Discrimination Against FLDS Children and Mothers

I watched the interviews of women, mothers, from the recent Fundamental Latter Day Saints raid. I saw them speak about the pain of having their children separated from them and how they know this separation is the only "abuse" they have been exposed to, and that this is done by the hands of the state. In my opinion, what has happened is a violation of civil rights, violation of due process, and discrimination against a religion.

I am disappointed but not surprised by how even the U.S. media has treated these women, and spoken to them. First, I saw a FOX news anchor, woman, who said she was sympathic only in that she was also a mother, but how she couldn't understand their lifestyle. She went on to tell THEM, these other mothers, about battered women's syndrome and how she feels they are manipulated and can't get out of their situation. She and other anchors asked these women if they understood their practice of polygamy was "illegal". Later, I saw Larry King ask the same question, and answer it himself. "Illegal" he said.

Most people are not FDLS. Most women do not wear dresses with puffed sleeves like the garb Anne Shirley wore in the PBS movie "Anne of Green Gables", nor do they style their hair on top of their heads like gibson girls without the pomade, or reminiscent of the Amish or Mennonite. Most women are also not sharing their lovers, husbands, or boyfriens, with several other women, consensually. Those women who do have "open marriages" are not also practicing a religion which historically made polygamy a tenent of the faith.

Perspective. This is the tragic story of a major social construct clashing with individual right to choice and separation of church and state.

The common claim by media is that "polygamy is illegal" and yet there are no formal and government recognized "marriages" so in actuality, these people are NOT doing anything "illegal". They form their own "spiritual" marriages, which is something one Br. Ansgar Santogrossi, catholic monk of Mt. Angel Abbey, proposed to ME directly.

These spiritual marriages allow this community the security of feeling their practice is "valid" and recognized by their church and religion, and yet prevents them from committing a crime. Their practice of women sharing men happens everyday in the United States, in dating, open marriages, and through mistress-master arrangments which are all legal. Furthermore, governmentally recognized and sanctioned polygamy still occurs in the Middle East, and was the common form of marriage in early Judaism. Early Christians also had more than one wife.

As a feminist, I believe it's sexist, and it's not something I agree with or condone, but I can stand apart from my own values and constructs enough to see that the rights of this group are constantly in danger, and that it is a violation of religious freedom when they clearly believe and choose to believe in this teaching, and when the harm is obviously greater than the good in OUR culture's mainstream wishes to push our ideology upon them.

There was an informant within this community for a very long time who could not find any criminal or abusive activity. Then there was one phone call from someone who has since not come forward, who claimed to be forced into marriage at 16 and abused. If this is true, the direct people involved with the girl may be under investigation, but it is not grounds to traumatically separate an entire community from eachother. And if this is really about teen marriages, why were all the younger kids taken? CPS and the state have pushed their own values of what is "correct" onto a religious community and then tried to break up a whole community in order to isolate people and attempt to convert and change them to their way of thinking. As the FLDS mothers said, it is not that they are trying to "be mean" but that they do not understand their religion or culture.

After an interview of the mothers, a Catholic priest was ready to give feedback, calling this group, clearing a "cult". Which I found fascinating as after my problems with the monastery, when I called the director of the major American Psychological Association (?), he informed me he regarded the Catholic church as a cult, and later called me himself to say he had actually meant it had "cult-like" elements and not to quote him anywhere. The irony here, is that these women dressed like Amish, who look so different, are being judged by a priest who is also wearing a curious costume, which normal people do wear, and HIS church not only requires their religious NOT to have any sexual contact or even MARRIAGE altogether, but they also teach their members that the bread and wine mystically and actually become the very essence, body and blood, of Christ Himself. Throw in some purgatory, especially for unbaptised babies, who until recently were damned if they died without baptisism, and you have a religion which, despite its curious practices, has transcended the odd "cult" definition to being accepted without a cursory glance! How many of us have regarded saints who entered the monasteries in their teens to become sisters, brothers, monks and nuns, to be "abused" and coerced? They are raised in the same kinds of families that the FLDS followers are raised in, and both have unusual perspectives on the role of marriage.

No one claimed all the children were being physically abused. There was ONE accusation that she or some are forced into marriages earlier than they liked. Which, if true, is abuse. Yet how do you get "reasonable cause" when an INFORMANT was there LOOKING for signs of abuse all along, and came up with nothing?

It seems then that the particular individual who came forward, and the direct people she was involved with, could be investigated, but NOT the entire community, for which they are NO claims and zero evidence of abuse. To target a whole religious group, and separate ALL of the families belonging to this religious faith, based on unproven accusations of assault which may have occured in one of the families, is unjustified, and plain religious discrimination.

Disagreeing with someone's beliefs and religion, and feeling those people are deluded or manipulated is not grounds to claim those individuals are being "emotionally abused".

The purpose of the state, in removing all of these children is NOT because they even believe the kids are unhappy, in distress, traumatized, or harmed, but because the workers for the state have a different opinion of what "faith" and "religion" should look like and what kind of box to put it into.

Canada doesn't harass these communities, which is probably why some which were in the U.S. have found a kind of refuge there. They are left alone.

These children, all those under their teens, should be immediately returned to their mothers for lack of cause, and those who are potentially within the "marriageable" age range should be interviewed, and upon satisfaction, returned to their families.

Do not feel sorry for these women of the FLDS faith. They are no more incapable of making choices for themselves than we are, through whatever social circumstances we have been raised with, and pressured by our peers to accept.

It is not "better" to have fundamental Catholic families grooming their sons or daughters for the religious vocations (which in turn brings them throuh purgatory more quickly) which reject marriage altogether, than it is for families to be grooming their sons or daughters to an alternative form of marriage (which should be after age 18 if it is not a governmentally recognized marriage, because otherwise then becomes statutory rape). We all have choices, and our country allows the parents to educate and raise their children in the faith of their choice. At some point, we all make individual choices for ourselves.

No one in CPS seems to be taking children away from women who work for escort services, or from high class call girls, or from families whose fathers entertain mistresses and multiple relationships. This is primarily a knee-jerk reaction fomented by prejudice and discrimination of a religion most of don't want a part of, don't agree with, and don't understand.