More Observations

Today I stumbled upon a post from an FLDS-hater discussing her feelings about the final days of Allen Keate's trial. I'm not encouraging you to read it, but the link is here if you want to savor true feelings of hatred.

http://tripleap.blogspot.com/2009/12/angry-humbled-surprised-and-verclempt.html

The message here is pretty straightforward - Polygamy is an inherently evil concept, and therefore its practitioners are inherently evil. The blogger exults over the harshness of the sentence (33 years). She "blesses" the state of Texas for its spitefulness.

My guess is that Allen Keate was born into the Short Creek community and that his religion has been the same throughout his life - even as far back as the days when marriages to fifteen-year-olds were commonplace and honorable (just like today). My philosophical beliefs eschew marriages under eighteen, but I love living in a country that at least pretends to champion religious freedom for all creeds and communities.

The blogger and everyone else who is observing these court proceedings know damned well that these "young" marriages are a fundamental tenet of (what was) the mainstream Mormon religion. They all know that there is a pervasive campaign to spread hatred for Warren Jeffs and to demonize the members of the congregation of people over whom he presides - hence the crusade for long sentences. WHAT !!!!! ???? - you don't think a crusade is underway? Well, here are some observations:

1. Recently, Judge Lintbag denied an FLDS motion in the UEP trust case. Maybe that is to be expected but, to "twist the knife", she ACTUALLY announced that she was "striking" the motion from the court record. (I think Lintbag and Wart-thug must be lovers). She needs to learn to spell the word, "A-P-P-E-A-L".

2. Becky Musser has become the darling "STAR" witness for the prosecution in the FLDS trials. We conveniently overlook the fact that she (like Intestinal Flora and the other unmentionables) were intimately embroiled in the conspiracy to choreograph the YFZ Ranch raid. More odorous still is the fact that a Texas deputy A.G. flew to Boise (among other places) to accompany Musser for depositions, in order to run interference and protect her at all costs from exposure as a conspiratrice.

3. Texas's Attorney General, Greg Abbott, was permitted by Barbie to campaign to prospective jurors last week (during voir dire) regarding the importance of delivering a "stiff" sentence to the FLDS men. That smells to me like abuse of process, but who am I to have an opinion about justice in America? Oh yeah, that's right - it's not ABOUT JUSTICE - it's about politics and PAYCHECKS !!!!

4. Harvey Hilderbran (who has made no secret of his determination to drive the FLDS out of Texas) managed to craft an unbelievably unconstitutional sentencing enhancement into recent legislation. After the FLDS moved into Eldorado, the law was changed - NOT ONLY to provide stiff sentences for young, unlicensed marriages, but ALSO to add an extra 79-year sentencing enhancement if there is a "religious" component to the non-legal "marriage". Tell me this isn't a direct targeting of the FLDS community (and EX POST FACTO legislation). Hilderbran needs to read the Lukumi decision. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=508&invol=520

Read this brief quote from the text of the decision (where the Court examines the language of the city councilmen and their conspicuous antipathy for the RELIGION):

Councilman Cardoso said that Santeria devotees at the Church "are in violation of everything this country stands for." Councilman Mejides indicated that he was "totally against the sacrificing of animals," and distinguished kosher slaughter because it had a "real purpose." The "Bible says we are allowed to sacrifice an animal for consumption," he continued, "but for any other purposes, I don't believe that the Bible allows that." The president of the city council, Councilman Echevarria, asked: "What can we do to prevent the Church from opening?"

This bears an eerie similarity to the West Texas mindset.

5. In the spirit of the crusade, before the sentencing deliberations, Barbie reminded the jurors of the importance of remembering that they could impose a 99-year sentence. After the sentence was read, she told the jurors "how PROUD" she was of them for what they had done. Elsewhere in America, a double-homicide might not earn you a 33-year sentence. In Utah, many people convicted of unlawful sex with a minor (age 14 or 15) (in a religious context or not) have received sentences of a few months to a few years. Tom Green got five years (Linda was 13). Rodney Holm got seven months (Ruth was 16).

6. Rozita Swinton's hoax phone-call trial keeps getting conveniently postponed. God forbid we should discover that the barbarous YFZ ranch raid was planned around a scripted, fraudulent allegation by an impostrix. Who colluded with her . . . . . . ???

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Let's pretend for a second that I didn't esteem the FLDS people. Let's pretend that they are not God-fearing, devout, industrious families. Pretend that I had never even heard of them before today. Still, I would stand up and protest the hysterical, prejudicial, even BRUTAL witch-hunt that has driven ordinarily decent Americans to lust for the death or permanent incarceration of a fellow American (who is simply "different").

Even if, over the last 80 years, some FLDS person may have done a stupid, or cruel, or unethical thing (like I have) - even if you don't like their leaders or their doctrines - even if you HATE the "concept" of plural marriage, why is it okay to yearn for these decent men to go to prison, when they have already stopped doing the very thing you want them to "stop doing"? It all seems disingenuous to me. It seems like the never-ending, busy-body parade of new and old polygamy-haters is either driven by Satan himself or by the craving for publicity, pity, profit or vengeance (sorry, I couldn't keep up the alliteration).

