You’re not crazy. I agree with you. Consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want with each other, as long as nobody else is being hurt. You want to have seven wives? Go right ahead, have at it.

The problem I see is that these mothers down in Texas are teaching their 416 children that it’s okay, in fact THE WORD OF GOD, that the young girls should be married off to older men. As far as I’m concerned, those young girls aren’t capable of any kind of consent until they’re at least 16. Even then, 16-year-olds aren’t the brightest people in the world, which is why the age of consent should probably be 18.

Also, in my opinion, every single one of those fathers and husbands in that compound who condones these young marriages is no better than a pedophile. Every last one of them. Maybe the kids aren’t being taken away from their mothers as much as they’re being taken away from the pedophile-sympathizing fathers.

Thanks for speaking out about this. The most troubling part for me is the forced separation of mothers and children. How can this be legal? What crime have they committed?

hey, if you drive up the road from Sandpoint into Canada, there is a “community” called Bountiful. same sect, same thing. Go pick up Jon Krakauer’s “Under the Banner of Heaven”. That place has been there for three years, and noone realized that it was bought by Warren Jeff’s. i’ve been through Colorado City, AR. pretty sad to defend your peophilia under the guise of religion, this is a case of 60 and 70 year old men taking young virgins as their “wives” this is why Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped. She was raped in a “wedding bed” ceremony. To me this is no different than a brothel in southeast asia where 6 and 7 year olds give “yum-yum” to perverted westerners. it breaks my heart and I think it’s wrong. sorry, i weep for children who are taken advantage of. that includes children in mainstream religions who are lied to and abused.

(stepping down off of advocacy box)

CHUCK

AR should be AZ got my A states mixed up. we won’t even go into the mixed up stuff that happens in Arkansas.

chuck

Would it be insensitive to say that you’ve been living in Idaho too long?

Seriously though - Chuck has a point. Kids, children, being “forced” into marriage is abuse. If their parents are letting that happen, they need to be taken away. Do you send the mothers back? Yeah, you do. Because they are grown women and have the right to make that choice.

What I want to know is - how in the hell you go back and leave your baby behind?

I definitely think that the situation needs to be investigated but to have all of the children removed like that? Mph, I dunno. If they were not in IMMIDIATE danger, what exactly is the rush?

I think you misunderstand me. I’m not jumping up and down in pure joy over the prospect of 16 year old kids being forced into marriage. Clearly, there are some evil shenanigans going on with these fools. But I AM suggesting that the handling of this situation is insane. Obviously the moms are completely cultified and have no clue that their kids are in danger. Especially when almost 30 of the boys have been relocated to a home for troubled misfits seven hours away from everyone else.

If these husbands are accused of rape and child abuse, why haven’t they been charged? Why do they get to chill out at the compound while all this is going down?

I guess I don’t understand how these child protective services things work. But I did always operate under the assumption that those in charge tend to favor the rights of the parents, even the drug addicted, messed up ones. And that a whole lot of evidence and back and forth courtroom stuff takes place before a child is removed from the home. It seems like special exceptions have been made because of their crazy religious beliefs, and maybe that’s a good thing. I just pity those confused and heartbroken moms and kids right now.

I completely understand how hard it is to watch those kids being pulled away from their parents. It is a heart-wrenching thought, but it is one to me at least, that is surpassed by the thought of 50 year old men having loveless sex with 12 year old girls and teaching them that is what God expects from them.

(pulls out soap box)

The law is that an adult can’t have sex with a kid under 18. Even though these people have religious beliefs that say that old men can and should have sex with little girls as soon as they are of reproductive age, their religious beliefs don’t automatically play a trump card (just like if I said it was my religious belief to murder someone I believe is evil… I would still have to go to jail.) CPS had probable cause to believe that was occurring because one 16 year old pregnant girl with a 2 year old child said that it had happened to her. The rumor around here is that there was an undercover officer in the compound for quite some time before this girl came forward and that there was some concern that harm would come to the other children, and so they removed them all. (The image of these people out alone on a 17,000 acre ranch killing kids and burying them before anyone knew what happened is one scenario.)

