Polygamist Compound in Texas - DPChallenge Forums

04/12/2008 08:16:55 PM · #28

Here is a recent story of a messed up law. They have fixed it now.
//www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293636,00.html

Message edited by author 2008-04-12 20:18:20.

FireBird

04/13/2008 05:30:25 AM · #29

Originally posted by Spazmo99:

So, you think it's OK for child molesters to hide behind religion and keep raping children?

No. I find it difficult to see how you thought that. I can only assume that I'm not perfect in my communications abilities, or... more likely
your ability to read and comprehend has been impaired.

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

04/13/2008 10:07:02 AM · #30

Originally posted by BeeCee:

Thanks for clarifying the legal terminology.

I guess my memory of the event is a bit foggy. But now it seems that even my previous understanding of Canadian law on the subject was way off. I guess that's what you get when you listen to your workmates... I've never actually considered having sex with a school-age girl, so I've never looked that deeply into the laws, but I do remember always hearing that 'soap on a rope' was a roughly equivalent expression to a guy looking at a girl under the age of 16. All that I remember of the event that I was referring to was that one day it was suddenly announced that it was OK to have sex with girls 14 and 15, then there were protests, then a short time later, it was suddenly not OK again... I thought that matched what I described. Admittedly, I didn't really have the time to do the google searches for the specifics and it was largely allegorical.

The articles above do seem to indicate that at least some authority on the matter of sexual conduct can still be controlled at the provincial level.

Either way, my point was that considering the age at which girls can make their own decisions -both for and against- regarding sex varies from place to place and is therefore arbitrary, the real crux of the crimes here is that they are infringements of the law, rather than the dispicable nature of the acts themselves.

As was stated earlier, if a man has sex with a 15 year old in Canada, and it's consensual, there are plenty of situations under which he has committed no crime. If he does this in America, it's a crime. Americans therefore feel that this person is a filthy dispicable person. Yet there might even be places where the age of consent is higher, perhaps 18. Under these circumstances, the people in those countries might view the same Americans who care not about the person having sex consensually with at 16 or 17 year old as equally dispicable.

Add the opinions of those in countries where it is illegal to have sex with ANYONE outside of marriage and it just starts to sound a bit silly when someone claims that statutory rape (when between consenting individuals who are simply not of the correct ages) is on the same plane as another type of rape involving non-consensual sex.

Originally posted by trevy:

Having sex with a person who is under the age to consent is considered rape, they call it statutory rape but it is rape none the less. Even if you disagree with the term used the act of coercing a 12 year old into having sex with you is despicable and should result in the stiffest penalty possible.

Just a couple of things to note: The girl who started the situation off appears to have been 14 at the time of being married. I've not seen any articles relating to the situation that have suggested that any of the girls have been involved in either marriage or sex below the age of 14, just for girls aged less than 16. Their religion allows polygamy. The person to whom that girl is married is a polygamist. This is an illegal situation in the USA. Here's the odd thing though...

In at least some states, it is permissible to marry as young as 14 or 15..., so if the person in the camp area had married that girl at the age of 14 legally, with the consent of parents, and it had been that man's FIRST marriage, things would be legal and they would be outside the reach of the law. Would you still feel that this is dispicable? or perhaps you would feel that it would be appropriate for the wedded couple to abstain until the girl had reached 16 years of age.

The thing that really confuses me is when a country like Canada makes it illegal to marry under the age of 16 under any circumstance, but makes it legal to have sex as low as 14 for those not married. Surely then the reason that the government wants to keep these girls from getting married must be something OTHER than the possiblity of sexual interactions.

Kelli

Canon EOS-D60

04/13/2008 10:19:19 AM · #31

One of the girls who was 16 years old already had 4 children. That means she had to start having sex at the age of 12. I'm sorry, but a 12 year old is a child. IMHO, a 12 year old in not capable of making grown up decisions. But then again, all of these children were not given a choice. They were told who they would marry and that was that. They were then told they would have sex. And, that was that. Add that to the fact that you don't know anything about it at all was consenual, and it does add up to rape. A 12 year old girl would not decide on her own that she was going to marry and have sex with a 50 year old man. It just doesn't happen in the real world. Again, this is just my opinion, but I believe the laws to protect children are valid. As for the teenagers and consensual sex, I don't believe (though I could be wrong) it applies to a 14/15 year old having sex with another 14/15 year old. It applies to someone over the age of 18 having sex with a minor under the age of consent.

chesire

Canon EOS-60D

04/13/2008 11:02:00 AM · #32

One thing that stands out in my mind about this whole thing... one hundred and thirty three women left the compound VOLUNTARILY. They choose to leave they want to leave. It's not JUST about older men having sex with young girls. It's about a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse by a handful of deluded men perpitrated on hundreds of women and children.

