I think the Texas CPS system is being needlessly cruel & draconian in the FLDS case

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=Carson O’Genic]
Astro, I am in complete agreement with you. The U.S. supposedly grants religious freedoms, and if people want to live in ways counter to mainstream perceptions of culture but are persecuted for it - permanently, as it appears in this case- I am offended.
The sticky point being abiding by the laws of the land, even though one might deem one’s God as superceding such constructs.
It’s frightening this was brought about by allegation. Enforcement of the law’s letter is incredibly heavy handed.
[/QUOTE]

No freedom is absolute. Freedom of religion does not allow one to abuse someone else. And that’s EXACTLY what’s going on here.

Or, to put it another way, your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.

22

[QUOTE=Carson O’Genic]

Also note this thread started in IMHO, not Great Debates. I’m not upholding anyone’s right to break the law but in this case the law wears jackboots.
[/QUOTE]

Are you saying that the police were not polite enough in rescuing raped children? Or is the fact that they are a religious cult somehow make it less vile? I can see authorities excusing victimless crimes, but these were hardly victimless.

It seems to me that the authorities in this case acted with admirable restraint.

23

[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
No freedom is absolute. Freedom of religion does not allow one to abuse someone else. And that’s EXACTLY what’s going on here.

Or, to put it another way, your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
[/QUOTE]

Agreed.

Freedom of Religion does Not extend to the abridgement of Life, Liberty, or the Pursuit of Happiness (nor should it ever). These young girls are being raped and bred like cattle by despicable men hiding and justifying their perversions to and of the innocents behind the the twin powers of parentage and bible.

It is no more allowable or acceptable for a religion in the US to practice institutionalized pedophilia than it would be to allow a religion to practice random murder-sacrifices as a blessed sacrament. (Thuggies worshipping Kali for example)

24

[QUOTE=Ca3799]
Expanding (missed the edit window)

Jackboots? No way.

Prudent is a better description.

Just look at the numbers. There is something wonky there.

Of 416 children aged 17 and under, there are 29 boys. (Should be more like 200. Where are the boys?)

Of 387 girls aged 17 and under, there are 20 pregnancies. I can’t see that many pregnancies in a group of that size and probable age span.

Further numbers that may don’t add up- Of 60 men aged 18 and older left on the ranch, there were only 34 ‘husbands’, leaving 26 unmarried males. Again, where did all the boys/men go?

And don’t forget the lies. The members at the gate said there was no teen named Sara there. Turns out there were 5 Sara’s.
[/QUOTE]

Where did these numbers come from, I have not seen this breakdown re the boys anywhere in the news.

25

[QUOTE=astro]
Where did these numbers come from, I have not seen this breakdown re the boys anywhere in the news.
[/QUOTE]

I guess you’d call it unnatural selection. Details here.

26

[QUOTE=Ca3799]
…Of 416 children aged 17 and under, there are 29 boys. (Should be more like 200. Where are the boys?)…
[/QUOTE]

A few “lucky” ones are kept and raised to continue the system. The rest are exiled as soon as they hit puberty lest they compete with the patriarchs for wives.

27

[QUOTE=Bill Door]
I guess you’d call it unnatural selection. Details here.
[/QUOTE]

Great link but nothing there about 29 boys. If this disparity is true then my opinon about the matter will change substantially.

28

Where did the boys go? Out here in Utah they just get dumped on the shoulder of I-15 and are left to fend for themselves. No one can argue that the boys aren’t there. The breaking up of families is an everyday occurrence to these people. If a woman wants to leave the cult, her children are taken away and given to other ‘families’. To suggest that the state of Texas is doing something monsterous, is ignoring what has been going on for years.

29

Yes, but that’s still… where are the three year olds? The seven year olds?

30

[QUOTE=astro]
Where did these numbers come from, I have not seen this breakdown re the boys anywhere in the news.
[/QUOTE]

I’ve mentally collected them from various news stories.

31

[QUOTE=Ca3799]
I’ve mentally collected them from various news stories.
[/QUOTE]

Is that supposed to be a clever way of saying “I pulled them out of my rear end”? Saying there are only 29 boys out of 416 kids is an astounding statement of fact relative to the number of kids, and (if true) at that point my concern for not terrorizing the kids unnecessarily while paternity etc. gets sorted out becomes of less concern with respect to other things that might be going on.

32

It is OK from their perspective.

The morality of any act can only be judged from perspectives because it a subjective phenomenon. There is no such thing as universal morality. Morality does not exist in the way a rock or temperature exists. It is just something we make up. If you want to claim that it is never OK to force underage girls to have sex, you have to show that this holds true for all perspectives.

[QUOTE=Intravenus De Milo]
If you live in this country, you have an obligation to uphold the laws of this land. PERIOD.
[/QUOTE]

Do you really mean that? Do you think people had an obligation to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850?

