Rick Perry Win - Nothing to cheer about.

Rick Perry very handily won the Texas Republican Primary yesterday and did so against Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is often believed to be the most popular politician in Texas. Apparently not.

Hutchison is not a fiscal conservative. On that point, I’m glad she was voted down. From what I know of him Perry is at least somewhat fiscally conservative and says the right things about state’s rights and federalism.

On the other hand, his comments about, and treatment of, the FLDS Mormons at Yearning for Zion Ranch is completely and utterly repulsive. To support, in any way, the removal of 500 children from their parents ONLY because you disagree with their polygynous lifestyle is reprehensible. As became evident in the follow-on court cases, there was no evidence whatsoever to justify the government raiding the ranch and taking the children. I strongly disagree with many elements of Mormon theology and some elements of their lifestyle, but unless they are harming others, there is no cause for action against them.

Knowing all of this I get ill every time I see Rick Perry speak.

FLDS: Raymond Jessop Trial

Week two of the State of Texas vs Raymond Jessop is rolling along. He is accused of rape of a minor – his 16 year old wife (married in church, but no license from the state). If he did, in any way, force this girl to have sex against her will then he is indeed guilty and should be punished. In my opinion, very harshly. But what if she was a willing bride? What if marrying this 33-year-old man and becoming a mother to his children was her earnest desire?

All of those Bible believing folk on the jury need to consider their very own Bible as they consider judgment. Let’s assume for a moment that this girl did desire to be his wife and the mother of his children. In that case convicting him would be tantamount to convicting Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Solomon, Joseph (father of Jesus), and Gideon. Are we so much better than these six men whom God loved and adored and held out to us as examples? To the best of my knowledge none of these six men were ever criticized or punished by God or anyone for having more than one wife or for their brides being under the age of 18 (most of their brides were actually about 13 or 14 year old).

As I mentioned the week of the raid, if Jesus came back today he might very well consider the lifestyle of all those polygynists at the El Dorado ranch to be far more Godly than that of the average Baptist, Evangelical, or Catholic. What with our divorce rates greater than non-Christians, hypocrisy and judgmentalism rampant, over 70% of our teen girls losing their virginity well before marriage (most often while at Christian colleges), and piousness blowing out the roof.

Jessop is being tried for having sex with someone under the age of 18, why bring polygyny into the discussion? Does anyone really think that any of the jurors will not be thinking about his having multiple wives? About that whole horrible community down the road with all of those perverted men with multiple wives?

Surely the prosecution won’t slip in a few extra ‘influencers’ like pictures of Jessop with his wives and children, and comments about his ‘other wives’.

Will Jessop get a fair trial? We’ll see. Of course this is Texas we’re talking about. A state with one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and single-parent families in the nation. A state that does less about these problems than just about any other. But let those polygynists with their conservative dress, happy intelligent responsible children, and near zero divorce, move in and something must be done!

If she was a willing bride then in my not very humble opinion every Bible believing juror who votes to convict him needs to go home and rip Song of Solomon out of every one of their Bibles and should probably also leave any church that doesn’t do the same. Either you believe in God’s Word or you don’t. It’s not difficult. Maybe they should just get rid of all of their Bibles.

Whatever You Do, Just Don’t Get Married.

I was really struck by this article on Fox News. Before Continuing, read the article.

Now, think for a bit about Hugh Hefner’s numerous relationships, often multiple at a time. Think about the environment his children are growing up in. Of course he’s only legally married to one of these woman, Kimberly Conrad.

Now, think about FLDS families for a minute. They’re certainly far from perfect.

Which environment do you believe is healthier? For the women? The children? Society?

It’s rather fascinating to me how differently our government, society, and the news media treat these two. Sometime, compare how Fox News treats Hugh Hefner and Playboy versus the FLDS. What do you think?

Obama endorses Bill Ayers book on CPS

Oops, according to this on Foxnews there is yet one more previously unknown element to Obama's relationship to William Ayers. This book BTW, endorses some of the same government agencies and tactics as were involved in the raid on the YFZ ranch. If I remember correctly, Rozita Swinton, who made the false claims against the FLDS (and who has still not been charged for filing a false report) was an Obama delegate from Colorado Springs. I'm not in to conspiracy theories, but this is interesting.

Update: Not a bad deal for Ayers. In the past 6 hours this book has jumped from #51,021 on Amazon to #6,710.

Teen Marriage: Who's Right - God? Or Us?

The following is a very unfinished thought and even more an unfinished manuscript. It’s a work in progress on both levels. Read at your own risk.

There’s an interesting disconnect playing out across our land about age, sex, and marriage.

Through the first few hundred years of our country, up until sometime in the past century, we didn’t have major national issues of unwed mothers or STD’s. There were, to be sure, some of each, but not so many that there were huge concerns. These were footnotes, not major issues.

