religious freedoms in the US

"Polygamy Sect Moms Told To Leave Children"

I have watched many times when children were taken from parents that had done nothing and children left with parents who were abusive.

But this is totally different. I agree, that children or young girls should not be forced to marry and have children, against their will.

But we have some states within the US that still allow a girl as young as 14 to marry with parental approval.

I knew a young man that at the age of 18, was in the navy and stationed in the south along the gulf coast, and he met a family there that had several children, the oldest was a 14 year old girl. The parents encouraged him to get to know her and then even encouraged them to get married. When I met her, after they moved back to Iowa, after he was discharged for his tour of duty, he was three years older (21) and she was (17) and pregnant with her third child I think. She was very much in love with him.

Under those conditions, she could of been taken from him at age 17 still a child in the social service eyes, but wasn't. No one thought anything about it. Same as many of the girls in the compound, in Texas.

Now they are saying that the call for help may not of came from the compound itself, but from someone outside trying to cause them problems, and if so it worked. So far they haven't found any girl 16years of age that called for help.

I'm not defending their beliefs, but their right to their beliefs. We are treading on dangerous ground here, as this can set a president for future removals of children not because of abuse but because of religious beliefs. If you are raising your children according to your own religious beliefs and maybe even home schooling, this case if allowed to continue, could be used to remove your children from you because they don't agree with your religious beliefs and feel that your children are in danger by being indoctrinated in it through your home schooling.

They want to remove the young girls to place them in foster care, to prevent them from being further indoctrinated in their religious belief, that young girls should grow up and be a wife and mother. By doing so they are attempting to re-indoctrinating them to a different belief and life style. Could you imagine what would happen if the religious right that is in control in Texas, decided to remove children from a gay family because they are being indoctrinated in the gay life style? I use this example to show where this could go from here. Or you are an atheist, and are teaching your child there is no God, so they decide to remove the child to protect them.

By removing as many as they did without it being their chose to leave, you open a can of worms. It is about their beliefs not the children's actual welfare.

You may not agree with their religious belief or even like it, but you have to respect their right to it or give up your own right to yours.

I don't agree with a lot of peoples belief, I don't agree with guy marriage of any kind. But that is my personal belief. To have the freedom to have this belief I have to allow others to have a difference of belief, and respect their right to it, even if I don't agree with it. This is where I have a problem with the religious right, and their attempt to mandate their beliefs through laws on others. But then if we accept that guys have the right to believe what they want to, then we have to allow others the same rights to their beliefs, religious or not.

Even though I don't agree with the sect or church, I do believe they have the right to live and raise their families according to their faith. And I hope that the Texas courts will say they have no right under the law to remove these children without real proof of child endangerment or abuse. And their religious beliefs are not evidence to that end. I hope the children are return to their mothers, unless they child has asked not to be.

Using councilors and psychologists to prove they are at risk isn't grounds either, as most of those same people would say that any child in a christian family is at risk in the same way because of their beliefs. Or that they are at risk because their beliefs differ.

Just my thoughts on this "Pandora's Box"

Charles