Texas CPS: The New Gestapo

There was an old fellow of Lyme
Who lived with three wives at one time.
When asked, 'Why the third?' He replied,
'One’s absurd, and bigamy, sir, is a crime.'


Putting aside the issue of child abuse and underage marriage (both legal issues that need to be enforced and prosecuted), one must wonder why in this enlightened age we still have laws making polygamy a crime. As John Turley, Professor of Law at Georgetown university said in a recent USA Today article, the difference between a polygamist and the practitioner of an 'alternative lifestyle' is religion.


It is perfectly acceptable (legally) to cohabitate with more than one woman or one man, but bring god and marriage into the picture and you are a felon! The pictures in the news of women in long conservative dresses with their children (139 women, 416 children) being herded onto buses under the watchful eyes of the law are reminiscent of Nazi Germany, is the Texas CPS the new gestapo?


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24195958/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/10/


Strong words, but this fiasco is an embarrassment to a nation founded on the principles of freedom and liberty. I have even read articles putting forth the position that the teaching of FLDS principles is in and of itself 'child abuse'. Might I remind these people that the teaching of 'creationism' in schools has been ruled illegal... shall the CPS now seize all the fundamentalist home-schooled children on the grounds of 'child abuse'? It is a very dangerous path that we tread upon.


The court also orders genetic testing to begin Monday, this should fit in quite nicely with the new federal rules authorizing DNA testing of federal arrestees. Currently only the DNA of convicted felons is kept in the CODIS database, with the new rules you don't even need to be convicted of a crime to have your DNA seized (Although I fully expect to see a constitutional challenge to these new rules).


The rules to implement provisions of the 2005 Violence Against Women Act are expected to boost law enforcements ability to combat crime. I can see that, but so would allowing unreasonable search and seizure... I mean we can't have any criminals slipping through the cracks now can we? Why don't we just perform DNA testing at birth and file the results away, just in case the baby commits a crime twenty years hence. Of course, Orchid Cellmark, the leading provider in DNA services applauds the act... won't that be good for their bottom line to get an extra 1.2 million samples to process. I wonder how much they charge per sample. Heck, I'm sure random drug testing of people on the street would provide a nice boost to the scientific lab communities bottom line too, and help cut down on crime.


Even more appalling is the article I read in the Arizona Republic concerning the alleged 'hoax' phone call prompting this entire fiasco. "Phoenix child-protection advocate Flora Jessop said she was duped by a Colorado woman who pretended to be the victim of abuse in a polygamist sect and whose arrest Friday raises questions about the recent seizure of more than 400 children from a church compound in Texas." The fact that Ms Jessop is a critic and former member of the FLDS church couldn't possibly give her an axe to grind, wasn't all this such a convenient happenstance. But I'll leave this subject with her most disturbing quote, "Jessop said she had to maintain the pretense that her caller was real so that Texas police could continue investigating."


You can find the article here: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0419flora0419.html


I would venture to guess that removed from a religious context, the liberal left would be leaping to defend the rights of men and women to live in a polygamist lifestyle, as they defend the rights of gays and lesbians to engage in their lifestyles. It is the introduction of a religious aspect that makes these people unpalatable to the left, if they simply wanted to do it, that would be fine, that they want to do it in association with God is not. The right has also abandoned these people, as in their eyes the sexual aspects of such a relationship are taboo, despite the fact that in principle their conservative values align nicely with the religious right. Being orphaned by both the left and right, and falling far outside anything that could be defined as centrist, these people are an easy mark. This is a win-win situation for the authorities in Texas, they score points with the right for stomping out sin and points with the left for their social concern for the poor children.


The laws as they exist today enable the abuses alleged in Texas. Being hidden behind high walls, isolated from society, is what enables those like Warren Jeffs to manipulate the faithful for his own ends. His racist self-serving preachings are an anathema to a free and just society. It is not the beliefs of the faithful that are the problem, it is the isolation and power of the church that stems from such isolation. I do not believe in the principles or lifestyle advocated by the FLDS, yet despite that fact, I must defend in principle their right to live it.




~Finntann~