33

[QUOTE=astro]
Is that supposed to be a clever way of saying “I pulled them out of my rear end”? Saying there are only 29 boys out of 416 kids is an astounding statement of fact relative to the number of kids, and (if true) at that point my concern for not terrorizing the kids unnecessarily while paternity etc. gets sorted out becomes of less concern with respect to other things that might be going on.
[/QUOTE]

No, this is true. The boys 17 and under who were removed from the ranch were removed to Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch a couple of days ago.

http://www.deseretmorningnews.com/article/1,5143,695271197,00.html
http://www.star-telegram.com/275/story/591986.html

34

I can’t find the page again, but one of the smaller newspapers (San Angelo? El Dorado?) had published a bunch of cropped facial photos of many of the kids in the first few days of their stay in Fort Concho. Now not all 400+ children were pictured, but there were strikingly few boy pictures. Only about 2-3 dozen different boys .

Perhaps someone else saw the montage, too- it was one page with many, many, small individual pictures.

I would suspect now since the page is missing (as near as I can tell) that the paper published these pictures on-line so people could see which of their friends or relatives were being held and then took the pictures down again when they considered the legal ramifications of publishing them.

35

[QUOTE=Ca3799]
No, this is true. The boys 17 and under who were removed from the ranch were removed to Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch a couple of days ago.

http://www.deseretmorningnews.com/article/1,5143,695271197,00.html

http://www.star-telegram.com/275/story/591986.html
[/QUOTE]

But per the articles it’s not “all” boys by any stretch. It’s only teen boys, so let’s say it’s the 13-17 year old cohort of the 416 kids aged 0-17 it excludes all boys under the ages of 13. Assuming a hypothetical (I know it’s slightly different IRL) 50/50 male female population distribution there should be 208 girls and 208 boys. Of the approximately 208 boys under 18, 29 or 14% are represented by teenagers. Is this ratio typical for a standard population distribution of children? Is this ratio typical for a isolated plural marriage sect where the population seems to be weighted somewhat toward younger mothers and there is a (seemingly) youngish skew of the child population. I have no clue.

I might suggest this article from the Salt Lake City Tribune. it goes into several aspects of this situation and gives the best argument I’ve seem to date for justifying separating the kids from the mothers.

36

[QUOTE=astro]
But per the articles it’s not “all” boys by any stretch. It’s only teen boys, so let’s say it’s the 13-17 year old cohort of the 416 kids aged 0-17 it excludes all boys under the ages of 13. Assuming a hypothetical (I know it’s slightly different IRL) 50/50 male female population distribution there should be 208 girls and 208 boys. Of the approximately 208 boys under 18, 29 or 14% are represented by teenagers. Is this ratio typical for a standard population distribution of children? Is this ratio typical for a isolated plural marriage sect where the population seems to be weighted somewhat toward younger mothers and there is a (seemingly) youngish skew of the child population. I have no clue.

I might suggest this article from the Salt Lake City Tribune. it goes into several aspects of this situation and gives the best argument I’ve seem to date for justifying separating the kids from the mothers.
[/QUOTE]

Well, we don’t know the numbers and your questions are good. But look at it this way…

The kids are ages 0-17. They should likely cover that age spectrum in a fairly equal way. For easy math we can divide 416 kids into 4 age groups of about 4 years each, which should help even the numbers out.

There could/should be about 104 kids 13-17, equally distributed between boys and girls, so about 52 boys and 52 girls, more or less. I would think a few more as the last age group gets an extra year (the 17 year olds).

I think my original statement of 29 boys going to Cal Farley’s Ranch was wrong and it was 27 boys. Still, it seems there are about half the expected number of boys in that age group.

I also saw that 20 of the teen girls (the 13-17 y.o. group) are pregnant…20 out of 52 or so. That’s a lot.

Of course, all of this is just a lot of speculation.

The thing that I noticed was what appeared to me to be a decided lack of boys in the group of kids (I was unable to relocate the picture page I saw), which has struck me as odd.

I wish one of the news stories would address this issue.

37

[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
I haven’t followed the legal case that closely, but these people are not “true” polygamists in the meaning of the law, right? A polygamist (in the legal sense) would be someone who has more than one marriage with a marriage certificate at the courthouse. There is nothing stopping me from having as many “religious” marriages as I want and living with several adult women in the same house, even having children with multiple women (as long as all the women consent of course). As far as I know, the only reason that the Fundamental LDS are in trouble with the law is because of the statutory rape charges and also because some of the young women have claimed that they were forced into marriage.
[/QUOTE]

This appears not to be accurate under the law of Texas. We had a long thread here about when a person was married, the upshot of which was that it varies significantly by state law, and that the “marriage certificate at the courthouse” is often not controlling. Texas, in particular, is one of the states which permits common law marriage, which means that a couple becomes legally married when “the man and woman agreed to be married and after the agreement they lived together in this state as husband and wife and there represented to others that they were married.” That means no formal documentation of marriage is necessary for a legally valid marriage to occur.