How quickly things change. Today, Disney can’t seem to find a wholesome teen girl anywhere. If it’s not Vanessa or Miley posing for nude pictures and sending them to friends (and thus the entire internet), it’s their 16-year-old star Jamie Lynn Spears getting pregnant out of wedlock. Then we find out that John McCain’s pick for VP has a 17-year-old daughter who’s 5 months pregnant.

Just over 60% of our high school seniors are sexually active and according to the CDC about 25% of our high school girls have an STD. 76% of sexually active US teens have had at least 2 sexual partners. And this in a supposed highly moral monogamous society.

In middle schools across the country girls are finding that taking nude or panty pics of themselves and emailing them to boyfriends and others is not just fun but an excellent way of getting the attention that so many of them seem to crave. Sometimes far more attention, from tens of thousands of men on the internet, than they’d intended.

Do Christians fair any better than non-Christians? Only marginally. Sarah Palin’s family are members of an Assembly of God church and I think that just about any high school student who’s involved in a church youth group can tell you that her 17-year-old daughter is not an anomaly, at least with regard to being sexually active. Don’t think you’re any better if you’re Baptist, Methodist, Willow Creek, Saddleback, or Lakewood. See the chart above.

Why can’t all our teens just keep their pants on?

Then down in Texas we have that group of strange dressing folks with the funny hairstyles out on the ranch. They likely have about the same number of sexually active teen girls as our Christian youth groups (or lower for 13, 14, and 15 year olds) The difference? While the average teen girl in the US is having sex with multiple guys and isn’t married to any of them (and most of these guys probably aren’t anywhere close to ready for marriage anyway), a sexually active teen girl in the FLDS is likely married to the father - who will stay with her and support her and her baby for life. And these are the ones we’re throwing in jail.

It’s God’s Fault

After all, he made us this way didn’t he?

Generally girls enter puberty in their early teens and guys anywhere from early to mid teens. By design our bodies, physically and mentally, are screaming “time for sex”. Did God screw up? Should he have designed us to not reach puberty and get all of these sexual desires until we’re 23 instead of 13?

For centuries, all of history in fact, these were pretty much non-issues. At least among the common folk. Girls got married at about 14 to a guy old enough to support and care for her and their children. Our actions were generally in line with how we were designed. Sure, there were problems, but apparently nothing even remotely like what we’re seeing today.

Over the past 100 years we’ve seen dramatic changes in our society. One that has had an especially dramatic impact on marriage is the time required to get an education before beginning any kind of career. For an ever growing number of us this is not just until we complete high school at 18, but includes university at 22, grad school at 25 or medical school at 30. This, combined with other issues, has driven up the average age of marriage a bit.

We’ve followed up on these changes by instituting a number of new laws and social norms over the past 50 years regarding age, marriage, and sex for everyone. All with good intentions. We began by saying that nobody under 12 or 13 could legally get married. No problem there. Over the past few years though we’ve slowly increased this minimum legal age to 17 in most states. At the same time we’ve developed this societal expectation that getting married under about 20 is ‘just not right’.

Then we decided that a guy being too much older than the girl was ‘just not right’. This led to a major shift in societal norms regarding the age difference of partners. Norms that had existed for thousands of years. We began to view an age difference of more than 3 or 4 years as abnormal. Then we instituted this in various laws criminalizing a relationship with more than 2 or 3 years age difference. In other words, if you’re going to make a baby just don’t do it with anyone old enough to be in a position to actually take some responsibility for her (note 1).

Have we in effect criminalized what God designed?

It’s like God is saying “I designed you this way and that worked well for a few thousand years, but now you want to do things differently and, well, it’s not working so well is it?”

A solvable problem?

If the question is, can we stop teen aged folks from having sex? I don’t think so.

If God designed us this way, there’s likely little we can do about it. This is wholly different than acting on a sinful desire to gossip, steal a car, gorge ourselves on cream cheese wontons, get drunk, or kill our neighbor. A 15-year-old girl having sex with her 22-year-old boyfriend is acting on a desire given them by God.

For the Bible believers out there, the Bible does not set unrealistic expectations for us and is actually quite practical. It says that if you can’t control your sexual desires, then marry the girl and quench your thirst.

Of course, we make that illegal and then wonder why we have so many problems with teen sex, STD’s, and pregnancy.

Not a popular opinion perhaps, but it is what it is. Nobody ever said God set out to be popular.

Every person is different. Some have lesser sex drives than others and some have more self-control than others. Some have a huge desire to get married or have sex, others focus is so much on other things like education or careers that sex and marriage are hardly a blip in their heads. And there are a boatload scattered throughout the middle. There are people with no sex drive and high self-control, others with high sex drive and no self-control, and others with massive sex drives and massive self-discipline - just not quite enough self-discipline in some cases.

Many have enough self discipline that they can hold off for a year or two. But the prospect of waiting 10 years?

