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]He was born with the need to be married to young women/girls.[/b] Isn't that the argument we hear from gay rights activists? They were "born that way"?
No.......his GOD told him he needed to marry little girls.
All of these attrocities are being done in the name of God.
This has been going on for years and the authorities have been aware of it and done NOTHING......until they tried to pull it off in Texas.
Also disturbing, the fact that these people are using tax payer's money to support all of the "wives" and children these men have. It's as if our government is condoning what these people are doing.
Now that Texas has "broken the spell", so to speak.....are the other states going to step up and start convicting these people of the horrendous crimes they are committing, or are they going to continue to look the other way?
I can't believe this has been allowed to go on this long in America. It's pathetic.
I can't believe this has been allowed to go on this long in America. It's pathetic.
I must agree.
My only hope is that they don't allow him any visitation or phone priviledges, etc. I'd be happiest if they put him on lock down, at least from the outside world. If they don't, the atrocities are going to continue within his 'group'. He'll simply give orders from jail, swear the prophet gave him another vision of which old man should marry which daughter - from jail - and they will follow.
Jeffs has a cult-like hold on his group.
I will say, Utah and Arizona have tried doing something before now or have at least made the appearance of trying. I have serious doubts about Utah's attempts. On the other hand, Texas was smart and didn't try to touch him until Utah had him in custody. When Utah's cases began tanking, they stepped up and said let us try.
As for why it's allowed to go on...well, no offense to Utah but they have closed their eyes and looked the other way for a long time. The USG on the other hand, doesn't want to risk another Ruby Ridge or Waco developing. Right or wrong, I do believe that's what it boils down to. I can't exactly blame them either.
My only hope is that they don't allow him any visitation or phone priviledges, etc. I'd be happiest if they put him on lock down, at least from the outside world. If they don't, the atrocities are going to continue within his 'group'. He'll simply give orders from jail, swear the prophet gave him another vision of which old man should marry which daughter - from jail - and they will follow.
Jeffs has a cult-like hold on his group.
Thankfully it's an absolutely tiny religious group. For such a small group, they certainly get a lot of press.
Hopefully, being convicted for raping his nephew at age 5 and niece at age 7 is enough to wake these people up and lead them to question the entire notion that Jeffs is a prophet of God. I'm betting most of them will see it as a made up crime that never actually happened and that the government is just inventing an excuse to put Warren Jeffs in prison.
Can't really treat him differently than any other prisoner, that would be breaking a number of laws. But hey, pedophiles do tend to get murdered in general population ...
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I will say, Utah and Arizona have tried doing something before now or have at least made the appearance of trying. I have serious doubts about Utah's attempts. On the other hand, Texas was smart and didn't try to touch him until Utah had him in custody. When Utah's cases began tanking, they stepped up and said let us try.
As for why it's allowed to go on...well, no offense to Utah but they have closed their eyes and looked the other way for a long time. The USG on the other hand, doesn't want to risk another Ruby Ridge or Waco developing. Right or wrong, I do believe that's what it boils down to. I can't exactly blame them either.
Utah state government, federal government ... I think they all knew perfectly well that -- 1800's Supreme Court rulings notwithstanding -- laws against polygamy between consenting adults is pretty obviously unconstitutional. And when it's part of a religious practice then it becomes even worse of a violation of people's rights and freedoms.
The FLDS are certainly the largest polygamist group in America, but all of them seem to follow the same pattern: Isolation from the outside world and keeping the affairs their church inside their church. It's the same mistake made by the Catholics with their pedophile priest problems. How long has that sort of thing been going on in Catholicism and why didn't we hear about it much, much sooner?
To compound the problem, the notion that a 14 year old girl is too young for marriage is a fairly new concept historically speaking. For most of human history, any girl at or near the age of puberty was considered old enough for marriage. The primary purpose of marriage was to have as many children as possible, so this would have made perfect sense even as recently as 100 years ago. Some of the boys in these little religious groups are also underage when married. And if you're going to prosecute all cases of girls being married as teenagers, wouldn't you also have to actively seek criminal prosecution for all cases of teen pregnancy? If two 14 year olds have sex then both of them have broken the law and according to the law they should both go to prison. And you can't find better evidence of teen sex than teen pregnancy.
The problem with prosecuting these folks:
A.) It's complicated.
B.) Per equal enforcement laws and rulings, you can't just go after polygamist groups, you have to actively prosecute everyone else who fits the same criminal criteria.
The problem with prosecuting these folks:
A.) It's complicated.
B.) Per equal enforcement laws and rulings, you can't just go after polygamist groups, you have to actively prosecute everyone else who fits the same criminal criteria.
A. It shouldn't matter how complicated it is, very complicated cases are prosecuted all of the time. Hell, just look at how complicated the case is when a company files for bankruptcy. Teams of lawyers and tons of paperwork. It still gets done.
B. Aren't charges brought against the father when a child gives birth in the rest of America?
There is NO excuse for allowing the FLDS to continue forcing underage girls into arranged marriages.....even if they are a "tiny" religious group.
