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Mainstream no better than FLDS

When I started reading your article I thought I'd be attacking you. You started out comparing a pattern of abuse among the FLDS with a single incident among our society of 350 million people. That's grabbing at straws. You got a bit better when you quoted the spring break data, but not every teen, certainly not mine, takes a spring break holiday. You then went into the sexually transmitted disease statistics and here you finally gain some traction, because the STD study was properly designed to reflect accurate statistics for our entire society. While I agree with you that as far as our values are concerned, we do need to take a look in the mirror, our laws and our actions in Texas are laudable. There is a difference between values and criminal behavior. It's legal for kids to unknowingly pass STDs to other kids. It's illegal for men to rape girls, for big boys to molest small boys, for parents to abandon their boys, for adults to beat children and for viable babies to end up in a graveyard. Yes, there are shades of gray in our society, but the shade of gray in this sect is fardarker.

Unfortunately, Mr.Evenson fails to take notice of the lack of evidence of a substantial amount of abuse at the XFZ ranch.

I've noticed a very troubling trend, among conservatives, lately. Instead of looking at a disturbing situation, with a yard stick of right or wrong, they find a way to compare it to something worse. They have adopted the concept of relative morality. (It's been honed to find craft by our friend, Rush Limbaugh. Maybe, that's what started it.) This editorialist's argument goes something like this. "Polygamists may be practicing forced marriage, and institutionalized pedophilia, but just look at Roger Clemens and Miley Cyrus!" What has happened the right's sense of absolute right and wrong?

In mainstream society we have discussions about how young women are treated. Often they are not treated well, but neither are young men. Yes, we have problems in mainstream society. However these problems are not part of the definition of our society. God has not told us that these problems are his command. We can work on our problems. The FLDS do not even recognize arranged marriage and child rape as problems. That is how different we are.

Regardless of what redneck celebrities are letting their children do, shutting down this religious prison camp was the right thing to do. We showed a better side of ourselves there.

The forced marriage of children to old men is not legal no matter how you try to whitewash it and bash mainstream culture. There is a difference between being irresponsible and being assigned to the bed of your grandfather's brother. If you can't see that difference and think that the photos of Miley Cyrus are the same as her being impregnated by her great uncle at a preacher's behest then you are confused.

>>The FLDS do not even recognize arranged marriage and child rape as problems.<<

History is full of arranged marriages.

Child rape? Just 2 1/2 years ago, Texas law allowed 14 year old girls to marry... and marry older men. No one complained then. Did you?

Its good to see a balanced and persecptive article about this whole sorry mess,well done.

I believe the author was try to point out that as a society we seem to be very "selective" in our moral outrage.

If the FLDS were marrying and/or having sex with underage girls (or boys), we should be outraged at this behavior and enforce the laws in order to stop it.

But we should be also outraged by "soft porn" where underage girls are paraded in "fashion" magazines, by rampant teenage pregnancy rates, statutory rape, prostitution, infidelity, pornography, etc..

The thing gets me is that all of society will look at a man married to 5 women having children with them and putting them in the same house to take care of them as some kind of freak. But a man who has children with 5 different women and doesn't marry any of them and try to take care of any of them is somehow a bit more normal or at least acceptable in society. There is abuse all around. All of these idiots are guilty.

The editorial doesn't make sense. The FLDS older men were committing child rape. That's a felony. And, let's not forget, the men were raping kids in the name of a "religion." The FLDS "church" is the Mormon church's legacy, like it or not. Brigham Young and his bunch brought it to Utah and nearby environs. And, please correct me, but didn't Joseph Smith bed a 14-year-old girl? Lastly, the Mormon "church" denounced polygamy, not because it violated the law, but because the religion wanted Utah to become a state.

Talk about mixing apples and oranges. I just lost total respect for the writer. This column is like comparing the Nazi program of brainwashing its youth to the few (by precentage)irresponsible teachers we have in schools today-Wow-David Decker

I don't accept that a girl having sex at a young age is necessarily child abuse. In other cultures and in our own culture in years past, puberty is when people have started to have sex.

It is abuse when the relations are forced on someone, whether by physical force or religious cowersion. This if the girl is 14 or 40.

To mamapapaluv,

How about you provide the proof about your little story regarding Joseph Smith, rather than say something that you heard someone say once somewhere and ask other people to refute it? Once your evidence is presented, we will analyze your evidence and accept or reject it as appropriate.

Also, you say that the editorial doesn't make sense and then proceed to talk about why polygamy is bad. Okay, that's fine, but that wasn't the point of the article. It was that mainstream culture accepts the sexualization of young girls for pleasure, without acceptance of responsibility for actions, so they're not any better than the polygamists. They're both bad, but the corrupted religion gets a harder rap than the rampant promiscuity without religion attached.

I, if an adult man impregnates an underage girl he can be arrested and prosecuted whether he is religious or not. In Utah, there is a tendency not to believe the accusations of girls, but in other states, believe it or not, forty year old men having sex with 14 year old girls is generally universally condemned.

Do not you have any morals?

How can you justify forced marriages of young girls with Roger Clemens hooking up with Mindy McCready?

Talk about Rationalization.

Would you allow your 13 year old daughter to be forced to marry a 50 year old and then have sex in the temple?

Some of you in Utah are totally wacky on this subject.

Uh huh, you missed the point, as did Liberal larry and others.

The point is that we have selective moral outrage. Is what's going on with the FLDS wrong (if they actually produce evidence, rather than firing off shots in the dark), yes it is wrong. And should be stopped. And we should be outraged.

However, the point of the columnist was to say shouldn't we also be outraged that we let a quarter of all teenaged girls get STDs, or that we allow celebrity culture to sexualize youths at age 15 in the name of "artistic license."

All these things, FLDS, Miley and spring break are things we should be outraged over, not just the one that is related to religion.

To:The Authority

For all the outrage over the photo, I am willing to bet that Miley is still a virgin. If Miley were assigned to a 40 year old man for deflowering then I would be outraged. If you cannot see the difference in degrees of severity between the situations then you are confused.

The difference is that all the other instances cited - from Miley Cyrus to spring break - are the result of individual acts of irresponsibility.

In the case of the FLDS, it is an institutional policy. It is the POLICY of that 'church' to commit sexual acts with underage girls (and possibly boys too, according to some allegations from former members).

It is, ultimately, the difference between consensual sex and rape. In this case, child rape. And yes, Jay, there is a difference.

David Decker,

If you want to take the analogy you propose and make it actually fit, the glorified sexual promiscuity of young women today would be like taking "the few (by precentage)irresponsible teachers we have in schools today" and giving them awards and promotions, while demoting, ignoring, making fun of, and otherwise denigrating the good teachers in our schools. That's the problem - the good people in society are written off as hopeless, outdated prudes and those who glorify bad behavior are glamorized and idolized by society. We should be outraged by this, but we're not.