What would happen if, instead of trying to fit everyone in to the same mold, we allowed for the differences in people and perhaps even encouraged some level of responsibility with regard to sex? If we reverted back to traditional laws of a minimum marriage age of 12 or 13 with those younger than 17 needing a parents approval. Maybe even require that one partner be over 17. You know, place responsibility back on the parents for raising children instead of on the state. Let parents who actually know those involved decide if someone is too old or too young or if the guy is a schmuck or if a 25-year-old guy getting a good start on his career will be a good husband to their 15-year-old daughter.

And then at a societal level changed our mindset from everyone waiting to get married until their twenties (and having indiscriminant sex with a variety of people until then) to allowing people to marry when they desired, even if that was 15. And then did away with our newfound fear of a 6 or 8 or whatever age difference. But at the same time strongly encouraged good choice in mates and above all, supported the newly married couple. Helped them complete their education and get settled in their careers.

Before we began instituting all of these laws and societal norms about minimum marriage ages and requiring partners to be close in age we had a bunch of problems. But did those problems even compare to the problems we have today?

Might going back to traditional laws and norms discourage the high numbers of multiple sexual partners we’re seeing in the US today? This would certainly help the STD situation. And while a husband having had multiple previous partners seems to hold only marginal negativity, at best, for his wife, the same is not true the other way. Might a higher number of girls limiting their sexual partners to just their husbands or future husbands have an impact on reducing our extremely high divorce rates?

Instead of encouraging no responsibility like we do today, might this encourage more responsible behavior?

By saying all of this I don’t think that we should stop encouraging people to wait until their twenties. If they can. That’s still probably best for most. At the same time, if they’re going to have sex and make babies anyway, let’s encourage as healthy an environment as we can.

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Note 1: Europe, with less than half the divorce rate of the US, one-fourth the unwed teen pregnancies, and one-third the abortion rate, is just the opposite. Instead of requiring partners to be close in age, society tends to favor the guy being somewhat older. Even in their laws, instead of requiring a close age as we do, they require that one partner be over 18, regardless of the age of the other partner.

Note: The chart above is comprised of averaging data from the CDC, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Guttmacher Institute. Some additional notes:

- 18% of US teens have had at least 4 sexual partners. 5 times that of Europe.

- 8% of a teen females had consensual sex with partners at least 6 years older. One third that of Europe and Asia.

- Teen sexual activity is highest among blacks, second highest among Hispanics, and lowest among whites.

- College bound students of any ethnicity are much less likely to be sexually active than non college bound students, in particular among college bound females.

- 8% of US teens between 15 and 19 become pregnant each year (13% of Blacks/Hispanics, 5% of Whites) with 30% ending in abortion.

- The US teen abortion rate is 3 times that of Europe.

- Teens girls in Europe are 5 times more likely to have a single sex partner and 4 times more likely to marry that partner than US teens. Europe has less than one half the divorce rate as the US.

FLDS: Non Traditional Marriage Ages?

There is a lot of angst among many people about the ‘untraditional marriages’ of the FLDS and in particular the age of some brides. As I’ve mentioned earlier, for those who study history the FLDS marriages not only don’t seem unusual, but are actually quite normal. Historically anyway. Following are some things to help put this in to better perspective and as a follow-up to this post that discussed this issue.

For those who are interested in additional information on this I’d strongly recommend reading ‘Marriage, A History’ by Stephanie Coontz.

Quick Disclaimer: I do not believe that in today’s culture it is advisable for anyone to marry younger than 18. On the other hand, I do not believe that government interference, particularly in the case of a sub-culture such as the FLDS, is beneficial.

(Click on the image for more detail)

This chart is based on general historical research up through 1350ce and based on genealogical data from 1350 to 2000. Each data point represents 25 years or one quarter century. This chart assumes a human existence of 8,000 years. The least amount of time humans are believed to have existed is 6,000 years. Many scientists believe 10,000 to 18,000 is more likely. Jared Diamond posits a 100,000 year existence. Imagine the date to your left as long as you desire…

Throughout the bulk of history and throughout the world it is widely believed that women married relatively soon after their first menstrual period or menarche and what information we have indicates that most married between about 13 and 17 with the majority marrying at about age 14. Beginning in about 300ce the upper age seems to have begun increasing and around 800ce leveled off at about 19.

In general it is believed that the wealthier brides married later and those in cities married later than those in rural communities.

Genealogical data on marriage dates and age of the bride and groom begins to become useable from about 1350 onward. A research project tabulating this genealogical data is currently underway with preliminary data included in the chart. This genealogical data is based on genealogies of ancestors of people residing in the US and was procured from Ancestry.com and the LDS Family History Center. Two independent sets of GEDCOM data were collected and analyzed. Each set included at least 100 useable marriages in each quarter century except for the period 1375 to 1450 which averaged 89 marriages per quarter century. A useable marriage was one where the birth date of both participants as well as the marriage date were present in the data. Both sets produced similar numbers.

