@Alicia: I don't claim that the Mormons are Christian at all. I believe that forced marriage is wrong, as is polygamy.

As to whether these people are polygamists is tough to say, especially in light of two things:
1. A number of states permit the marriage of people we would consider minors (less than 16).
2. Almost every town I know of has children at this age engaging in sexual intercourse without the benefit of marriage.

When I defend their right to have their children, I'm not defending their practices, but the fact that the government overreached:
1. The call was not even from the same state.
2. They took the males as well as the females.
3. They took children way under age for the alleged crime.
4. They took children based solely on the parent's religion.

And if this were the only case, I also wouldn't be up in arms... Except it isn't. It usually has to do with alleged physical abuse-- or it can be as innocuous as not knowing that a given drink is alcoholic and buying it for your kid at a game.

Have there been any documented instances of “abuse” other than at the marriage bed in the temple? Any “marriages” up and coming? If not, I’m not sure that there was an impending situation that this stopped from happening.

Did you catch my updates to the post? Not all of these families were polygamists, and some were divorced single moms. It beginning to look really bad for the government that they didn’t take more care to practice a little more discression.

As for Anytown, USA, check out this from New Hampshire’s law:

457:4 Marriageable. – No male below the age of 14 years and no female below the age of 13 years shall be capable of contracting a valid marriage, and all marriages contracted by such persons shall be null and void.

Turns out that a marriage between a 13 and 14 year old is considered legal in a whole state of the USA– I haven’t checked other states.

I’m not up on their culture enough to make a judgment call as to the maturity level of their 13 and 14 year olds. I’ve read that the woman’s body isn’t as physically mature to carry a baby as she will be at 20. I’m stuck in a catch-22 of sorts. I’d rather teens be in committed relationships having sex and children than I would for them to have premarital sex and having children (as they do in Everytown, USA) with the government’s blessing and protection.

As for the last paragraph, I agree with you. I don’t think that there are many, if any, 13 or 14 year olds in our culture that are ready for sex, let alone for pregnancy– definitely not marriage. We keep our children kids for a very long time in our culture and don’t really encourage responsibility the way other cultures do. And part of that is because of what we’re blessed with and our life expectancy. Some cultures elevate children a whole lot faster because life is short, and they will need to be leaders soon.

Is one culture right about kids and the other wrong?

I feel badly for the mothers and the children. I am sure it is gut-wrenching. The issue is not polygamy, it’s polygamy with underage girls…not here or there, but consistent impregnation of young girls….girls who would otherwise be in 7th or 8th grade…..by men who are much, much older than them.

If this were Anytown, Usa those men would be sitting in jail and labeled as sex offenders/predators.

We can argue that in previous cultures girls this young have been married off, but I would venture/hope to say that anyone here who had/has a daughter would not use that argument if their daughter ran off at 13 to join this cult and wound up married and pregnant a year later.

It will be interesting to see how this situation is resolved.

Marys last blog post..Calm Before and After, the Storm

A year or so back I watched one of those documentaries on a woman that left one of these compounds, and I probably had much the same reaction as you when the woman changed her mind and went back after she had had help and freedom. I couldn’t fathom why she would do that– and yet it turned out that the reason the woman went back was because she was having a specific grievance, and didn’t have trouble with the entire culture.

And that’s my hang up. My Christian morality wars here with my heart for the children. I believe they’re in sin. I believe that they shouldn’t be polygamist, but I’m not sure that they are as forced as you imply. Yes, they hold a closed compound, but are we sure that given the opportunity many would leave?

I know that the Amish have a similar cultural structure, and are even more technology-less than the Mormons, and they are all given a chance to go out and see if the really want to be Amish. I’m also told that many decide to continue on.

So, yes. If they aren’t given an opportunity to leave, there has to be some kind of intervention. I just don’t see the benefit of taking every single child and ripping them away from their parents over a phony call. Do it because they aren’t letting people out. Do it because it’s bigamy. Do something, but not take these children and scar them for life.

You see, an adult can look at this circumstance and say, “well, I’m pretty certain that the parents and children have a good chance of being reunited someday.” The child knows none of that. All they know is the same as any kidnapped child knows. I want my mom and dad and someone’s preventing me from seeing them, and I may never see them again.

We all agree there’s problems here, what I disagree with is the solution.

These girls have little to no say in what their future holds. They have one purpose and that is to be wives and bear children to men who are much older than them,and who have multiple othe wives.

They live on a compound with no ability to come and go independently, and no knowledge of any help that might be outside the walls in which they grew up.

If they are miserable, who can they go to for help?

It is horrible that these children will be removed for the choices their parnets have made. It will be traumatic for them. Hopefully, once things have been sorted out, some of them might eventually be reunited with their families.

Keep in mind,though, that the members of this cult have lied and misrepresented the situation repeatedly. That’s why they have to do DNA tests, because they can’t get any straight answers from these people. That is not a hopeful sign of people willing to comply and make authorites aware of what exactly has transpired in that camp.

The consequences for these children are squarely the fault of the parents, not the state.

And I’m definitely with you on returning the children– but I don’t know why they had to be removed in the first place (especially the younger ones). Up until that phony call there was no problem with them raising their children. If they’re attempting to protect the young ladies, how did removing all the children accomplish this?

It seems to me this is another example of government overreach (and this is precisely the point). Just like they burned Waco, and took Elian Gonzales, here’s the government going in with a hammer to accomplish what they could have done in a more thoughtful matter.

And again, what scares me is that more people aren’t calling out for the government to make it right, and are defending the forced abduction and redistribution of these children. And the fact that they have the audacity to say that they’re going to push so that none of these children are returned– that puts me over the edge.