Polygamy: 'epidemic lawlessness'
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff promised Mormon fundamentalists at a St. George town meeting that he would not launch a large-scale raid similar to the one on the FLDS compound in Texas. I know you are worried about that. We're not going to do it. We don't believe that is the answer.About 500 people gathered to question a panel that included Shurtleff, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard and a member of the fundamentalist group The Work of Jesus Christ. Many of the fundamentalists at the meeting indicated they are related to children in custody in Texas. Shurtleff said he will help Utah relatives become foster parents to the FLDS children.
But a letter written by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may undermine any comfort the fundamentalists got from Shurtleff's words. Reid wrote Shurtleff and Goddard that a senior U.S. Justice Department prosecutor will work with Utah, Arizona and Nevada to decide how the federal government can help prosecute polygamy related crimes — the first step toward a federal polygamy task force. Reid, of Nevada, wrote:
Working together, I believe federal and state authorities can do even more to address the epidemic of lawlessness in polygamous communities throughout the southwestern United States.And that approach delights Canadian authorities, who have their own FLDS-related community in Bountiful, British Columbia. B.C. representative Bill Bennett called for Canadian law enforcement to join with the United States on the polygamy issue.
Certainly from what I've been told, there is no doubt young women have been sent to Bountiful [B.C.] to marry older men and young women have been taken from Bountiful to marry older men in Colorado City, Arizona and in Utah.Meanwhile, Texas authorities, who got the whole thing rolling, have discovered that few of the 464 FLDS kids they have in custody are immunized against diseases including chicken pox, polio, measles and smallpox. Some of the older children are refusing to be inoculated.
5 Comments:
Shurleff must be Mormon: he says one thing to the fundamentalist child bride traders; and then says something quite different to those who employ him --i.e., the utah taxpayer. I would have loved it if Shurleff and his Arizona cohort would have addressed the meeting in St. George in a less nuanced way. Can you imagine what would happened if he would have said: Look, we made polygamy illegal over a century ago; the taxpayers of Utah and Arizona are tired of your illegal and despicable practice of forcing under-age girls to marry men often twice their age.
Until these polygamist cults can prove that they are not trafficking underage girls, then they should be rounded up and prosecuted. This is what the law is meant to do: to protect the abuse of children not only by their religious leaders, but by their parents.
True, the burden of proof rests with the AG's office. Maybe we need an AG who can apply the law.
I might have been with the FLDS until we found the 40% of teen girls pregnant or already mothers. That sealed the deal for me. Utah should have done something years, and years ago.
With that said, those children belong with their mothers. Hang the men by their junk, but the kids need to be with their moms
I don't see why these children should be with either parent. Yes, male members of the FLDS cult who are found to be married to have fathered children with children should be tried and convicted. But the mothers of these children believe in the same devistating doctrine that places their children in arranged marriages. These women aren't happy that the Texas authorities have rescued them from the pedophilic proclivites of the FLDS brethren. No, they simply want their children back so they can continue to practice their religion. Well, I hate to break the news to them, but child trafficking is not protected under the establishment clause of the Constitution. Fair enough if one wants to practice polygamy: BUT LEAVE THE CHILDREN OUT OF IT; LEAVE THE CHILDREN ALONE!
Shurtleff should be impeached.
Until the Feds give the OK for Utah to repeal the anti-polygamy section in the Utah Constitution, then polygamy is still ILLEGAL in Utah, and that the law should still be enforced to the hilt.
Warren Jeffs has made it impossible for that provision to be repealed. The ACTUAL LDS Church would NEVER allow the men to commit incest, child molestation, welfare fraud (much less go on welfare), etc., in order to further practice polygamy or any other purpose. I do not think that Pres. Thomas S. Monson would EVER sanction anything Warren Jeffs espouses. Sorry, freedom of thought and free agency is practiced in the ACTUAL LDS Church. The only way polygamy would be practiced by the ACTUAL LDS Church would be after the Second Coming or if the same conditions EXIST as it was in July 1847, not 1843, or just before Joseph Smith died.
BTW, Joseph Smith:
1. Only had Emma Smith during his lifetime.
2. Did not have three or 33 wives during his lifetime.
3. Did not marry a 14 year old.
If the opposite is true, then you have to believe Saddam Hussein bought yellow cake from Niger (Same paper (New York Times) allowed Timmy Egan to fudge up facts about Joseph Smith that also had Judith Miller report all those lies that cause us to lose 4,000 of our troops. Incredible kitty litter paper.)
hanksanberdoo - what planet are you living on? Kolob? facts are facts."It's impossible to reach good conclusions with bad information. . . . We're all entitled to our own opinions. But none of us can afford to be wrong in our facts." Do some reading, Buba -or are you afraid of the truth?
Post a Comment
<< Home