I’ve been away for over a month getting moved into the new house, which meant packing and unpacking two households (boy, was my mother a packrat), painting the master bedroom and bathroom and the dining room to mitigate the depressing effect of the Tacky Khaki the builders painted the entire house, and getting an 87-year-old deaf and cranky father settled in.
Frankly, I haven’t missed the campaign diaries at all. But when I got back, I did search to see what had been said about the Texas polygamy case. I wasn’t surprised that there were only 4 diaries on it. This sort of issue is frequently ignored here. Three of them were about the possible violation of the religious freedom of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS), the sloppy handling of the raid, and how terrible it was that these people are being persecuted for being weird or different and members of a non-mainstream faith. I wish I could say that surprised me, but it didn’t. Certainly the protection of civil liberties is extremely important--but so is protecting children and women
The most recent one contained this gem :
I'm hearing that we should take all of the children since the community as a whole is at fault.
Could someone then explain why we shouldn't raid Catholic churches and arrest the Pope while he's here since that community has a history of child abuse in this country with bishops engaged in the spread of that activity by having knowledge of those abuses and then tranferring priests to other parishes. Why shouldn't we confiscate all the children of Catholic families for the safety of the children and to protect them from child abuse?
http://www.dailykos.com/...
It would seem that these diarists didn’t spent much time checking out the facts or researching the FLDS folks. I have, however, and I want to take issue with some of their points. I’ve read a lot of news stories, used Google till my fingers were numb, and read accounts of life in the FLDS by former church members. I diaried about this in four long diaries a few months ago, when Jeffs was being tried.
I am going to address the comparison between the Catholic pedophilia cases and the FLDS case first, because it is so fundamentally wrong.. Let me begin by saying that I am an ex-Catholic for 35 years who still retains a certain fondness and respect for her old church despite what the last couple of Popes have done to it--but who would have left after the news of the pedophilia case hit the media. For the current Pope to say it was mishandled was like calling the sinking of the Titanic a "minor problem with a tiny leak." The church’s entire emphasis was on protecting its good name, rather than on protecting the children, and Benedict XVI played a major role in the cover-up and has much to answer for to his God. I personally believe that the bishops who transferred those priests and covered up criminal behavior should have been charged with aiding and abetting them (there were few criminal prosecutions because the statue of limitations had lapsed by the time this all went public) whenever a priest faced criminal charges.
But with that said, the only thing the polygamy case and the RC pedophilia cases have in common is child abuse and religion. Other than that, there is no relationship. The abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy was done by individuals who were acting on their own impulses, though the cover-up was institutionally organized. Moreover, Catholic doctrine does not condone, encourage or even permit clerical abuse of children. In fact, Catholic priests take vows of chastity and obedience—which means they shouldn’t be having sex with anyone, let alone minors, and, they should have obeyed their superiors when told to stay away from children. You can certainly blame their superiors for failing to make damned sure they never came in contact with children ever again (many were simply transferred to another parish) and for not reporting a criminal act to law enforcement. But the abuse was not the result of official church doctrine nor given official sanction by the church. As for taking all children away from Catholic parents—that’s ridiculous. The parents were not abusing their children. Priests were. In fact, the parents were generally the ones who reported the abuse to church authorities and assumed it was being correctly handled. Many didn’t report it to law enforcement for the same reason many parents still don’t report: to keep their children from having to testify in court. The parents were not complicit in the cover-up or the abuse and share no blame for what happened to their children, so there would be no reason for them to lose custody.
The FLDS matter is rather different. First of all, polygamy (or the Principle) as it is called) is a core belief of this splinter group from mainstream Mormonism (the mainstream Mormons or Latter Day Saints—LDS—renounced polygamy over a century ago; those who did not, consider themselves the only true Mormons and regard the LDS as heretics). According to their faith, in order to reach the highest level of heaven (there are three levels) and become a god in his own right with his own world to rule over, a man must practice polygamy. The more wives he takes, the better, because in the celestial Kingdom he will be able to beget more "spirit children" to help populate the world he will eventually rule. For more information on FLDS theology about the Celestial Kingdom, read this diary which explores it in greater detail with quotations from Mormon leaders n the subject of polygamy. As an adult, he partakes of the priesthood, and is thus the priest in his own family. Within his own family, his word is law—unless he runs afoul of an elder and/or the Prophet. Should he offend the Prophet or someone with influence , he can find himself excommunicated, evicted from the home he built, and divorced from his wives who, along with his children. Are then reassigned to more worthy men.
