Polygamy that involves child abuse - Holmes, Randman, CS?

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services got phone calls from a 16 year old girl inside the compound. She'd been taken there at 13 years of age, where she was promptly "married" to a 49 year old man and impregnated. That man has already been convicted of child sexual abuse in the past. She has one young child and is pregnant with another.She reported being physically abused by her "husband" repeatedly and not being allowed to leave the compound except for medical purposes, and only then when accompanied by a male from the compound. They would not allow her to take her infant child with her off the property, which serves to insure that she won't try to escape. This is classic cult behavior.

My argument is not simply the prevention of abuse. My argument is that banning polygamy won't even reduce the abuse, in any way whatsoever.

No. Those girls will not be raped because they broke up the "secret society" that was going on.

Making polygamy illigal will have no effect whatsoever on the functionality of isolated communities such as FDLS.

And prohibiting polygamy will only serve to have the FLDS change it's tenets.

wiki writes:The FLDS Church teaches the doctrine of plural marriage, which states that a man having multiple wives is ordained by God and is a requirement for a man to receive the highest form of salvation. It is generally believed in the church that a man should have a minimum of three wives to fulfill this requirement.[27] Connected with this doctrine is the concept that wives are required to be subordinate to their husbands.

1. They can have sex with multiple partners.
2. They can live with multiple partners.
3. They can have children with multiple partners.

No. My entire point is that polyamory is functionally exactly the same as polygamy, and polyamory is constitionally defended.

Allegations of welfare fraud, militant organizations, incest, statutory rape, physical, emotional and psychological abuse have been widely reported in American media.

In 2003, the church received increased attention from the state of Utah when police officer Rodney Holm, a member of the church, was convicted of unlawful sexual conduct with a 16- or 17-year-old and one count of bigamy for his marriage to and impregnation of plural wife Ruth Stubbs.

After seeing high-profile FLDS Church critic Flora Jessop on the ABC television program Primetime Live on March 4, 2004, concerned Eldorado residents contacted Jessop. She investigated and on March 25, 2004, Jessop held a press conference in Eldorado confirming that the new neighbors were FLDS Church adherents.

In July 2005 eight men of the church were indicted for sexual contact with minors. At least some of them surrendered to police in Kingman, Arizona.On July 29, 2005, Brent Jeffs filed suit accusing three of his uncles, including Warren Jeffs, of sexually assaulting him when he was a child. The suit also named the FLDS Church as a defendant.

On May 7, 2006, the FBI named Warren Jeffs to their Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on charges of sexual misconduct with minors.

Really? Cool. I'm interested in the results as well.

Currently, under section 293 of Canada’s criminal code, polygamy is expressly outlawed. A 2005 study for the Canadian federal Justice Department, Polygamy in Canada: Legal and Social Implications for Women and Children, recommended abolishing laws criminalizing polygamy. Arguing from the basis that polygamy laws serve no purpose and are rarely prosecuted, Bailey et. al. (2005) recommend that the government repeal section 293 of the Criminal Code that outlaws polygamy. While they acknowledge that polygamous relationships are overwhelmingly a bastion of abuse towards women and towards children, Bailey et. al. contend that “if there are problems such as child abuse, or spousal abuse, there are other criminal provisions or other laws dealing with those problems that certainly should be enforced.”By now we’re all aware of Canada’s very own FLDS community in Bountiful, BC, a place BC Authorities would sooner forget. This week, Vancouver lawyer Leonard Doust issued a report suggesting that the best way to deal with polygamy in Bountiful, BC was to refer section 293 of the Criminal Code to the courts to test its constitutionality, rather than prosecute individuals first. Arguably, this test of constitutionality would be in the context of freedom of religion. However, our courts must also be aware of our obligations under international law to prohibit polygamy. According to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1994):Polygamous marriage contravenes a woman’s right to equality with men, and can have such serious emotional and financial consequences for her and her dependents that such marriages ought to be discouraged and prohibited. The Committee notes with concern that some States parties, whose constitutions guarantee equal rights, permit polygamous marriage in accordance with personal or customary law. This violates the constitutional rights of women . (qtd. in ACLRC, 2004: 9).As states party to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, Canada has an international obligation to consider the impacts of polygamy on women when determining the legality of marriages.And it seems there is increasing recognition across Canada that the harms of polygamy outweigh any arguments of religious freedom:Both Mr. Peck and Mr. Oppal say they are confident that Section 293 could survive a religious freedom challenge under the Charter. “There is a substantial body of scholarship,” Mr. Peck observes, “supporting the position that polygamy is harmful,” and that limits on polygamous practice could thus be found “reasonable” by the Supreme Court.

