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.

The FLDS is worse for this reason. Girls in the mainstream who choose to have sex, for the most part do it without coersion. In the FLDS there is Religious coersion, i.e. if you don't do this you will go to hell.

Polygamy by its self is not the real problem to me. We have a worse problem in society in general where men have children by different women and just move on leaving the children. The problem here is that these cults lock their women and young girls up in secluded compounds with little access to the outside. Then they proceed to brainwash them with religious dogma, usually from childhood.

This is the same type of operation run by Jim Jones' Peoples Temple. Seclusion and intense religious indoctrination and then you are able to get them to drink the Kool-Aid, or anything else that you want including supplying the pedophile leaders with your daughters.

miss the point. "Moral Outrage" and "The Authority" had it right. The author is merely pointing out society's double standard of outrage. And, although there are differences between what happened at the FLDS ranch and Miley Cyrus and to a lesser extent Roger Clemens, the root causes are the same--loose moral standards. It's wrong for 40-year olds to have sex with girls, and it's wrong to exploit 15-year-olds with suggestive pictures.

This editorial is a fine example of the classic "two wrongs make a right" fallacy, which is a commonly-used form of rhetoric designed to manipulate an audience.

I don't need this editorial to tell me that teenage girls in America are more promiscous than they used to be.

But to be fair, this editorial needs to do a survey of American teenage girls, and one of the questions should be:

"How many men over the age of 40 have raped you?"

There is no double standard of outrage here.

A Disney princess reveals she has flesh under her clothing? Maybe you could be outraged at her father for allowing it, but exploitation of teen stars - even by Disney - is nothing new. Annette showed as much flesh as Miley did, and that was 50 years ago.

A bunch of adult men commit systematic rape of children under the guise of 'religion'. Now THAT is a reason for outrage.

As a nation and a world, we have walked away from moral precepts and have glorified promiscuity and other immoral practices. The author was trying to make that point (and I think he could have done better). Our collective hypocrisies are what lead to moral debacles like the FLDS and no appeal to religion can justify them. When you look at leaders in government, entertainment and even religion who cannot live according to God's laws, do they not reflect the moral atmosphere of the general population? We truly should look to ourselves and repent and reform our own behavior.

I wasn't going to bother with this, but seriously, does anyone read the thing?

Do you all think teenage sex with random strangers while off on spring break, coupled with drug use, and the rate of STD infection mentioned, tat all these things are ok? No big deal?

Because those are all verifiable truths we can prove in the world we live in. Those are our problems and things we should be worried about fixing.

I doubt a single commentator here has lived a day among the FLDS and can attest to the marriage practices based on anything more than what they hear from a sensationalist media and from ex-Members who make their living by selling harrowing stories of escape.

The truth is very much in dispute with regards to the FLDS, and even though it is in part their fault, they haven't gotten a fair shake. I'm still looking forward to seeing some actual evidence be produced by the state besides saying "this pregnant girl looks 16, not 19", neverminding the fact that the girl has a license that says 19 years old. CPS just then says its fake, as if to say "why bother?"

Moral relativism indeed! On your pulpit, you decry the Molly Cyrus image, but your publication certainly didn't decline the Disney ad dollars that came your way via the recent Hannah Montana show, not to mention the flurry of "news" stories afforded by her performance. Are you REALLY drawing a parallel b/w the antics of hormone-fueled teens in the real world and the practice of forcing sex on imprisoned children in the name of righteousness? This analogy, and your editorially convenient interpretation of the VF photos ("come hither"? That's certainly one interpretation...Daddy) expose your naive vantage point, Mr. Evensen. That you would quote Ambrose Bierce in defense of your position is not only misplaced-it shows your disregard and disrespect of readers. Bierce spent his life exposing and criticizing the very type of double-speak that you, apparently, feel empowered to share as an "editor." I beg you grant yourself a moment, or two, of quiet thought, Mr. Evensen.

"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
-Ambrose Bierce

Yea!!! What the last guy said. Take that.

Can you people read? Or are you using the same selective morality to judge the author that you use to condemn the FLDS situation. The author states at the beginning of his article, "...the things the Fundamentalist LDS Church is alleged to have condoned and encouraged are simply wrong...Child abuse has to trump the rights to freedom of religion." The author then continues to make a very good point than we should be equally concerned about Teen-age pregnance and STD rates and the premature sexualization of teen age children in our society. I agree 100% with the author. If you condemn the FLDS situation and then turn a blind eye to your son or daughter going to spring break or drinking while under age, or having sex while in Jr. High or high school, you have a double standard.