Big Love gets busted
Posted on April 7th, 2008 by catalyst into the Uncategorized categoryI see on the news that Texas authorities have raided the compound of a polygamist cult, removing the women and children. Evidently, last week one of the children called the police and claimed they were being sexually abused.
As someone who has libertarian leanings, I think the government would do better just to leave polygamists alone. In my mind, Polygamy isn't any more immoral than a man who starts a family, divorces his wife, and then starts another family.
That said, in general there is tremendous abuse in these cults, and at some point the state has to step in and remove the children (mostly young females) who are being forced into marriages and sexually abused.
It is also a well known fact that there are many other such compounds scattered all throughout the Southwest. Jon Krakauer documents one such compound in Arizona, in his book Under the Banner of Heaven.
I guess I wonder why these compounds are allowed to exist. I understand the administrative nightmare of tearing apart families. But at some point aren't we just endorsing child abuse. We seem to permit these cults to exist as long as they function far from the rest of society and operate under the guise of religious freedoms.
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April 7th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
After what happened with David Koresh down in Texas, maybe the government is a bit reluctant to move on these situations. They can be risky to deal with.
Which is worse, ignoring child abuse or having the gov’t go in and end up burning a bunch of women and children to death? For the record, I don’t think Janet Reno and Bill Clinton ever got called out on the human rights abuse that happened there.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Fair point. But I’m not sure a mass raid is the only option. Couldn’t the authorities, simply create a strong presence in the communtiy, letting the leaders know they are watching for abuse.
The crime seems to be ignoring the abuse because it’s convenient.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:05 am
This shocking Texas story is a reminder that we as a society need to be more vigilant about noticing signs of child abuse and taking action immediately. One detection network that really needs strengthening is our schoolteachers. Many teachers may notice signs of abuse — which are not necessarily physical — but then they don’t know how to talk to the student about it. So the abuse goes unreported. There’s a new online role-playing course that lets teachers practice a conversation with a possible child abuse victim, getting expert feedback after every choice. (It was co-written by a former Minnesota police detective.) There’s a free version and a CEU-credit version for teachers. Hopefully it’ll help teachers to detect child abuse — such as in this Texas sect — much more effectively.
April 8th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Hi Geoff,
Married to a veteran high school teacher, I need to take exception to some of the things you wrote.
In this state, that’s an inaccurate, broad-brush statement.
Very often the first to notice signs of abuse, is a school teacher. Protocol / policy requires the teacher to report their observations to a school counselor or nurse, whose job it is to talk with the student in a private setting, 1:1, not in a classroom where the student’s peers can potentially listen in on the conversation. It is unreasonable (and totally impractical) to think that a teacher can ignore a class of 25-30 students in order to talk with 1 student about a very ‘emotional’ issue such as abuse occurring in the students home. Such is not possible between classes either, where the so-called “passing periods” are just 3-5 minutes long.
Several times per year, my wife detects signs of abuse and refers the student to the staff and administration. As far as I know, teachers in this state are specifically trained in abuse detection. The only abuse teachers can prevent and deal with in real time, is the abuse that occurs in their classrooms between students. They’re also trained to spot visible health problems, like ringworm, lice, etc., which sometimes is exacerbated by parental neglect.
I can’t imagine education of public school teachers would have helped the “Texas sect”, since it is a closed religious colony, likely ‘home schooled’ or ‘community schooled’. As such, it’s a poor example to cite for education of public school system concerning abuse.
Sam