Did you notice anything? Not a single one of your quotes mentioned "polygamy" or even "polyamory".

Eight hit with teen bride sex charges

... his arrangement of extralegal marriages between his adult male followers and underage girls.

What you mean to say is that the US is tired of their abuse, and the US will stop their abuse.

"Bigamy", not "polygamy".

All you have to do is find a single instance where the US is persuing someone with polygamy being their greatest illegal activity.

The bigamy conviction of Mr. Green, who has five wives and has fathered 30 children, is likely to have ramifications for other polygamists throughout the West, who now may face prosecution, lawyers say.

In court papers, David O. Leavitt, the Juab County attorney, charged that Mr. Green had been able to elude prosecution by marrying without state sanction. But he told the court he was basing his prosecution on the legal argument that Mr. Green had made no effort to hide his wedded relations and that "a solemnized marriage otherwise valid is not rendered invalid by failure to meet licensing requirements."

Thanks, but I don't think you checked the date of your own source.

It's easy to show your stance, all you have to do is show one instance where the US is prosecuting anyone involved in polyamorous activity without being engaged in something else that's also ridiculously evil (like rape and child abuse).

All you have to do is find a single instance where the US is persuing someone with polygamy being their greatest illegal activity.

(1) The term marry in the phrase "purports to marry another" in the bigamy statute is not limited to State sanctioned marriages:The crux of marriage in our society, perhaps especially a religious marriage, is not so much the license as the solemnization, viewed in its broadest terms as the steps, whether ritualistic or not, by which two individuals commit themselves to undertake a marital relationship . . . The fact that the State of Utah was not invited to register or record [Holm's marriage] does not change the reality that Holm and Stubbs formed a marital bond and commenced a marital relationship.(2) Bigamy in any form is not protected by the Utah Constitution. The irrevocable ordinance, Art. 3 section 1, specifically prohibits the practice of plural marriage. The only plausible interpretation of that article that is consistent with the history of the Utah Constitution is that the framers intended to prohibit not just state sanctioned plural marriage, but plural marriage in practice.

Dupaix also argued that the state’s bigamy law is neutral to religion and pointed out that one of the two recent bigamy convictions involved a secular bigamist.

No one has been prosecuted for polygamy in Utah for nearly 50 years, and the state's power structure has not made enforcement an issue. Last year Gov. Michael O. Leavitt, a Republican who is himself a descendant of polygamists, even said the practice is not often prosecuted in part because "these people have religious freedoms" (a statement he later amended in the wake of a public outcry).

When Chief Deputy Attorney General Reed Richards said last year that polygamy was not only nearly impossible to prosecute but, technically, not a crime at all, it took the largely poor and unschooled ex-wives of polygamous men to point out the law to him. Polygamy is in fact covered by the statute that makes bigamy a felony, the women noted, and the law says nothing about a marriage certificate being needed for proof of crime, only that a husband or wife ''purports to marry another person.''

State officials say they will strip the police certification of officers who practice polygamy, following complaints that officers in Hildale, a town near the Arizona line, were hampering investigations into underage polygamist marriages. One Hildale officer has already been convicted of polygamy and his police certification revoked by the Peace Officer Standards and Training council.