You decide.

You can also listen to the passionate protest of FLDS member, Willie Jessop, on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORFEq2Tnf8s&feature=player_embedded

Barbie Gets Her Way

Today the trial began for Raymond Jessop. He is charged with bigamy and sexual assault of a 16-year old (his wife of now five years). I want to go out on a philosophical limb, so I'll understand if some of you more vehement detractors want to excoriate me, but hear me out, and see if I make any sense.

I personally have not married any minors, and I think that most American girls are poorly equipped for the rigors of marriage - let alone plural marriage - at the tender age of 18. I shall invite my teenage daughters to choose carefully and seek inspiration when it comes to choosing a spouse. I have a friend who lives in the Czech Republic - a western European country of mostly Caucasian Christians. He laughs at American hypocrisy. In the Czech Republic, if a man has sex with a girl under 15, he will go to prison. After 15, there are no constraints.

I Googled the U.S. state ages of consent and found the following:

	Alabama	16
	Alaska	16
	Arizona	18
	Arkansas	16
	California	18
	Colorado	17
	Connecticut	16
	D.C.	16
	Delaware	18
	Florida	18
	Georgia	16
	Hawaii	16
	Idaho	18
	Illinois	17
	Indiana	16
	Iowa	16
	Kansas	16
	Kentucky	16
	Louisiana	17
	Maine	16
	Maryland	16
	Massachusetts	16
	Michigan	16
	Minnesota	16
	Mississippi	16
	Missouri	17
	Montana	16
	Nebraska	17
	Nevada	16
	New Hampshire	16
	New Jersey	16
	New Mexico	17
	New York	17
	North Carolina	16
	North Dakota	18
	Ohio	16
	Oklahoma	16
	Oregon	18
	Pennsylvania	16
	Rhode Island	16
	South Carolina	16
	South Dakota	16
	Tennessee	18
	Texas	17
	Utah	18
	Vermont	16
	Virginia	18
	Washington	16
	West Virginia	16
	Wisconsin	18
	Wyoming	18

In 2005, Texas' legal marriage consent age was 14. Mark Shurtleff went to Texas and, with Harvey Hilderbran's help, he persuaded the Texas legislature to raise the age of consent (for sex) to 17. What else could Shurtleff have been doing other than trying to ensnare the FLDS people, since he knew that they had a tradition of sometimes marrying earlier than the rest of society?

Could someone help me to understand why today's promiscuous society feels that it has somehow sanitized itself by viewing young marriages as rape, sexual assault and pedophilia, and raising the age of a licensed marriage? The U.S. has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world, and Texas has the highest teen birthrate in the nation (with 24% of those births being a second pregnancy).

My point is this - a significant number of U.S. states are happy to allow not only marriages for 16-year-olds, but also unmarried sex at 16. Since Raymond Jessop is not legally married to the girl in question, his alleged crime is sexual assault. But what if the marriage (and conception) occurred in a venue other than Texas? And what if it occurred when Texas' age of consent was 14?

Again, I am no fan of "arranged" marriages, and I don't encourage marriages with minors, but most Bible scholars will assert that Jesus was born to Mary when she was 15 or younger. Would that make our Heavenly Father a child-molester? Most of this marriage-age stuff is based on time-honored, cultural and religious traditions, and state interference in marriage age patterns is a relatively modern innovation, fraught with political implications and posturing.

I think that this series of scheduled bigamy/sexual assault trials is a naked and inexcusable attack on the people of the FLDS Church. I would not be surprised if it were driven by a need for retaliation for the horrible embarrassment suffered by Texas CPS as a result of the shameless raid and kidnappings of April, 2008.

It was not long ago that attorney Rodney Parker argued in behalf of Rodney Holm that his informal marriage to (16-year-old) Ruth Stubbs should have been considered just as legally permissible and binding as if it had been legally licensed. The court disagreed. Later, however, in the Utah Supreme court hearing of Holm's appeal, deputy attorney general Laura DuPaix argued passionately to Chief Justice Durham that the union between Holm and Stubbs absolutely WAS A MARRIAGE !!! (in order to preserve the "bigamy" conviction).

Here's the paradoxical hypocrisy of this situation - the State adamantly argues that the relationship is not a bona fide marriage, so that it can advance the assertion that the crime of "unlawful sex with a minor" was committed. Then, a few minutes or days later, the State fervently argues that the relationship absolutely IS A MARRIAGE, so that it can charge the defendant with having committed the crime of bigamy (getting two or more marriages). Try using that kind of twisted, contradictory logic in an argument with a teenager and see how far you get !!! The State (Utah AND Texas) wants to have its cake and eat it, too.

If you are not convinced that this is a usurpation of the justice system, then you are as wicked and inebriated with your own hubris as is Barbie.

My sincerest prayers go with Raymond and his family(ies).

Renn