Religious reasons
This is insane. That camp of horrors in Texas –
The sect’s lawyers had sought to limit a search but have agreed temple records can be scrutinised under supervision. A representative of the sect will be appointed to vet documents, computer files and family Bibles for records that should not be used as evidence for legal or religious reasons, the Associated Press reports.
A representative of this pack of male lunatics that imprisons women and children and forces them to act as baby-factories will be appointed to decide what documents and files should not be used as evidence for religious reasons? What ‘religious’ reasons? They have god’s signatures on them? They might include god’s password? ‘Religious’ reasons are the problem here, so how can they be given veto power over what can be used as evidence?
I’ve said it before – the free exercise clause has a lot to answer for.
Well, obviously, that is the question. I would have thought so too – and I find it alarming that a representative is vetting potential evidence for ‘religious reasons’ in a criminal case. It seems deranged.
The whole thing is alarming. The fact that people can be sequestered in the way that the women and girls at the ranch were sequestered, should have been reason in itself, long ago, to intervene, to make sure that children were not being abused. Are there no child care services or regulations that need to be met, even by religious nuts who isolate themselves from the world? Religion is abusive. That goes without saying. But extreme abuse like this should have been obvious from the start. And then to let the abusers have control over what may be entered into evidence against them?! How does the free exercise of religion trump individual rights?! This is very alarming.
“Are there no child care services or regulations that need to be met . . .?”
[mode:cynical]
Can you say,”Faith Based Initiative”?
[mode/]
The cops have been watching the compound ever since it started – but they haven’t done anything about it because they were afraid of another Waco.
So religious whack-jobs who treat girls and women like dirty underwear successfully blackmail law enforcement through fear of all-out violence.
Well god bless America.
“How does the free exercise of religion trump individual rights?!”
Welcome to the right-wing version of communitarianism, where only your right to have every aspect of your life ruled by old men is guaranteed.
Well I would love to able to complain about the first amendment!
So much is this coercive patriarchal power of religion guaranteed in your constitution, that the Government has taken these despicable people, removed the women and children for their protection and arrested the guys running the racket.
Sounds good to me. Your problem is…?
Ah… that there are some protections intended to stop people imposing religion with the force of law that need to be managed. I think that is what we wanted anyway!
Its been pointed out that the reason there WASN’T another Waco massacre is that the authorities were making sure it didn’t happen, instead of being under orders to stage a high profile event that created the errors of Waco.
“…God’s password..”
Now that’s interesting. Imagine what you could do with that…
Wonder what he has on his hard drive? Probably something very nasty.
Bush’s private cell phone number, no doubt.
Are Presidential Pardons as easy to obtain as indulgences were in Martin Luther’s day?
OB: Happy Birthday to you – Lá Breithe Sona dhuit!
May you live to be 100 years, with one extra year to repent.
We drink to your coffin. May it be built from the wood of a hundred year old oak tree that I shall plant tomorrow.
And most of all
May you always have a clean shirt, a clear conscience, and enough coins in your pocket to buy a rum!
One would think the authorities, which have purportedly been indisposed to go in and brazen it out with these wacky madcap paedophiles, would have long since – in light of the WACO, massacre learned its lesson. They should have train/ed persistently and comprehensively continue to do so to make sure/give assurance to the public that another atrocity of that magnitude would never ever again occur. The authorities seem by the sound of it to be spending more energy in worrying about whether the loopy religious breakaway moron misogynists’ are going in the future to cause analogous havoc as divergent to sending out the message that they (the authorities) are in control. These religious freaks are ostensibly playing mind games with the authorities and will continue to play them if they think the authorities are slow to apprehend them for their decrepit irreligious behaviour. The paedophiles will break all the laws of the land under the guise of religion. They abuse children and they abuse their God.
ChrisPer,
“Your problem is…?…Its been pointed out that the reason there WASN’T another Waco massacre is that the authorities were making sure it didn’t happen…”
Well we don’t know that that’s the reason; we don’t know there would have been another Waco if the authorities had done something different. But in any case, my ‘problem’ is that several years went by while those girls and women lived in conditions of sexual slavery, degradation, and deprivation. Hundreds of them. I don’t consider that a trivial matter.
Ew – that last sentence sounds self-righteous. (You know, like ‘I happen to think torture is wrong.’) I didn’t mean that, I just meant those hundreds of people and several years shouldn’t weigh as nothing in the scales against what might have happened if the authorities had acted sooner.
But also, actually – I do have a ‘problem’ even apart from that; it’s the same as the problem I have with the Sri Lankan rep on the UN HRC who said if we limit speech a little bit maybe we can avoid violence. I think it’s always a massive problem if thugs and bullies and extortionists get their way through violence and threats. We don’t want thugs and bullies and extortionists to get their way. We prefer the rule of law.
This issue bothered me during the Waco mess, too – a surprising number of people kept talking as if the Branch Davidians who opened fire at Waco were in some sense innocent victims. But there’s no law on the books that says we can fire on cops if we’re really pissed off. That’s a no-no. Even if we really think the cops have no business messing with us, we still don’t get to shoot them. We have to go to a judge, instead. If the Branch Davidians now have all cops afraid to investigate secretive religious enclaves that are suspected of maltreating women and children…yeah, I think that’s a problem.
I think the real Waco-related concern was what might happen to all those children. Remember what happened to the Branch Davidian children. It’s hard to tell, from the outside, how far religious nuts will go to “spiritually protect” their children. They might decide death is better than escape. Can you imagine if you were in charge of a raid, and ended up feeling as though you had the deaths of 400+ children on your hands?
What saddens me so much is that this is just one compound. What about the colonies in other western states/provinces? How can government(s) intervention rescue these women and children, if FLDS men are in local government or law enforcement? And to think of the terrible pain these women and children are going through. Not only have they been treated like the basest property, but they’ve been well-conditioned to think that is right. No matter what happens, there is SO much pain in store for all these victims.
Yeh. I’m not saying the authorities should have moved sooner, by the way, just that the intimidation is (obviously enough) a problem.
True about the victims – but on the other hand humans are resilient. Maybe their lives will be a whole lot better from now on.
But absolutely about just one compound. I think the same thing every time I read something about ‘honour’ killing or forced marriage or FGM – that’s just one.
There’s an excellent post on the life of women in the FLDS at the Orcinus blog: http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/04/are-flds-women-brainwashed.html
Even if we freed them all (and personally I think the FLDS should be eradicated root and branch), it sounds as if many of them are so far gone that they would need a lifetime of therapy to approach anything close to a normal human existence.
dzd,
I believe you are right. After too long you see the kind of internalising we saw on Pitcairn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_sexual_assault_trial_of_2004