I'll concede everything to you.

What admittedly little exposure I have to these groups suggested that the parents of the girls had little to no say in who or when their daughters got married.

... a sobbing, badly bruised 16-year-old girl placed a 911 call from a truck stop in northern Utah. She told the police a story of indentured barbarism, alleging her father had forced her into becoming the 15th wife of her uncle. When she tried to flee, she maintained, she was whisked to a family ostrich ranch, taken into a barn and whipped by her father.

Her marriage was arranged by her father and uncle; the latter had sex with her the first time at her mother's home. ''I guess it was my night, so he came over,'' the girl testified.

Its that we can allow some religious minorities the family sovereignty and religious freedom to allow their child to die from natural causes as opposed to forcing them to take drugs, but that we shouldn't allow these groups to force these girls into a lifetime of misery so that these men can have thier fun.

Last year Gov. Michael O. Leavitt, a Republican who is himself a descendant of polygamists, even said the practice is not often prosecuted in part because ''these people have religious freedoms'' (a statement he later amended in the wake of a public outcry).

The Legacy of the Compelling Interest/Least Restrictive Means TestThe Religious Liberty Protection Act is defended as being necessary to protect First Amendment freedom of faith-based expression.10) Polygamy and abuseA battered and bruised teenagers fled from an isolated ranch that is used by a Utah polygamist sect as a reeducation camp for recalcitrant women and children. The husband of the girl was charged with incest and unlawful sexual conduct stemming from the sexual relaitons he allegedly had with her, his fifteenth wife. See Tom Kenworthy, Spotlight on Utah Plygamy; Teenager's Escape from Sect Revives Scrutiny of Practice, Wash. Post, Aug. 9, 1998, at A3. RLPA would offer the father a defense against statutory rape and polygamy.

Thus, under the Free Exercise Clause, religion must be afforded special privilege -- a "preference" ... Chief Justice Berger's ringing words in Yoder that "a regulation neutral on its face may, in its application, nonetheless offend the constitutional requirement for neutrality if it unduly burdens the free exercise of religion."

The United States Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal of a case that might have recognized a right of polygamy, according to the Christian Science Monitor. The court declined to hear an appeal by a Utah man who sought to have his bigamy conviction overturned because of the Court's landmark 2003 ruling on homosexual rights.

Ummm, how about no. Especially on an anonomous (sic) internet forum. What the hell are you on?

So a father and an uncle force a girl to marry. That's a little bit different from the supposed situation that I was replying too.

All you effort is addressed towards polygamy, itself. But that is one small section on the side of my position.

The problem is that these men are forcing them to live there and are raping them and physically abusing them.

I disagree and that will never be the case.

She acknowledged her mother had a “great deal of influence” on her to go ahead with the marriage ceremony.

Two years earlier, when Fawn Broadbent turned 14, her father entered her name in the "Joy Book," the register of young women ready for an arranged marriage.

The parents had gone to court to fight for their daughters' return and talked to a few reporters. They denied allegations of abuse and underage marriage. They said the girls just didn't like rules. Fawn's father told a Utah paper his daughter was "champing at the bit" to get married when she was 14, but he didn't think she was ready.

Its illegal to have multiple legal marriages, so as long as theirs aren't legal, then they should be safe.

The marriage is against their will ...

... and these girls are raped and beaten.

But its obviously not an all or none thing, because we have some religious freedoms that are allowed and some that aren't.

wiki writes:The Warren Court adopted the "compelling interest" doctrine regarding the (Free Exercise) clause, holding that a state must show a compelling interest in restricting religion-related activities. Later court decisions retreated from this standard, permitting governmental actions that were neutral to interfere with religion.

This was followed by intense disapproval from Congress and the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993 to attempt to restore the prior test.However, in City of Boerne v. Flores, the Supreme Court struck down the act as well, holding that it unconstitutionally attempted to usurp the Supreme Court's role in interpreting the Constitution, thus leaving the Smith test in place.