Women must become plural wives in order to obtain goddesshood in the afterlife, but even as goddesses they’ll still be subordinate to their divine husbands. Obedience to the Prophet, the elders appointed by him to run various compounds, and her husband is how a woman who practices plural marriage will get to the celestial Kingdom. FLDS women s taught from arebirth to obey their fathers and husbands and the Prophet, never to question her husband’s orders, and to defer to male authority completely. They are utterly isolated from the world, not permitted to watch TV or listen to the radio, and have no contact with "gentiles" or non-FLDS people. They are taught that that outside world is filled with sinners and temptations, and that to renounce their faith to enter that world will damn them for all eternity. They are never encouraged to make choices or decisions for themselves and have no job skills or even basic survival skills, like driving or balancing a checkbook, in order to cope with the world outside. They also know that if they refuse to marry the man chosen for them, there will be repercussions. They will certainly be punished and perhaps even excommunicated—which means they are dropped at a bus stop with a suitcase full of their meager possessions and a small amount of money, cut off completely from the world they have known. For more information, read my diary on the child brides to get the facts of what life is like for an FLDS girl. Brainwashing is not an exaggerated name for their upbringing. And while many of the women claim that they are free to refuse a marriage, that no girl is forced to marry—how can you give informed consent when you have no knowledge of normal life and know that if you refuse a marriage you’ll be banished to a terrifying world and end up in hell for disobedience?
Teenage boys face other issues. They are competition for the most desirable brides. Let’s face it: most 16 year olds would prefer to marry a cute guy close to them in age than someone as old or older than their father. Elders look for reasons to expel teenage boys—minor offenses like holding hands with a girl or watching an R rated movie or listening to secular music can, and does, get you excommunicated and banished from the only home you’ve known. You’re thrown out to sink or swim on your own—often as young as age 13 and frequently with no education beyond eight grade. They’ve been christened the Lost Boys, and their plight is as well-documented as that of the child brides.
As to law enforcement acting out of bigotry because the FLDS are religious separatists who look and believe differently even from conservative Christians (and there are some extremist fundamentalist Christian sects whose women dress pretty similarly), that is also incorrect. If it were simple bigotry, they’d have acted several years ago, rather than waiting for probably cause. After all, non-stop legal harassment would probably have driven the FLDS flock elsewhere. FLDS doctrine and child-rearing and marital practices are well-known to law enforcement. Women who have fled the sect have written accounts of their lives as sister wives, and spoken at length to the media. Most have been unwilling to press charges or even speak to the police because they still have family members—sometimes even children-- living in the compounds they left. They know that those family members will feel the wrath of the prophet and his deputies if they do go to the police. In many cases, it will be their word against the collective FLDS compound if they do go to the police and charges are filed—and the members have been taught to deny or "lie for the Lord." Most often, too much time between the underage marriage and the report has elapsed for the police to act. The young woman who came forward to take on Warren Jeffs is a rare exception. She acted in a timely manner and was willing to face reprisals if necessary. Do the police want to clamp down on groups like the FDLS who are abusing their children? Damned straight. But they also know what is required to actually succeed in a court of law, and for that reason are unlikely to jeopardize a conviction.
And the Texas FLDS church is breaking the law by practicing polygamy and having sex withminors. Here is a direct quotation from the Texas Penal code:
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
(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.
Texas Penal Code Title 6 Chapter 25 Section .01
A person commits an offense if:
(1) during a period that is 30 or more days in
duration, the person commits two or more acts of sexual abuse,
regardless of whether the acts of sexual abuse are committed
against one or more victims; and
(2) at the time of the commission of each of the acts
of sexual abuse, the actor is 17 years of age[0] or older and the victim
is a child younger than 14 years of age[0].
Texas Penal Code Chapter 21
§ 21.11. INDECENCY WITH A CHILD. (a) A person commits
an offense if, with a child younger than 17 years and not the
person's spouse, whether the child is of the same or opposite sex,
the person:
(1) engages in sexual contact with the child or causes
the child to engage in sexual contact; or
(2) with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire
of any person:
(A) exposes the person's anus or any part of the
person's genitals, knowing the child is present; or
(B) causes the child to expose the child's anus
or any part of the child's genitals.
(b) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under this
section that the actor:
(1) was not more than three years older than the victim
and of the opposite sex
Polygamy is flat-out illegal in Texas, even if there is no attempt at a legal marriage. Common law marriage is enough to make it bigamy—in other words, calling the woman your wife and treating her like one is sufficient to get you charged with bigamy. Moreover, sex with a minor child if the perpetrator is over 17 is against the law, period—unless the perpetrator is less than 3 years older than the child or is legally married to him or her. Girls may marry legally at 16 only with written consent of their parents. Very few of these "spiritual marriages" are legally valid, which means any time the "spiritual husband" has sex with his underage wife, he is breaking the law.
It is well-documented that these spiritual marriages with underage girls are common among the FLDS. But knowing that it’s happening is not enough for probable cause. Even with an informant inside the compound to feed them information, the police in Texas would have been on shaky grounds trying to get a warrant. Judges are loathe to issue warrants based solely on the word of an informant because that word is often unreliable or otherwise tainted. Moreover, they had to have something upon which to base their claim that a crime had been committed or was going to be committed—the phone call to the hotline which was reported to them gave them what they needed. Here was a complainant claiming to have been abused. That gave them something concrete to investigate, not just the probability that polygamy and sexual abuse of minors was going on. Did they act quickly? Certainly. If they hadn’t, the outcry would have been terrible. Did they act out of bigotry? That doesn’t seem likely. They apparently acted in what the law calls "good faith," which means the call and the complaint seemed credible at the time, even if they later prove false (and it may have been a hoax). Translated from the legalese, that means they obtained the warrant on good faith, and thus the warrant stands, and the evidence obtained by that warrant is not "fruit of a poisoned tree" which is inadmissible in court. And it does appear they have found a fair amount of evidence, including a nice document detailing the marriages and births of FLDS wives and their children (bless that Mormon obsession with genealogy).
