7th April 2008

Both sides now

posted in News, Religion |

Like many people, I read the news from Eldorado, Texas, with a pre-emptive fear.  I feared another Waco.  They feared another Waco, sending a horde of ambulances and fire equipment out with with police.  Thankfully, Waco II never materialized, and, as of this writing, 534 women and children have been "removed" from the compound.

As many of my readers know, I’m not religious.  I’m vaguely spiritual in a woo-esque manner.  I find organized religion to be, on the whole, suspect; in general I think that it’s yet another way for humans to exert control on one another, using their "privileged" interpretation of written texts about mysterious omniscient beings to exhort their followers to do This Thing or That Thing, and collect money at the same time.

Certainly, this particular offshoot of Mormonism (not mainstream Mormonism, by any means) has its fair share of that entire outlook on religion.  Young teenage girls are married off to older men with nary a yea or nay allowed.  Those older man–pillars of the church, all–get a bevy of lithe, untouched girls of their very own.  The younger men…well, they’re SOL.  Gotta pay their dues, work their way up through the church ranks, become one of the Chosen, before they, too, can partake of the youthful bounty.

And yet.

And yet.

"Imminent danger" says the warrant.  How many were in "imminent danger"?  For how long?  Why was it suddenly necessary to do this?

In the pictures, I see women and children who are weeping and confused.  Being ripped from their family lives, thrust into the national spotlight, children sent off to foster families, women off to (I suppose) shelters. 

"They have no concept of mainstream society, and their mothers were born into and have no concept of mainstream culture. Their grandmothers were born into it."  These are the words of one woman who left the compound with her children years ago.

What will these people do?

What will happen to these children?

How can a judge claim that all of them are in "imminent danger", when a week ago they were just living their lives and only one girl called in seeking help?

I am so torn.  I despise a culture that keeps women barefoot, pregnant, and strictly limited in their life’s choices.  I cannot condone girls being thrust into sexual relationships at the ordering of some church elder.  At the same time, I think of, say, my dotter being suddenly ripped from our household and stuck in a foster family, with absolutely no idea why, no concept of it. 

If the authorities had reason to think that specific girls or children were in "imminent danger", then those girls/children should have been removed.  Not the wholesale splitting of families that this raid has engendered.

In addition, a similar raid back in the ’50s led to the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints withdrawing even further from the world, isolating themselves and producing a societal situation where it was "us against them".  This raid will no doubt cement that feeling within this group…making it more difficult to effect change or move in when there is obvious and substantial evidence of abuse.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 8:58 pm and is filed under News, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 6 responses to “Both sides now”

  1. 1 On April 8th, 2008, Julie Pippert said:

    ME TOO!!! Thanks for writing about this. I have had it spinning around in my head (we’re inundated with the story here as you can imagine) and no time to process via blog.

    Part of me agrees completely with your ending conclusion. And logically I think that’s probably right.

    But part of me thinks it has to do with the broad definition of danger. Those women by my thinking were all in danger. This is emotional “thinking.”

    What a rub.

  2. 2 On April 8th, 2008, Lisa said:

    Honestly, I completely agree. I thought to myself — how are they going to find enough foster families for all of these kids? And also — the mothers of the children are victims themselves in some ways, so why should they lose their kids?

  3. 3 On April 8th, 2008, Robert said:

    Julie forwarded me this post to read. I find your perspective interesting. I do think multiple rape convictions of the founder, along with various other stories coming out of the group, would constitute what you refer to as “imminent danger”. That’s just my take on the group. I’m certainly not big on the government’s involvement in religious practices, definitely, but I can understand their move to protect these children. I’m not sure that the government, though, will do much good in their effort, as you suggest, because what they have done simply makes momentary headlines, but these families will deal with the blowback for years - if not decades - to come. In the end, it probably all comes down to deciding where the government has a right to determine where safety overrides religious belief, and that is a dangerous subject.

  4. 4 On April 8th, 2008, Robert said:

    To your comment of why the mothers might lose their children, I imagine child endangerment laws “justify” the mothers losing the children. By allowing their children to be subjected to these rapes, they have shown an inability to adequately protect children. That’s the government argument, anyway.

  5. 5 On April 8th, 2008, Blog Antatonist said:

    I agree to an extent. We can’t allow civil authorities to dictate what religious beliefs and lifestyles are acceptable, or we’d all likely wind up in jail.

    But I saw an interview with one of the women who escaped three years ago, and the things she said were chilling. There is no doubt that what she and her eight children experienced was abuse.

    I’m torn on the whole issue, and like you, I feared it would end badly. I’m just glad there were no lives lost.

  6. 6 On April 8th, 2008, Jean Woodman said:

    I thoroughly agree. What bugs me is these women are also being treated not only as victims but also criminals. I think the state has the right to protect the children from forced marriages. And the women’s rights to make their own decisions as in society at large should be enforced. But they shouldn’t be forced to lose their children.

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