http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/04/home-schooled-christian-girl-ordered-to-join-publi//print/
As is my tendency, I tried to think about the legal principles implicated in this decision. I feel strongly that words have meaning and power, and that designing men can use clever words to wrest power from the unsuspecting. This judge (Sadler) should enlighten us on the intended meaning of the word "rigid". The girl's non-custodial father appears to resent the fact that the mother is teaching the girl from the Bible. Are we to conclude that parents who teach their children from the Bible are indoctrinating them into "rigidity" because the Bible teaches that adulterers should be stoned to death, along with ungovernable teenagers? Is the Bible too "rigid" because it teaches us to honor our parents and that the meek will "inherit the earth"?
I pray that the girl will be blessed with a crack team of indignant attorneys who will get this judge overruled and demonstrate what an IDIOT he is. Was John Singer's martyrdom for nothing?
(Photo from "Death of an American" by David Fleisher and David M. Friedman)
On another note, I just learned that the Utah Supreme Court has agreed to hear Warren Jeffs' appeal of his "rape-as-an-accomplice" convictions. They probably realize that you can't just sweep this case under the rug. I still wonder how Jeffs can be doing time for being an accomplice to a rape that wasn't committed. I mean - if the state of Utah really genuinely has evidence to convict Steed for rape, then I can see how it could be argued that a rape occurred and that there were accomplices. I think the state decided to charge Steed because so many people wondered at the disingenuousness of charging the putative accomplice but not the alleged perpetrator himself. However, if the case against Steed falters (and I bet it will), then no rape will have been proved, and Jeffs can have been an accomplice to nothing, and ought to go home to his wives and children.
I am thrilled that the Utah Supremes will review the case. I am utterly mortified that the Supreme Court hearing will be held on the campus of Brigham Young University. That is about as lopsided as having a SuperBowl game played between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers on the Packers' home (Lambeau) field. Where's the neutrality? It is a farce! How can these goons think that such blatant and shameless partisanship will go unnoticed? Talk about "home-field advantage"!!! I seem to remember that they did the same thing when they removed judge Walter Steed from his judgeship (not to mention Tom Green's BYU jury). Last I heard, the LDS Church has not been shy about publicizing its intense revulsion at polygamy and polygamists.
Work with me here just a little. Let's assume that the FLDS elect not to file a motion to have the hearing venue changed. Let's assume that no crusading reporter writes an article denouncing the flagrant unfairness of holding this hearing at the law school owned by the Church Corporation that masterminded the 1953 Short Creek raid.
So - BYU campus it is. I can see it now. Early on the morning of November 4th, a caravan of hundreds of Suburbans and 15-passenger vans will make its way from Colorado City/Hildale to Provo. Three thousand warmly-clad men, women (and women) and children will shiver quietly around the J. Reuben Clark law school, showing their solidarity (as they did just weeks ago at Salt Lake's Matheson Courthouse).
Next step, the LDS Church writhes uncontrollably in distaste over having so many mangy polygamists traipsing all over its pristine campus, and overreacts (like never before). Soon, a hundred BYU police and many more of their Provo City counterparts appear on the scene and begin ordering the peaceful visitors to get off the Church's private property. After all - this is not public, neutral property. This is the seat of modern, ecclesiastical disinformation, where dissenting or even mildly neutral views are not tolerated and must incur appropriate disciplinary action.
Am I the only one who smells something rotten in Denmark?
"Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin',
More dead in Ohio."
Neil Young
