I believe the number of children is 437.
The explanation now given is that while Sarah is not real, she is a metaphor for all the abuse which has been happening. So apparently in Texas you can be arrested based on a metaphor. That's pretty scary.
Mothers have now been separated from their children and are under constant watch. Children have been placed into the foster care system. The foster system is riddled with drug abuse and other abuse. This is too protect the children - keep them away from their culture and traditions and subject them to dregs of American Society - no doubt someone will get an award for that stroke of genius.
I could go on and on, but what this boils down to is a gross use of power by the Texas authorities. While the FLDS no doubt has some problems, so does every other community in the United States or the world for that matter. They may be different, but I would suspect that an FLDS home is generally a place of love and caring for children. What the Texas authorities have done is DEAD WRONG.
I'm not generally a proponent of law suits, but this is one case where something needs to be done. Unfortunately since many regard polygamists as wierd and different, I suspect few will be rushing to their aid.
If this goes through without too much trouble, how long will it be before they come after you?
No comments:
Post a Comment