Intelligent Design (What should be taught in schools?)

by Carl, Friday, August 15, 2008, 17:46 (5945 days ago) @ dhw

In the US, we have the Mormon (Latter Day Saints or LDS) religion which practiced plural marriage but changed policy and forbade it over a century ago. The Fundamentalist LDS broke away from the LDS and continued the practice of plural marriage. Since bigamy is illegal in the US, their plural marriages are "spiritual" marriages that are not registered with the government. The female offspring are groomed to be future plural wives, and the males are groomed to be husbands of multiple wives. Since the numbers don't balance, males who are not selected to be husbands are ejected from the community. Females as young as fourteen are "married" to forty and fifty year old men. Since the marriage is not official, and adultery or children out of wedlock is not illegal, the law forbidding sex with children is the only one that can be enforced. The FLDS lives in closed communes with no contact permitted with the outside world except for the men and a few trusted women leaders so that child sexual abuse evidence can't be had. 
Child Protective Services in Texas got an anonymous call which they used as justification for a raid on the Yearning for Zion FLDS commune. With an army of law officers, they went in an took custody of several hundred children. Eventually, the Texas courts ruled that CPS did not have authority to take all the children, only a few which could be proven to be in danger of sexual abuse, so the remainder were returned to their mothers. The head of FLDS was already in prison for accomplice to child sexual abuse, but several of the other leaders have since been indicted for sexual abuse of a child using DNA evidence gathered during the raid.
This is a case study in brainwashing and child abuse, and yet I cannot advocate overturning the civil liberties protections that allowed this abuse to occur. The alternative of having the state in the business of approving or disapproving religious practices is unacceptable. Individuals should be allowed freedom to practice any religious beliefs they choose, and, implicit in that, is the freedom to raise their children in their belief as long as they don't violate criminal law. It is imperfect, but I see no way to make it perfect.