SAN ANGELO, Texas — A witness for some parents Friday said there was no sexual activity in the temple at the polygamist group's compound in West Texas. Was he present since the place was built???.
The man, W. John Walsh, who was presented by defense lawyers as an expert on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, disputed the state's contention that a bed in the retreat's gleaming white temple was never used to consummate the marriages of underage girls to much older men. He disputes the contention that it was never used ? Or he knows that it was???
Experts for the prosecutors testified that girls in the polygamous sect enter into underage marriages without resistance because they are ruthlessly indoctrinated from birth to believe disobedience will lead to their damnation. Well, the girls/mothers we've seen certainly look "obedient" to something or other!
Don't you have laws about educating children? In this case the children before the court are aged from 6 months to 17 years. Why aren't they at school from 5 years?
How is it possible for a compound to exist when there must have been rumours that the occupants were young and giving birth, that the sexual activity was not what is normal outside and so forth, without the US equivalent of British Social Services going in to investigate? Why does it need some 16 year old to telephone the outside world before anything is done? The place is occupied by people who the world knows to have interesting ideas about marriage and reproduction.
Weren't the births being registered anywhere? You'd expect the local health worker to visit soon after the birth (well, you would in Britain).If he or she was fobbed off or denied access then 'alarm bells would ring'.
The whole story is utterly incomprehensible. It gives rise to so many questions.
Our Social Services get blamed a lot when things go wrong; this is invariably when a child is killed or mistreated by its parents and Social Services have been incompetent when they were, or should have been, on notice; but a case like this could surely never happen
Is this all because the emphasis is on allowing freedom to everyone to live how they will, particularly when religion is involved?
This was really too funny to open up the link and potentially spoil. At MSN.com there is a current news item entitled "Polygamists make a fashion statement"
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