04-16-2008, 10:05 PM
Quote:You will note that "age of consent" and "age of legal majority" are not the same. In Texas. Please don't muddle the issue. If there were pregnant minors who were below the age of consent at conception, OK, there is an issue, more specifically a case by case issue. Tell me again why the non pregnant boys were taken by CPS? The non pregnant girls? Or were all 400+ pregnant, regardless of gender? :huh:
So noted. And removing the boys is pretty dodgy; I suspect they either wanted to interview them separately, which to my mind is a very marginal justification. As to the non-pregnant girls, if you think for a moment you might come up with a reason that they could be in some peril in a community that views impregnating underage girls as a normal practice.
Quote:I find it rather droll that forty years ago, "communes" were all the rage in this country, and alternative social and familial forms quite the fad. This commune, and this alternative familial and cummunity structure, isn't allowed to develop as a counter culture.
We've become rather more conservative as a culture. There's an unspoken assumption in your comment, though, that the intent is to destroy the FLDS culture. Certainly there are many Texans who find the FLDS abhorrent. Fortunately for us, and the FLDS, we've got laws and lawyers. Hundreds of lawyers are descending even as we speak.
Arguably, the law was changed in direct response to their presence. At that point we can debate what the age of marriageability should be. Was the law changed to bring Texas in line with the majority of other states; was this the closing of a loophole or a strike on diversity? I would think of it as closing an embarassing oversight. Nevertheless, the FLDS always had the option of obeying the law.
Quote:The FLDS model is not my cup of tea. But you might ask yourself why the women stayed. The adult women.
Like any high-control group, they were indoctrinated by isolation and fear. I'm not sure you understand how difficult it is to leave a group like that.
Quote:Let's consider a bit of a devil's advocate question here: how diverse is diverse, how multi is multi cultural, and how tolerant is tolerant? Remember that our country makes filty rich a nation whose culture is pretty similar to this FLDS patriarchy, our officials of both parties spouts platitudes about our friends and allies who treat women and children little differently, and in some cases worse.
Inconsistency seems a core issue here.
Yep, I'm not a big fan of some of our foreign policy either. As to how tolerant is tolerant, I'd vote that we make our laws as liberal and unrestrictive as possible, controlling only those activities that lead to harming others.