For me, the most difficult question is what to do with the mothers of the minor children in state custody, especially the mothers of the pregnant minors. If they gave their daughters over in marriage and condoned the sex which occurred within those marriages, they are complicit with their husbands in permitting those acts to happen. The truth is, they probably didn’t have any real choice. Had they spoken out or refused, they would have been thrown out and barred from seeing their children, and the marriages would probably have happened anyway. They are most certainly guilty of refusing to cooperate with the police, and probably criminally guilty of lying to police about their names and ages and relationships to the children. They’re also undoubtedly doing precisely what they have been taught to do by their husbands and fathers—say nothing that can harm the church. That "lying for the lord" I mentioned earlier. And hearing these women speak is eerie. Those soft, childlike voices so reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe mouthing the same platitudes over and over again without ever answering any of the questions put to them by the police or the press... This is Stockholm Syndrome or brainwashing, and my heart breaks for them. I’ve read about the struggles of women who left—it’s a long road they have to travel to reclaim their personhood and their identity. But my sympathy for these mothers doesn’t mean I think they should get their children back.
Something which truly disturbs me in this case, it is the willingness of a few here to assume this is religious persecution because these people have an odd religion or look funny. Were the same situation happening somewhere else, like Saudi Arabia, and the news hit the airwaves, I suspect these same people would be outraged. How dare we allow our allies to mistreat women and girls this way? In fact, when stories like this have been posted here, Kossacks have screamed bloody murder and condemned Bush for not pressuring the Saudis to protect innocent women and children. The same happens when we hear of honor killings abroad. But somehow, when similar things happen in Texas, everything changes, and it becomes all about freedom of religion.
I have news for this small group. The free exercise clause of the first amendment is not all-encompassing. While beliefs cannot be outlawed, activities can be if the government has a sufficiently compelling interest. Muslims with four wives who wish to become citizens have to divorce three of those wives because polygamy is banned. I strongly doubt that any court in the land would prevent someone from being charged with homicide on the grounds that he is an Aztec priest and his faith requires him to offer human sacrifices to his gods. Parents of a child who dies because those parents refused to permit standard medical care have been successfully prosecuted for neglect or manslaughter. If the evidence is sufficient—and I grant you that is a major "if"-- I believe that the "husbands" of these girls should be charged with statutory rape, and that the parents who permitted these marriages should likewise face charges of neglect. Religious dogma is not a defense against child abuse. At the very lest, the parents should lose custody of all minor children.
Polygamy? I could care less. I think it should be legalized along with gay marriage and group marriage—with laws in place to determine custody and property division if someone divorces his/her spouse(s)—so long as all members of the marriage are 21, are not close biological relatives (another problem with the FLDS sect is the intermarriage to close relatives) and are not coerced. I know of a threesome (it would give Warren Jeffs hives because it involved one woman with two men, to neither of whom is she married legally or via common law) which has lasted 20 years. And when it comes to persecution of minority faiths, I know a little bit about that personally, as a Wiccan. Wiccans have had their religion used against them in custody cases, and sometimes have lost their children as a result or been ordered not to raise their child in their faith if the non-custodial parent objects. My idiotic fundy ex-brother-in-law tried to use our faith as a reason for a TRO simply because my husband threatened to call the police when ex threatened my sister-in-law .
But this case isn’t about religious beliefs, minority or mainstream. It’s about breaking the law. The FLDS are free to believe that polygamy is God’s Choice—but they break the law when they put that belief into practice, and thus have to face the consequences. The same is true of women obeying their husbands in all things—it’s fine to believe it, but that belief won’t excuse you if that obedience requires you to abuse a child or consent to that child abuse, any more than a belief that the Aztec gods demanding human sacrifices will prevent an adherent from facing homicide charges if he acts on it.
Did the police act too quickly? I don’t know. I wasn’t there, and neither were their critics. I am also not privy to all the evidence. Were mistakes made? Perhaps. Again, I don’t know. I do hope the authorities have crossed every t and dotted every I and ran spellcheck three times to make sure every last bit of paperwork is 110% correct. I want the civil rights of the FLDS parents protected because I don’t want a precedent which could be used in future cases to harass the innocent. And I want them to be get it right so that these children, if they have been abused and if girls have been forced into underage marriages, are not returned to the institutionalized child abuse they have been raised with because of a clerical or legal error. I want to be damned sure that, if they can match the names of "spiritual husbands’ to minors to the correct individual and there is evidence that they had sex with minors or committed bigamy and thus violated Texas law, the state can charge them as the bigamists and statutory rapists and child abusers they allegedly are. I don’t want their civil rights violated. I don’t want their religion banned. I do want the state to make damned sure the rights of those 400+children to live without abuse are as well protected as the rights of their parents and spouses to a fair trial and a fair hearing.