Further, Texas Penal Code section 25.01 on Bigamy (.pdf) provides:

Sec. 25.01. BIGAMY. (a) An individual commits an offense if:
(1) he is legally married and he:
(A) purports to marry or does marry a person other than his spouse in this state, or any other state or foreign country, under circumstances that would, but for the actor’s prior marriage, constitute a marriage; or
(B) lives with a person other than his spouse in this state under the appearance of being married; or
(2) he knows that a married person other than his spouse is married and he:
(A) purports to marry or does marry that person in this state, or any other state or foreign country, under circumstances that would, but for the person’s prior marriage, constitute a marriage; or
(B) lives with that person in this state under the appearance of being married.
(b) For purposes of this section, “under the appearance of being married” means holding out that the parties are married with cohabitation and an intent to be married by either party.
(c) It is a defense to prosecution under Subsection (a)(1) that the actor reasonably believed at the time of the commission of the offense that the actor and the person whom the actor married or purported to marry or with whom the actor lived under the appearance of being married were legally eligible to be married because the actor’s prior marriage was void or had been dissolved by death, divorce, or annulment. For purposes of this subsection, an actor’s belief is reasonable if the belief is substantiated by a certified copy of a death certificate or other signed document issued by a court.
(d) For the purposes of this section, the lawful wife or husband of the actor may testify both for or against the actor concerning proof of the original marriage.
(e) An offense under this section is a felony of the third degree, except that if at the time of the commission of the offense, the person whom the actor marries or purports to marry or with whom the actor lives under the appearance of being married is:
(1) 16 years of age or older, the offense is a felony of the second degree; or
(2) younger than 16 years of age, the offense is a felony of the first degree.

The main thing to consider here is that the offense is against someone who is married and “purports to marry” another person or who lives together under the appearance of being married. Thus, under Texas law, if a man with a wife holds a religious marriage ceremony with another woman and lives together with that woman as spouses, thee man and his second wife have committed bigamy. As such, it would not be improper to call a man who has religious ceremonies of marriage with multiple women (without divorce or death of the prior wives) a polygamist.

38

What is your point here? That the FLDS have the right to force underage girls into sexual relationships because it fits their “perspective”?

The opinion of the FLDS members on the matter of appropriateness of underage sex is irrelevant in this case because in the State of Texas, marriage under the age of 16, as well as multiple marriages, are both illegal. That means that if you either: a) have sex with ANYone under 16; or b) have sex with someone aged 16-18 to whom you are not legally married, you are breaking the law. It’s called statutory rape.

Okay, you know what? I’m sorry I stated an opinion that forced underaged sex (or ANY forced sex, for that matter) is wrong without stating that it was, in fact, MY opinion. But you know what else? Pretty much all of the lawmakers in this country agree with that opinion as well. And they are the ones whose opinions really matter on this issue, not mine.

The Thirteenth Amendment (which, by the way, is valid in Texas as well as 49 other States) would like to have a word with you.

39

[QUOTE=Intravenus De Milo]
What is your point here? That the FLDS have the right to force underage girls into sexual relationships because it fits their “perspective”?
[/quote]

No, they do not have a right to have sex with children.

What you said before is, “forcing underage girls to have sex […] is NEVER okay,” but now you saying that it is the law that makes it wrong? If the law was different, would it be OK to have sex forcibly with children ?

So the law determines if it right or wrong? Was sodomy between consenting adults wrong when it was illegal?

And before the passing of the 13th amendment? Should people have followed the fugitive slave law?

40

[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
It is OK from their perspective.

The morality of any act can only be judged from perspectives because it a subjective phenomenon. There is no such thing as universal morality. Morality does not exist in the way a rock or temperature exists. It is just something we make up. If you want to claim that it is never OK to force underage girls to have sex, you have to show that this holds true for all perspectives.
[/QUOTE]

No, the World Court and the Nuremburg trials have now shown there is such a thing as a “crime against humanity” where despite the laws and morals of your particluar nation, such acts are crimes. This is a definition of a true civilized society. I mean, the Aztecs thougth mass human sacrifice was moral, the Nazi’s thought Genocide was a Good thing. Both are completely wrong both subjectively and objectively.

Now sex with underaged minors is somewhat subjective, it’s true. Some dudes and societys think that 16 is fine,other 18, others even 14.
So pure “Statutory rape” where both parties are consenting and capable of making an informed consent is indeed a subjective crime. But once you take away a minors ability to make an informed choice and/or force them, you have crossed the line into “crimes against humanity”, which is an objective crime regardless of morals or laws. It’s called “slavery” or “human trafficing”. In this particular case, the men in that compund commited both subjective crimes- crimes that are illegal becuase there are codified laws that make them so, and crimes against humanity, crimes that are illegal despite societal morals or local laws.