Polygamy raids

smallpoxgirl · Moderator Joined: Nov 08, 2004 Posts: 5164

The federal government and the governments of Texas has raided a couple churches of polygamist break-away Mormon sect in the last week and arrested several hundred people. Strikes me that the accusations are pretty much the standard unsubstantiated garbage that typically gets made against seperatist religious groups like this: Child-abuse, weird sexual practices, etc. Invariably the accusations stick with people even though there is no evidence offered to prove it. Waco, is a classic example. All sorts of ridiculous accusations were made against the Branch Dividians that turned out to be complete fiction, but the average person still thinks Koresh was dealing drugs and raping children and all sorts of other garbage. Seems to me this is very much the same thing. The cops find a bed in the church and a long hair on it, and the media are all a buzz about ritual sex in the church.
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Blacksmith · Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 11:27 pm Post subject: Re: Polygamy raids

I'm all in favor of Polygamy provided the wives are over 40 and the husband is over 65.
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Dreamtwister · Fission Joined: Feb 06, 2006 Posts: 2057

The first thing I thought when I heard about this story was "I wonder what they really did?"
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smallpoxgirl · Moderator Joined: Nov 08, 2004 Posts: 5164

Kristen · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 17, 2006 Posts: 238

I think they're totaling blowing things out of proportion. polygamy, by definition, is either the male of female having multiple spouses and is common in other cultures. Isn't there like a freedom of religion or something in this country?

smallpoxgirl · Moderator Joined: Nov 08, 2004 Posts: 5164

FreakOil · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 3:51 am Post subject: Re: Polygamy raids

This is one of those issues where I can't pick sides. I don't like either one. I don't see the problem with polygamy. If a woman wants to marry a man who already has one wife, then who's getting hurt? But I don't like religious zealots of any kind - Christian, Jew, Muslim or Mormon.
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3aidlillahi · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 25, 2008 Posts: 557

The scarier part, from what I've heard, is that they didn't even have that good enough evidence - it was mostly a phone call from the 16-yo girl making accusations. They were able to get a warrant and then used that very broadly. It seems wrong to be able to have such broad authority as to arrest hundreds of people on the accusations of an anonymous person.
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wisconsin_cur · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:37 am Post subject: Re: Polygamy raids

Are we ignoring the fact that
1) polygamy is against the law
2) that we have let them carry on for almost a hundred years
and
3) that these are 14, 15, and 16 year old girls we are talking about?

A 40 year old guy is caught in the backseat of a car with a 15 year old he met on the internet and we (rightly) send him to jail, and make him register as a sex offender.

I guess he only needed a compound and multiple 15 year olds raised since infants to be teen brides and then it would be ok?

Women are not sexual property to be traded and since all of our freedoms have limits (I cannot yell "fire" in a theatre, own an operational tank with ammunition etc etc) I am willing to cut off freedom of religion at the very least at the stage of marrying off teenage girls to dirty old men.
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Fishman · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:53 am Post subject: Re: Polygamy raids

Cur
Points on your comments
1. Polygamy is against the law but is essentially noninforcible, with ACLU backing it. Neither this removal of people nor the conviction of the leader were for polygamy, stat rape for both I think, or aiding and abet.
3. No question about the statutory rape conviction, also however only inforced selectively depending on the race of the victim/perp

ColossalContrarian · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jun 20, 2006 Posts: 561

Sexual contact with children is wrong but this makes me wonder why the Catholic Church is never raided.

catbox · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:22 am Post subject: Re: Polygamy raids

wisconsin_cur · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:29 am Post subject: Re: Polygamy raids

ColossalContrarian · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jun 20, 2006 Posts: 561

steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2422 Location: MA