The data at this point is believed relatively accurate though it is unverified. Most of this data is entered by amateur genealogists. While accuracy is somewhat of a concern, that both data sets utilizing different family names produced nearly identical results provides some level of comfort. I am not a statistician so I am relying on others for statistical expertise.

The average bridal age is the average of all marriages. The upper and lower ages were calculated based on the outer bounds to include at least the most concise 80^th percentile to 1/10 year increments. Stats folks reading this will probably understand what I just wrote far better than I. In most years the upper and lower bounds included over 90% of all marriages. Outliers generally tended to be 40% below range and 60% above. While most second marriages were believed eliminated, some could not be accurately determined.

The data indicated relative stability in ages from about 1350 to the early 1800’s. Around 1820 the upper age began to increase.

During the mid 18^th century there appeared to be a very noted temporary increase in bridal ages of those people in southern Europe. Not sure what the cause of this was. This drove up the upper end of the range but had only minimal impact on the overall average.

The two most significant jumps occurred in the quarter century ending in 1825 when the average age rose from 15.6 to 17 and in the quarter century ending in 2000 when the average age rose from 20 to 24.5.

The average age of all marriages from the genealogical data is 16.38. The lower age range dipped below 13 in the quarter centuries ending in 1425, 1500, 1550, 1675, and 1700.

FLDS: Raising The Responsibility Bar

There are clearly incidences where children need to be removed from their homes. Some parents are intentionally abusive and some are either mentally incapable of caring for their children or are just plain stupid. Removal though needs to be extremely rare, only when absolutely necessary, and only when removal will clearly produce a better outcome for the child than the status quo.

Current laws around removal of children run something like: “CPS must prove by sufficient evidence to satisfy a person of ordinary prudence and caution that: (1) reasonable efforts have been made to prevent or eliminate the need to remove the child from the child’s home; and (2) allowing the child to remain in the home would be contrary to the child’s welfare.”

Or, to sustain a child's removal from the parents, TDFPS must prove at an adversary hearing that "(1) there was a danger to the physical health or safety of the child which was caused by an act or failure to act of the person entitled to possession and for the child to remain in the home is contrary to the welfare of the child; (2) the urgent need for protection required the immediate removal of the child and reasonable efforts, consistent with the circumstances and providing for the safety of the child, were made to eliminate or prevent the child's removal; and (3) reasonable efforts have been made to enable the child to return home, but there is a substantial risk of a continuing danger if the child is returned home." Tex. Fam. Code sec. 262.201(b).

Or, “a child should be removed if he or she would be in danger with the parent or guardian or if “continuation of the child in the home would be contrary to the child’s welfare.””

These are all good as far as they go but fall short in one extremely critical element - will the removal be better for the child.

All of these existing laws make an assumption on some level that if a child is in any danger in their current home that state care will at least be safer. This is a very wrong assumption.

- The removal act itself will very likely cause mental and emotional harm to the child.

- The removal will, rightly or wrongly, likely cause harm to the child’s relationship to their parents.

- Living in any form of institutional care for any length of time is likely to cause mental and emotional harm to the child.

- An estimated 25% of children in foster care are abused.

All of these harms are also very likely to be life-long. Each mistake in removal will, at the hands of government, cause permanent harm to a child who otherwise would not be harmed.

All state laws then should include an element similar to. “That with the knowledge that the child will endure permanent mental and emotional harm by the removal and institutionalization itself and with the knowledge that the child may likely be physically and emotionally abused in institutional and foster care, that remaining in the home is clearly and convincingly a greater danger to the child than than all of those dangers presented by removal.”

This raises the bar to a more appropriate level and makes it more clear to all concerned the gravity of the decision being made.

Edit: Just after posting this I was told of this excellent post and comments on IPercieve

FLDS: Those Atrocious Underage Marriages...

In this post I mentioned the 51 marriage licenses the state of Texas issued to brides under the age of 14 in 1970 and speculated that based on our current thinking these must all be awful marriages with such terribly young brides and such. So bad in fact that today we’d make their marriages illegal, jail the parents, and take away their children.

Well, we now know how 7 of these brides lives turned out. 4 are still married, 1 died, 1 was widowed after 27 years of marriage, and 1 divorced after 11 years of marriage. The 4 who are still married all said that they are still HAPPILY married. They’ve had some rough times and one of the couples separated for a year, but all are still married, all have kids, and all said they have no regrets about their marriage.

The bride who died was married for 31 years, died when she was 43 in a car crash, had 7 children and 4 grandchildren. According to her 29 year old son his parents were the happiest people he’d ever known. They loved each other and loved their family. They were, and are, Baptist and were married in a Baptist church. Shame on the Baptists and state of Texas for allowing such an atrocious marriage.