They still haven't found the girl who made the call in the first place, or they aren't admitting it anyway. So she may still be in danger, for that matter she's been hospitalized from beatings before she may be dead.

linky, linky, linky

Authorities have known this was going on for a long time, but there were no complaints, they had no valid reason to go in. Now that they've been givin a reason, something can finally be done to rescue the innocents who have been there all this time. They have called in hundreds of volunteers and caseworkers just to try to handle the needs of these women and children.

We sit out here judging people who's lives we cant' possibly understand, and in honesty will NEVER know the end of. Did the state do right pulling the kids out? Are the women safe now? Can ANY of them go forward and have complete full lives of their own choosing? I've been getting little updates from a friend from San Angelo who is much more connected with what's going on, and all I can say is it greatly saddens me that this can happen for so long and no one does anything.

And maybe worse, what did or will ANY of us do to help.

One of the original questions was "Did their religious rights get trampled on?" IMHO No. This isn't about what they believe it's about how they treat women and children. I do believe it's a small group of deluded men who in the name of religion have commited atrocities, that makes them terrorists and no better than any other abuser or murderer and I hope they are brought to justice in this life. I know they will be in the next.

If this seems a rant, pleasee forgive me. I've been reading and thinking and getting more upset that I can't do anything about it. Wish I was there helping.

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM

04/13/2008 11:04:06 AM · #33

EDIT: Note, this is a reply to kelli, not cheshire.

Fair enough. as you can see in what I wrote, I have not yet seen anything in the news networks to suggest that anything involving people under the age of 14 is at issue. But my news source is overseas Yahoo headlines courtesy of the AP. Also, I'm not suggesting that I approve of what they've been doing, just that the word dispicable seems questionable when it seems to be getting confused with the term illegal.
ETA: Cheshire's link shows a 'suspected as young as 13'...

My sister is a rape victim, so I still feel that statutory rape is in a bit of a different category, particularly if the youngster involved has grown up in a society where this is the norm. A hundred years or so ago (and throughout history before this), it wasn't uncommon to see people 13 and 14 years old getting married and bearing children. It wasn't considered dispicable then. Hence I feel that the numbers that keep getting thrown about are not really relevant. In fact, since these girls grew up in a situation where they had little choice, their apprehension at having sex likely has far more to do with the impression that they had/have about sex in general rather than having anything to do with the number they call an age... And that's why I said that it's entirely possible that all those women that left the compound may feel that they were leaving due to abuse, when all that was really going on is that they were just nervous about sex in general.

This puts things in a different perspective, since if this were the case, then all of the women, regardless of age, would have a claim to abuse charges against the men. Being married doesn't give you the right to force sex on a fearful or unwilling partner. But those charges wouldn't be related to the age of the people involved.

just trying to draw the line between the inappropriate actions being linked to numbers, which have nothing to do with consent, and are instead a measure of control being exercised by a third party, and consent itself - which to me is a far more important issue.

as to 12 year olds or 13 year olds being interested in having consensual sex with 50 year old men, I would say that this does indeed happen in the real world, and - while it may not be all that common and doesn't get talked about much - has happened quite a hefty number of times. There are lots and LOTS of possible reasons for it.

I had a classmate from California a while back that was a black man of 53 years of age. He kept good care of himself and had decent cash. He didn't look a day over 25 years of age. He had sex with girls under the age of 20 2-3 times a week, being self-admittedly incapable of keeping his pants zipped up. If he had been inclined, it wouldn't have been hard for him to find a likewise willing participant 15 years old or less with only a slight decrease in regularity. Ever hear of fake ID? There's not really a minimum age for that.