Avoiding the risk of having greater harm come to those kids was, in law enforcement’s opinion, worth the short term separation of these kids and their parents. There is an inherent value in removing those older kids who have been “brainwashed” into their beliefs to be away from those people who have “brainwashed” them… to see that there are people who want to hear what has happened to them without their parents physically present, staring at them threatening punishment for saying something wrong.

Unfortunately, CPS can’t go into any roach-infested house with a crackhead mom and take her kids away until they have probable cause there, too. The law that protects you and me from having law enforcement come and take our kids away without reason also protects those crackhead moms, and I believe (because I have seen it) that CPS takes those kids away as soon as they legally can. CPS and prosecutors can’t choose which cases they have evidence to do something about and work diligently (as a whole… I know there are bad CPS officers as well as bad prosecutors that spoil the reputations of the good ones who do a thankless job) to do what they can within the restraints of the law. I know it looks like their efforts could best be spent on “worse” families, but I don’t believe that they are stopping pursuing those families to go after the crazy religious people, other than for the short amout of time it takes to process this situation. I do know that hundreds of lawyers from around here have stepped forward to represent those kids free of charge and that the hearings about whether or not they can go back home are starting immediately.

I don’t believe that CPS or the prosecutors have any desire to break up families in which there is no abuse, and almost always err on the side of keeping families together, especially young children and moms, so that leads me to believe that they would not have done this unless they had reason. (That isn’t just blind faith in the system… law enforcement has to answer to the childrens’ attorneys and to a judge and can’t go on “witch-hunts” without repurcussions.)

I know what my faith in God has carried me through in the past year, and I know that most of those people have faith that will carry them through a few-day separation from their kids (or parents). I hope very much that most of those kids are able to return to a home that protects their hearts, bodies and minds until they are adults.

That’s all I have to say about that. Amen and goodnight.
(pushes soap box back under the bed)

omg. i was trying to think of the place where i had seen hair like that ALL MORNING (seemingly forgot about it around lunchtime) and remembered again when reading your post. thank you much for identifying the gibson girl trend among cultists!!

I went back and read your post, and my post again, and I’m not upset with you at all. I hope you know that. I just felt like I was coming to the defense of the people in law enforcement who often can’t tell people why they are doing something until it all comes out in a trial or hearing. I really do understand how hard it is to watch the moms and sympathize with those kids, most of whom really don’t believe that they have been abused because they honestly believe what they are doing is right.

I am very libertarian in most of my beliefs… “Get the Republicans out of my bedroom and the Democrats out of my wallet…” and I don’t even think I have that much of a problem with polygamy between consenting adults. There are HUGE problems with our legal system and they are problems that will probably never be fixed. I just hated hearing what CPS was doing being compared with Nazi Germany (not by you, just from the parents at the compound) because they and their kids will have a hearing, in front of a judge, with a whole ton of lawyers (some of whom would LOVE to prove the government wrong in such a high-profile case) instead of going to forced labor camps and gas chambers, and not because of their race, but because of their actions.

Okay, I’ve really said enough, yet again. I miss your noggin and love your blog.

so i say they should let all the women go back with the promise to return their children when and if they agree to straighten their platinum dyed hair into cute little dos, redress themselves in yoga pants, layered tank tops, oversized bug-eyed shades, sparkly cell phones and purses with tiny pooches poking out, and promise to spend all of their time at the newly opened compound coffee house/spa while nannies watch all of their 416 children.
THEN they’d be normal. like us.
this situation reminds me of the fear of flight mentality. people freak out about planes crashing…get nervous to fly…yet they’ll hop into their car and fly down the freeway at speeds in excess of 70mph without flinching. why does the fear of mass casualty make a single person more scared for their one little life? and why does the brainwashing of 400 children in one small area seem so much more harmful than the millions of them being affected by the same type of garbage everywhere you look? which is more dangerous? you tell me.