FLDS: Here Today, Pervert Tomorrow

This is an issue that has bugged me for some time. But I’ve had and am still having difficulty putting it in to words.

On April 21 in this post I pointed out the hundreds of people Texas considered good citizens one day, but perverts the next. This because of a law brought forth by Texas State Representative Harvey Hildebran to raise the age of legal marriage.

Arbitrary laws like this are scary. It’s one thing to say that murder, assault, rape, or theft are crimes. They clearly are. Always have been and I assume always will be. These are not arbitrary. They’re pretty concrete. A murderer, rapist, or thief is a murderer, rapist, or thief yesterday, today, and tomorrow. They’ve committed a crime, an offense against another, they’re a criminal.

What I’m having a difficult time getting my head around is how, with just the stroke of a pen, a person who, on Tuesday is celebrated as a new husband, on Wednesday is now magically a criminal and is prosecuted and imprisoned as a pervert – for the exact same action. If a 40-year-old and a 14-year-old want to marry who have they committed an offense against? And why is it an offense today but never before in history?

For all eternity, thousands of years, people got married at about 14. For most of history 14 was actually the average. And this includes tens of thousands in Texas. Each and every year between 1966 and 2005 the State of Texas issued more marriage licenses to girls under 18 to marry men twice their age, 178 in 1970, 51 in 2001, than all of the girls they’ve claimed have ever been the ‘victim’ of underage marriage in the FLDS community.

In 2001 Texas licensed 9 brides under 14 and in 1970 there were 51. It’d be interesting to find these 51 and see how they faired. Franklin and Arlene, Modesto and Ana, Roy and Rita, Gary and Paula, and the 47 other couples. If they’re statistically average almost half divorced and 10% served some time in prison. Should the state of Texas have taken all of their children and thrown all of the men in Jail? Would that have produced a better outcome than whatever became of these 51 couples?

Even in the period between when the law was passed and when it took effect there were 71 legal marriage licenses issued by the state of Texas to people under 16 to get married.

Were these husbands, these 71 men, perverts? Should they have been prosecuted and jailed? Their wives and children taken from them and forced to fend for themselves? How about the 2,460 men who married women under 17 in 2002? Or any of the tens of thousands who did so prior to this new law being passed?

Was this law raising the marriage age pure religious persecution? It was fine for decades for people to marry at 14, but not now that the Mormons moved in? Jesus’ adopted father Joseph would be thrown in Jail if he lived in Texas today. As would Solomon and a long list of other Biblical figures. It might be interesting to check the ages of the wives of a few highly regarded evangelists over the past century. I bet we’ll find some criminals amongst them.

For an act to go from celebrated one day to criminal the next is a huge leap. And one I cannot make.

I don’t at all disagree with discouraging people from marrying too young. But criminalizing it? Investigating, arresting, and incarcerating husbands and fathers because we personally disagree with their lifestyle or just because we think they made a stupid choice? Because we personally think that 14 or 15 is too young to marry?

If the bride and groom both want this, if neither disagrees with it, what good do we do in criminalizing it? Marrying this young is certainly not ideal, but is throwing the husband (and potentially the father of children) in jail going to help? In the process we’re going to create one more single-mother home with a bunch of fatherless children. And we wonder why we have so many problems in our society?

If we think that by making it illegal to get married at a younger age we’ll reduce any problems, we need to open our eyes a bit. We are sexual beings and we generally begin our sexual maturity in our early teens. This is God’s law and how he created us and no law we make will change that. We may have reduced the number of 14 and 15 year olds getting married, but just as many are having sex and making babies. Now they just do it without the benefits of marriage. That sure has worked well hasn’t it?

I strongly advocate waiting to get married until at least late teens, but better yet early to mid 20’s. I also advocate waiting to have sex until marriage. But let’s be realistic. [Some people, and perhaps most even, do not have the self-control to hold off on sex until their 20’s. We’re fooling ourselves if we think anything else.]

A Better Way

There are better ways to discourage youthful marriage and do so without incurring all of the problems of making it criminal.

One is to require counseling and even that the prospective bride and groom be required to review and sign, with the counselor, a document that spells out the potential pitfalls of getting married too young and that both the bride and groom are willing participants and are not being coerced against their will. A state can even require that this be done before a judge. Here though the Judge’s only function is to insure that they know what they are doing and that they are doing so of their own will – that neither are being forced.

And you know what, some of these marriages will fail. The couples will have arguments and disagreements and some will end in divorce. But this is better than the state going in and prematurely ending these marriages because you know what else? Some of these marriages, and maybe even most of them, will be successful. They will produce children who will grow up in a two-parent home with parents at least as imperfect as any of us who married in our twenties. But also parents who love them and want the best for them.

WWJD

Yes, What Would Jesus Do? If Jesus met a 40-year-old man who had a 14-year-old wife would he throw the guy in jail? If they had a kid or two would he call that proof that the guy had sexually abused an underage girl and then throw him in jail? Tell her that she was stupid to have married him and now she’s on her own to raise her children without her husband?

