Any excuse will do!
Another interesting development in the Texas polygamy case:
According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, a phone number linked to a Colorado Springs woman was used to make calls to a Texas crisis hot line in the days leading up to a raid on a polygamist compound in Texas, records show. According to newly released court documents, Texas Rangers tracked the number to Rozita E. Swinton last week before traveling to Colorado Springs to interview her as part of their investigation into the April 4 raid at the Yearning for Zion ranch near Eldorado, Texas.
So, let's see if I understand this... you're sitting at your desk, fuming about the evil polygamists living down the street and the phone rings. A sobbing young woman begins to relate a horrid tale of rape and abuse. Action must be taken, bring in the sheriff and FBI, bring in the armored personnel carriers... RAID THE COMPOUND!!! Caller ID? What Caller ID?
What is with these people and how stupid do they think we are? Apparently they think we are pretty stupid, and we in our ignorance far exceed their expectations.
According to the Springs arrest affidavit, Texas Rangers determined the same phone that police in Colorado Springs linked to the Feb. 26 call had also been used to make false distress calls to the New-Bridge Family Shelter in San Angelo, Texas, on March 29 and March 30. In those calls, authorities allege, Swinton claimed to be a teenage girl named Sarah Barlow - the third wife of a 49-year-old man at the polygamist ranch. Read the whole story here:
http://www.gazette.com/articles/swinton_35580___article.html/calls_colorado.html
If I pick up my phone, dial 911 and hang up, the police will show up at my door, and I live so far out in the country I don't even get cell phone service. It is inconceivable that the Texas authorities did not know that the phone call was fraudulent and coming from out of state, and if they didn't they are completely and utterly incompetent. This woman would call and talk for hours...not minutes, more than ample time for the authorities if they so desired, to trace the call (which I will agree they had probable cause to do). Even if she was calling from a cell phone they could determine that it wasn't originating locally, as she would be on a cell tower in Colorado Springs, not in Texas.
The Texas authorities, without a doubt, were simply waiting for an excuse to raid this ranch. I would venture that in their desire 'to get in there', they acted in bad faith, if they did not know that the calls were fraudulent it was out of a desire not to know, a sin of omission so to speak, and trampled the constitution underfoot to do so. As much as the alleged behavior of the polygamists disgusts me, the actions of the authorities in Texas disgusts me just as much if not more. At least theoretically, the polygamists are acting on their beliefs and their faith... what's the state of Texas' excuse?
For those who find the FLDS practices and beliefs repulsive, consider that when they moved to Texas in 2003 the state's law allowed 14 year olds to marry with parental consent. That law wasn't amended until September 1, 2005 when the age was raised to 16. At least according to Texas Law:
http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/FA/content/htm/fa.001.00.000002.00.htm
I hear a number of people decrying the fact of married and pregnant 16 year olds... which unfortunately under Texas law is utterly and completely LEGAL! Looking at Texas law, theoretically, if a girl turned 14 on August 31st 2005 she could have been legally married on that day with parental consent. Still 14, she could have had her first child in May of 2006, her second child in February of 2007 at age 15, her third child in November 2007, and be five months pregnant today at age 16 years eight months. As repugnant this scenario is to most of us, it is still legal under Texas law (I'm not a lawyer, but I presume people married under the old law prior to their 16th birthday would fall under some sort of 'grandfather' clause).
So now the state of Texas is about to put 416 children into foster care, which one might rationally argue is an act of abuse in and of itself. Not only are these children being put into foster care, but I would wager that it will not be up to the same moral standards (polygamy issues aside) that they were raised under.
Setting aside their belief in polygamy and marriage at a young age, what do these people profess a faith in? A devout and worshipful life, hard work, a belief that modern society is corrupt? No TV, No Internet, Wives subservient to their husbands? Husbands subservient to the church? Children mindful and obedient? In other words a fundamentalist lifestyle? What riles us up more? Their polygamist belief system or the fact that they turn their backs on the rest of us as morally corrupt sinners? What does it say about us that the legal age of consent in Texas is 17 and marriage 18? We can have sex at 17 without our parents consent but we can't marry until 18 without it? We can make the rational decision to marry three years before we can make the rational decision to drink? We are wise enough to make decisions about sex, but not about politics at 17? Our laws are a conflicting hodgepodge of irrational and illogical boundaries. Why can't we all just get together and settle on an age at which someone is an adult? 18? 21? Heck... I'm sure the good state of Texas doesn't have any problems trying 14 year olds charged with murder as adults, seems like we kind of want our cake and want to eat it too!
~Finntann~
Showing posts with label polygamy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label polygamy. Show all posts
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
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~
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~
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