More News Stories and Links

There are a bunch of good links and stories out there. I really want to include more, but these are just some I happened across today.

Do the FLDS in Texas Deserve Due Process? I Mean, Polygamy’s Worse Than Murder, Right?

It’s easy to pick on people that are different — and, as far as I can tell, that’s what’s happening to the FLDS in Texas. There’s been no court proceedings that have shown the individual parents of the abducted children have done anything untoward to their kids. (None that’ve been even suggested publicly, at least.) What there has been is a religious group that has different practices than are observed in the “mainstream”. And since they’re different, well then, there’s not going to be much of an outcry if we strip them of their rights, right?

Where's the evidence of abuse?

The Grit's blogger comes through in this very excellent op-ed piece.

Excuse me, Judge? You issued a sweeping, house-to-house search warrant based on a highly questionable anonymous call that turned out to be phony. You refused to allow individual hearings for children, grouping them together like cattle. You accepted the testimony of an expert on "cults" who only learned about FLDS from media accounts, rather than an academic who'd studied them professionally for 18 years.

A Vermont Expert's Take on Polygamy
Lyndon State College Professor Janet Bennion

If you can establish abuse, of course intervention must be made, but use an intervention that doesn't break the constitution and that doesn't violate all these civil rights laws

Life on the rock: A different brand of polygamy

It's simply a place where we strive to respect each other's differences

Polygamy in Islamic Law
Dr. Jamal Badawi examines polygamy in the Muslim, Jewish and Christian traditions.

Texas judge's 'concern'
Editorial by Ed Firmage Jr., Salt Lake City

Why? Because Walther thinks that membership in a religious group alone is grounds for ripping your children, even your nursing babies, from your arms and giving them to proper parents. Her justification: Belonging to your religion may - may - lead to abuse.

Parents Bill of Rights

WE THE PEOPLE do hereby insist on a Parent's Bill of Rights as an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect in perpetuity the family.

Some of these are rather old, but I wanted links to them for the record.