I don’t think so. I think he would encourage them in their marriage. Encourage them to stay together and raise their children to the best of their ability.

FLDS: Financial Costs

The Deseret News today published this article stating that the costs to the State of Texas thus far are about $14 million. That's a lot of money to most of us, just not to many politicians and law enforcement.

The article did say that the State of Texas does expect the costs to rise as more invoices come in, as more is done on the case, and they do expect to pay out several million dollars to FLDS and others in litigation.

What costs may not be included?

- Costs for caring for children already in foster care who were dislocated to make room for the FLDS children.

- Opportunity costs of Texas Government employees being side-tracked to work on this case instead of their normal jobs. What of their work didn't get done? What children truly in need of protection didn't get it? What crimes were committed because so many in law enforcement were at the YFZ ranch or working on other aspects of this case? What children already in CPS' care didn't get the care they needed because CPS was consumed with the FLDS raid?

- Opportunity costs of having so many attorneys doing pro-bono work for FLDS children and families? What work of theirs didn't get done in the meantime? What was the cost to their families of their being away from home to work on this?

- Costs to FLDS families in gas, hotel, and food as they drove all over Texas to visit their children?

More?

Who do You want to rescue You?

Listening to news reports of Boy Scouts in Iowa springing in to action to save their mates I thought about some of the persecution the Scouts have come under. I also thought about the FLDS kids and many of their parents. If you were hurt and trapped from a tornado who would you want around to rescue you? An average US teen? Boy Scout? Teen from FLDS?

There are some terrific teens in the US who are not Scouts and who are not part of the FLDS, but if I needed rescuing I'd hope for a Scout or one of the teens from the FLDS. How about you?

FLDS: When We Get Restraining Orders Against Our Own Government!

A Judge has issued a well deserved restraining order against Texas' CPS. In her order she stated: “I am not going to allow CPS or any other agency to interfere with parents in this state.”

From: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA061008.1B.FLDShearing.3899a1c.html

Can't wait to see what the appeals courts says.

Original FLDS warrant denied?

According to a story here, the original request for a warrant was denied due to insufficient evidence. Some quick searching on Judge Johnny Griffin reveals that he has taken a moderate approach towards the FLDS even as his apparent friend, Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran, was getting antsy about them.

FLDS: Pots and Kettles and Who's Calling Who What?

A couple of years ago I met individually with a number of child welfare workers for some research. These are the people who decide if a child should be removed from a home, who write up recommendations for the court regarding the child’s future, who work with parents on creating a better home environment, and who inform courts if parents are fit to be parents or not. One thing that really struck me was the family life of these folks themselves. One very interesting thing that struck me was that those married with children were outnumbered by those single with children. Single because they were either divorced or had never even married the other parent. And these are the people telling others how to create a good home?

This was not even remotely scientific, but it would be interesting, if someone hasn’t already, to study this issue and find out just who we are relying on to determine who is fit to be a parent. Maybe next year.

As an old song says “If you can’t even run your own life, I’ll be damned if you’ll run mine.”

On a related note, just who is the state saying is or is not a fit parent? Apparently Texas’ CPS is OK with a polygynous relationship where some guy makes a baby with a teen girl and then runs off. There are some pretty reliable statistics to indicate that this kid is extremely likely to become a teen mom or dad themselves (and they are also likely to become a criminal). I can’t find any records of CPS raiding these homes, even though there are thousands more of them throughout the state. Even when CPS does get involved in these it’s rare that they remove children from the home. Yet, in a polygynous relationship where dad sticks around to help raise all of his kids and where evidence indicates that extremely few, if any, will turn out to be criminals, CPS deems it necessary to confiscate the kids.

FLDS: Texas Authorities Snake Bit?

I’ve found it rather interesting that the topic of polygyny has not been mentioned in any of the service plans or, to the best of my knowledge, in any of the custody hearings. There is certainly the possibility that CPS, given the vagueness of the service plans, intends to make it a part of each individual case. Perhaps as part of a ‘safe home environment’.

Another possibility though is that the State of Texas may be snake bit after their disagreement with Mr. Lawrence and his partner. Might they be thinking that going after the polygynists for polygyny in a legal court could wind up with a prohibition on polygyny being declared unconstitutional? Lawrence vs Texas certainly establishes a stage for that. In fact Justice Scalia, in his dissent made this point specifically. Stay tuned.

FLDS: Texas CPS !!

A quick cursory look through some statutory rape cases in Texas seems to indicate a pattern of going only after racial or religious minorities. Prior to the potential charges of statutory rape against the men in the FLDS compound, the State of Texas appears to have previously concentrated on African Americans. Either the Texas Authorities have a prejudice problem or whites in Texas don't commit statutory rape. If anyone has any better information on this issue, for or against, please stop by my office.

