This whole situation has me in a quandary. I hate the child marriage, teenage son abandonment and the welfare fraud (beast bleeding) of these polygamists. Even if the FLDS practiced polygamy without the abuses I would still find it seriously objectionable. Men and women cannot properly rear children when they are not committed exclusively to each other. I think all the specific cases against the FLDS need to be relentlessly and vigorously prosecuted.
But I will be the first to admit every parent’s right to rear children according to their own doctrinal and ideological beliefs and the attack on the FLDS is one step away from an attack on me and my conservative Christian beliefs and lifestyle. It won’t be long before they come looking to take children away from parents who teach their children that a homosexual or promiscuous lifestyle is wrong.
The state needs to carry on the fight against specific abuses but the wholesale lockup of these children on the most fraudulent and flimsy grounds is an embarassment to the state of Texas.