Should we also allow Muslims, etc. to set up religious compounds in the United States and look the other way when they flaunt the laws of this country?
A. It shouldn't matter how complicated it is, very complicated cases are prosecuted all of the time. Hell, just look at how complicated the case is when a company files for bankruptcy. Teams of lawyers and tons of paperwork. It still gets done.
There is NO excuse for allowing the FLDS to continue forcing underage girls into arranged marriages.....even if they are a "tiny" religious group.
Should we also allow Muslims, etc. to set up religious compounds in the United States and look the other way when they flaunt the laws of this country?
To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with you. Just pointing out the complexities of going after them. It's not as simple as most people think it is.
The letter of the law says 18 years old is the age of consent in Utah, Arizona, Texas and every other state involved. The legal age of marriage with parental consent is 16 years old. So to go after the FLDS, the first "wife" (which is the only possible legal marriage anyways) must be 15 years old or younger when the marriage occurred. If she's 16 with parental consent, then you can't prosecute.
For all additional "marriages" (none of which are actual legal marriages, so it's just two people having sex) you can prosecute for all cases where the girl is under 18.
If undertake to prosecute anything further than this then you'd need to bring criminal charges against every couple in the USA who is living together out of wedlock, every open marriage with multiple sexual partners, etc. I don't think the justice system is ready to do that.
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B. Aren't charges brought against the father when a child gives birth in the rest of America?
Out of my high school graduating class, I think about 30 girls dropped out because they got pregnant (which left 120 of us graduating.) In pretty much every case, the father of their baby was either under 18 or very close to it. I don't remember even one of those teen dads going to prison for statutory rape. If it was a 20 year old guy getting a 14 year old girl pregnant, then it was up to the girl's parents. If they pressed charges, then he could go to jail for statutory rape but not all parents pressed charges. Many did not because their daughter was 100% consenting.
Now I don't know if that's how things are done anymore, but if it is then it makes them very hard to prosecute if the girl was consenting and the parents aren't pressing charges -- and as members of the cult, they're not pressing charges. So does the state step in and press charges but only against the FLDS?
And if the girls involved are taught to deny that they are married, then it gets even more complicated. The harder you push these people, the better they'll get at disguising and hiding polygamist "marriages" involving under-age girls.
The cases you can actually win are cases where the girl was forced into the marriage against her will and usually raped by their "husband" for any number of years. But what do you do with the likely majority of cases where the girl is consenting and actively trying to thwart prosecution against her "husband"?
A lot of that changes if you diligently prosecute all cases of underage people having sex. If both boy and girl are underaged then boy and girl are are sent to prison for statutory rape. If the girl is pregnant then I guess she has to give the child up for adoption or let her parents take care of the child until she gets out of jail. Do it that way and then you're not trying to enforce the laws unequally, nor can you be accused of singling out the FLDS. But that would constitute a HUGE shift in how underage sex is treated by the US justice system.
And this is what I mean about "it's complicated." How do you treat the FLDS equally and still prosecute them? In many cases, I don't think you can.
A. It shouldn't matter how complicated it is, very complicated cases are prosecuted all of the time. Hell, just look at how complicated the case is when a company files for bankruptcy. Teams of lawyers and tons of paperwork. It still gets done.
B. Aren't charges brought against the father when a child gives birth in the rest of America?
There is NO excuse for allowing the FLDS to continue forcing underage girls into arranged marriages.....even if they are a "tiny" religious group.
Should we also allow Muslims, etc. to set up religious compounds in the United States and look the other way when they flaunt the laws of this country?
"There is NO excuse for allowing the FLDS to continue forcing underage girls into arranged marriages.....even if they are a "tiny" religious group." This applies to the many other groups too. Look at the Branch Davidians and others that think they are beyond to the law of this country!
"Should we also allow Muslims, etc. to set up religious compounds in the United States and look the other way when they flaunt the laws of this country?" They already have compounds that are in this country and the polygamy numbers are in the 50,000-100,000 range. Just like the above, these people stick up there noses at our laws and say they answer to a higher power. Besides the polygamist aspect there are many of thse groups that we are not aware of. They have carried out assasinations in this country, Tucson, Az in the early 1990's comes to mind.
The common link is they abuse our welfare system and say they are above our laws. We need a place to deport these people too!
I'll be waiting for the gay activists to point out that he should be allowed to marry whoever he loves.
Anyone should be able to marry whoever they want to who has reached the age of consent and does so, be they male or female, in whatever quantities or combinations they desire.
That's not hurting a thing.
Child rape is an entirely different matter. It is a case of someone being forced to particpate in a relationship they did not want, and one that they could not consent to if they wanted to. See the difference now...?
Anyone should be able to marry whoever they want to who has reached the age of consent and does so, be they male or female, in whatever quantities or combinations they desire.
That's not hurting a thing.
Child rape is an entirely different matter. It is a case of someone being forced to particpate in a relationship they did not want, and one that they could not consent to if they wanted to. See the difference now...?
Not if they need to use the welfare system to do so.
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