Also, for anyone not already concerned about the power of government intrusion I invite you to read a novel. "Custody of the State" is by Craig Parshall. Craig btw is the husband of Janet Parshall of Janet Parshall's America radio program. They are both great people and I highly recommend Janet's radio show.

FLDS: Where'd the boys go?

The FLDS site now includes a chart of the gender and ages of those taken in the raid.

http://www.captivefldschildren.org/Counts.php

Since this represents all of the children (or supposed children) in the YFZ ranch it is interesting to note the relative numbers of males and females. In the younger generation there are slightly more males, but in the teens there is an abnormally low number of males to the number of females than can realistically be explained by natural childbirth. What happened to the males? More lost boys?

FLDS: Truth in Advertising

Some things just don’t smell right. Today the FLDS website (http://www.fldstruth.org) began filling in their Q&A section. This included:

Q: Are women forced into marriage?

A: No. The young girls are taught all their lives that marriage is a sacred choice that they must make. They are taught to keep their bodies covered and live a life of cleanliness and purity according to the teachings of our Savior.

I don’t doubt that this is a truthful answer, but is it an honest answer? Is this truly a choice? Is a girl completely free to say that she doesn’t want to marry some guy who’s been chosen for her? Is the choice really one between marrying the chosen groom or being put out of the community and separated from family and everyone they’ve ever known for the rest of their life? Technically that’s a choice, just not much of one. Are girls taught all their lives that when the time comes they MUST make the choice that is given them? Are they taught all of their lives that if they don’t ‘make the choice’ to marry the chosen groom that they will spend eternity in hell?

Q: Even if a young woman had the desire to leave the ranch, would she be allowed to leave with all her children?

A: If any one in our communities desire to leave, there is no one that will stand in the way. We have had women who have decided to leave that have taken their children. We have had women who have decided to leave their children with their loving fathers and the mothers who wanted to stay with him. We are taught to think for ourselves and make our own choices.

As above, are there caveats to ‘free to leave’? Is it perhaps free to leave, but if they do they will never see their family again, they will never see any of the only people they’ve ever known in their lives again? What kind of choice is that? And though the official position may be that people are free to leave, how many individuals might act differently? What might an individual husband do if his wife takes off with their kids? In what ways will he threaten her?

Now, to put all of this in a bit of perspective. For most people who grew up prior to the 20^th century, including all of those in our Christian Bible, the choices offered within the FLDS were likely the norm. Parents chose spouses for their children; sometimes purely on their own, sometimes with input from a tribal or other spiritual leader, sometimes with input from the bride and groom, sometimes without. This doesn’t necessarily make it right or wrong, but the FLDS is far from an aberration.

Also, given all of the problems in our society, I can certainly understand a group wanting to stay as separate from it as possible. On more than a few occasions I’ve thought how nice it would be to gather together a bunch of like-minded folks and form our own community. A community where we have similar beliefs with regard to how we raise our children and what we teach them about drugs, sex, personal and corporate responsibility, obesity, integrity, and a host of other issues.

I can also understand people wanting to choose a spouse for their daughter (or son). I haven’t been through having a child marry yet, but many of my friends have and many of us have seen disaster waiting at the alter. There is an abundance of wisdom and insight that is gained after years of marriage that younger folks simply do not have. The groom is an absolute dream romantically, is good looking, and is overall a nice guy. But, he has the work ethic and morals of a noodle – no disrespect to rigatoni intended.

OK, back on topic. I don’t particularly like being lied to or misled and here I felt misled by the FLDS. I still believe that based on what we know so far that the Texas Authorities were wrong in their response. I still believe that they way over-reacted. I still believe that it would have been much better to have not removed anyone from the YFZ ranch but instead to have begun an investigation and removed only those people who had clearly violated the law or who were clearly in danger of real abuse.

As much as we in America like things to be black and white, as much as we like everything to come down to good guys and bad guys, that’s not always the case. In this one both sides appear to have their issues.

FLDS: Religious Persecution ?

Teen brides marrying older men isn’t exactly old history for Texas where yesterday the Houston Chronicle noted: ‘State Rep. Harvey Hilderbran became alarmed by reports from Eldorado, former sect members and the Utah attorney general. In 2005 he pushed into law a bill that raised the legal age of consent to marry in Texas from 14 to 16.’

In 2001 and 2002, the years just prior to the FLDS moving in, the State of Texas issued legal marriage licenses each year to over 800 girls under the age of 16 and many were for these women to marry older men:

	Marriage Licenses Issued by The State of Texas (By Age of Bride and Groom) Annual Average: 2001 - 2002
Groom:	0-24	25-29	30's	40's	50's	60's
Bride:
14	144	16	2	2
15	598	44	8	2
16	1452	128	24	6	2	2
17	2756	158	50	6

Aside from the FLDS the State of Texas certainly doesn’t appear to have any problems with young girls marrying or with them marrying older men. Each and every year between 1966 and 2005 the State of Texas issued more marriage licenses to girls under 18 to marry men twice their age (Example: 178 in 1970, 51 in 2001) than all of the girls they’ve claimed have ever been abused in the FLDS community.