This is an interesting post. I thought I heard at one point that the mothers were allowed to go with the children and in fact, some of them did. I’m interested to see what will happen next. I can’t imagine it’s going to be easy to find foster homes for all those children…I read yesterday that they want to keep siblings together. Hah! And these are kids, most of whom, don’t even have birth certificates!

P.S. You may find some of the ‘articles’ on this site interesting: http://www.childbrides.org/carolyn.html

Here’s my two cents:

I know some poly people. I use poly instead of polygamy because the media tends to lump all poly people together. I agree with what was said in previously. Polygamy, polyandry, polyamory or what ever other brand of group marriage you like should happen between consenting non-coerced adults. If one person in the marriage doesn’t want to add another wife or husband, then they should not be forced to becuase thier spouse want that. IMHO, anyone who gets married would be better off finishing school, getting a college degree, working and living on thier own before they even consider marriage. Be informed and educated. The families I know are middle class, college educated, non-denominational or athiest. Unless you knew that woman you thought was a friend or live in nanny, you wouldn’t have a clue they were poly. Thier kids go to public school, play in band and football, want to wear Nikes and own ipods and generally are pains in the butt.
Thier normal except there is one or two extra moms or dads.

The Texas thing was law breaking plain and simple. If any man forces a girl to marry him and have sex, he is a sexual predator and that is abuse. If a man was molesting girls and there was a underage prostituition ring or child sexual abuse ring, they should be arrested and dealt with to the harshest measures of the law. The thing that makes this case stand out from a mongamous man or woman molesting his congregation, students, nieghbors kids, or relatives is the fact that you have a large community that sees underage marriage as godly. So you have a higher chance of abuse in an isolated community that follows thier own version of god’s rules. I know 14 and 15 year olds who have gotten pregnant and married with parent permission but not because they were brainwashed or forced to but because they thought they met the right guy (”He loves me” she wails to her parents who just don’t “understand.” puh-leeze!) CPS isn’t showing up in these cases. The parents are just viewed as bad parents. What makes this different is the fact that the girls on this compound are being brainwashed, abused and forced. Should they have been able to take them all away based on an allegation of a girl that no one can find who is married to a man who’s state appointed parole officer insist was in Utah the whole time. Those kids needed help but Texas CPS took kids away from parents without even knowing if they were in fact being abused. Take the kids now, prove they were abused later. How scary. One poly family called CPS and explained thier living situation (two moms, both college educated with careers in photography and medicine and a college educated dad working as an engineer.) The kids attend public school, school activities, make passing grades are not even spanked because the parents believe in talking versuses coporal punishment. One teen works at Mcdonalds and is saving her money for a car and clothes. The other kids want to be rockstars, chefs, movie stars and whatever strikes thier fancy that weak. No one is sexualy abused and the family encourages thier kids to go to college, get a job and then consider marriage. They don’t push monogamy or poly but just wait for the kids to grow up and make thier own choices. CPS told them that with no evidence of abuse, they could not take the kids.

Poly–to be or not to be….LOL

My two cents.

This is where tolerant me, who lived for Salt Lake City for 10 years and now lots of polygamists, runs smack dab into child protective me, who worked with kids who were abused and neglected. Because, when allegations of child sexual abuse are made, then you have to remove and investigate FIRST. As a society, we have a responsibility to protect all children from being victimized.

On the other hand, if a person wants to homeschool their kids and teach them to worship the flying spaghetti monster and hide under beds when buses drive by, we, to some degree, have to let that go. Because this is America, after all. And people are allowed to be weird.

(I’m not implying that all homeschoolers do this, just that we have to distinguish between abuse and letting parents choose how their children will be raised). Just bear in mind that the reason these people are in Texas instead of Utah and/or Arizona is that they were fleeing being investigated for abuse, both of the welfare system, and abuse of the children themselves. And, of course, the abuse of the women involved. So, the men in this case, and some of teh women who are clearly complicit in the abuse, need to be removed from contact with the kids.

But I don’t think polygamy should be illegal, having said that. For adults.