Even in 2006 with it’s new minimum marriage age of 16 the State of Texas issued marriage licenses to 3 14-year-old girls and 25 15-year-old girls. Presumably these were before the law took effect.

There are currently an estimated 58,000 children in Texas who were born to girls under 16. About 60% to single teen moms. How many of them do you believe will have a better life than those growing up in the FLDS?

FLDS: The Important Question

It’s all well and good to get historical perspective, and it’s important, but now we get to the question that is of paramount importance – have we done the right thing? What are we saving these kids from? Or more importantly, what are we saving them to? Will their life be better after being ripped from their parents, placed in foster homes, moved around from foster home to shelter to foster home, and setup for a life in our ‘normal’ world?

What impact does it have on a 4, 7, 10, or 17-year-old child to be ripped from their parents and told that their parents are being investigated by ‘the authorities’? That their parents are criminals? Parents who have likely been very loving and caring? If their parents are completely 100% innocent of breaking any law have we helped these kids?

Even if their parents are guilty of polygyny are we making any of their lives any better? Even, and many will be aghast at this thought, if their parents are guilty of telling a 14-year-old to marry a 40-year-old who already has 2 other wives?

My first concern is foster care itself. It is an important and valuable system, but is not even remotely perfect. There are some absolutely great foster parents in the US whom I have a great deal of respect for. Congresswoman Michelle Bachman and her husband, whom I have known for almost 2 decades (though sometimes don’t see quite eye to eye), are absolute saints when it comes to Foster Parents. And they’re far from the only ones.

There are also a lot who are found to be very poor parents and sometimes abusers.

Most studies indicate that about 25% of kids in foster care, whether in private homes or institutional group homes, are abused. Is having hundreds of kids suddenly thrown at an already overloaded system likely to improve that any? Current reports indicate that out of the 437 kids in Texas custody there are between 5 and 20 who are either already parents or pregnant. That’s at best 5% - assuming all 20 were under the legal age. Now, which environment do you believe is better for these children – the one where 25% are likely to be truly abused or the one where 1% ( or even 2% or 5% or 10%) are likely to be married off prior to 18 to a husband who will very likely stick with them for life? Many people are calling this latter situation rape but think for a minute about the two scenario’s.

We criticize them for polygyny, but is this really worse than our society of serial polygyny? Is growing up in polygyny really worse than growing up with parents who divorce, remarry someone else, and then divorce again - all the while spewing hatred towards their former spouses – the parent of their children? Is the FLDS really worse than the unwed teen mothers who abound in so much of our society? In the FLDS a teen mom has a husband that in all likelihood, according to evidence and testimony, loves her and cares for her and their children? How many of the 437 ripped from their parents will become latchkey kids who come home from school to no parents and nothing but Grand Theft Auto to entertain them?

We’re aghast at these kids having one father and multiple moms, yet how many kids in our ‘normal’ society don’t have a father at all because he’s in prison, off with another woman, or simply gone because while he wanted to make a baby he doesn’t want any part in raising one? How many of these non-FLDS kids end up thrown in to group homes or scuttled around between relatives because mom is a drug addict?

If these kids become part of our mainstream ‘normal’ society will they follow the rest of our teens with 25% getting an STD? How many will become alcoholics or drug addicts? Will any get drunk and kill someone in a drunken driving accident? Will they achieve the same level of obesity we have? How many will face bullying in school similar to that which caused incidents such as we witnessed at Columbine? How many will become bullies?

Almost 5% of 15-19 year old girls in our ‘normal’ society give birth. Would you like to take a guess how many of these women have husbands and how many of their kids will grow up with a father? How many of these children will grow up to be just as responsible as their own parents? How many will grow up to be criminals?

The number of girls in our ‘normal’ society who get pregnant is considerably higher than 5% though. How many of these 437 kids will follow in our practice of getting abortions to avoid an undesired pregnancy?

It takes a rather extreme amount of gall and ignorance to think that we’re helping anyone by pulling these kids from their homes without overwhelming evidence that real true abuse is happening and knowledge that they will clearly be better in institutional group homes or foster homes in our ‘normal’ society than in their cloistered environment.

Given the world we live in who can blame the FLDS for wanting to separate themselves from it?

If we are going to go after people we need to do it for the right reasons and most importantly we need to make sure that our actions do not create a worse situation than already exists.

Oh, the beds in the temple mentioned earlier? According to several people, including harsh critics of the FLDS, this was very unlikely to have ever been used for sex. These were most likely for people who were not feeling well to lay down during very long church services or after fasting.