In the links provided by BeeCee, there was mention of sex amongst peers as young as 12 and 13 years of age, so I don't think that's what it's talking about. Incidentally, just a reminder that the laws in those links are regarding Canadian law. The link in my post shows marriage law for each of the states. I didn't count, but there were a few that allowed it under the age of 16.

It's important to be careful because while this particular religious group has a number of illegal practices involving marriage, there are similar practices going on in many places over the world that are carried out with kindness and tenderness. An earlier post mentioned that in many countries the age of consent goes as low as 13, maybe lower. In Eastern cultures, arranged marriages are very common. Arranged marriages frequently include a couple consummating a marriage who have met for the first time earlier that day.

Tell me that's not a little awkward and frightening. But it is generally consensual (and by generally, I mean the larger portion of the marriages that have taken place in areas containg a billion or two people). I know a good number of people that were married in this manner and have remained faithful through thick and thin to that very same person for decades.

Message edited by author 2008-04-13 11:20:36.

trevytrev

Canon EOS-5D

04/13/2008 11:08:35 AM · #34

Originally posted by eschelar:

In at least some states, it is permissible to marry as young as 14 or 15..., so if the person in the camp area had married that girl at the age of 14 legally, with the consent of parents, and it had been that man's FIRST marriage, things would be legal and they would be outside the reach of the law. Would you still feel that this is dispicable? or perhaps you would feel that it would be appropriate for the wedded couple to abstain until the girl had reached 16 years of age.

To answer your question, yes. A fourteen year old girl, I stress girl because I have never heard the term 14 year old women before, is not capable of making a well reasoned decision to have sex. It may be legal in some backasswards state but that doesn't make it morally or ethically right. I guess I'll pose a hypothetical question to you, I know you don't have children but if you had a 15 year old girl and she came home and informed you that her and a 50 year old man from down the street had sex what would you think of the situation? I'll tell you my reaction, "Honey where are the keys to my gun safe?"

04/13/2008 11:30:34 AM · #35

Originally posted by trevytrev:

Originally posted by eschelar:

In at least some states, it is permissible to marry as young as 14 or 15..., so if the person in the camp area had married that girl at the age of 14 legally, with the consent of parents, and it had been that man's FIRST marriage, things would be legal and they would be outside the reach of the law. Would you still feel that this is dispicable? or perhaps you would feel that it would be appropriate for the wedded couple to abstain until the girl had reached 16 years of age.

To answer your question, yes. A fourteen year old girl, I stress girl because I have never heard the term 14 year old women before, is not capable of making a well reasoned decision to have sex. It may be legal in some backasswards state but that doesn't make it morally or ethically right. I guess I'll pose a hypothetical question to you, I know you don't have children but if you had a 15 year old girl and she came home and informed you that her and a 50 year old man from down the street had sex what would you think of the situation? I'll tell you my reaction, "Honey where are the keys to my gun safe?"

Yeah, like I said, I've been through the process of a family member being victim to a rape, I'm familiar with the reaction process. But how does that situation relate to what has been happening in texas?

Remember that these girls are married according to the religion that they have grown up with. Most are there due to the specific consent of their parents. In the above situation, that would have you pointing your gun at yourself as the guy who talked to the 50 year old man down the street and suggested that he marry your 15 year old daughter. If I had given permission to a man to marry my daughter, I'd probably be OK with the fact that he was having sex with her. Wouldn't you?

And who's to say that there aren't situations that are very different that might involve a 50 year old man, perhaps one that you have known for many years, that your daughter was crazy about and who was genuine, caring and clean... I guess that's what those bassackwards laws were about in the first place... Sure it's weird, but it can happen...

Finally, let me raise an eyebrow at the idea that the decision to have sex has to be well-reasoned to be consensual or more importantly for this situation, legal.

chesire

Canon EOS-60D

04/13/2008 11:58:48 AM · #36

Originally posted by eschelar:

It relates in that it's not their CHOICE that makes it rape. They don't have the option of saying no. They are essentially slaves to the men in this cult. If my daughter (who is 3 now, sons are 15 and 21) comes to me at 16 and tells me she's having sex with a 50 year old, I'm not gonna be happy about it, BUT If her father GIVES her to someone and tells him "here have fun". I'm gonna kill him.

04/13/2008 12:16:20 PM · #37

True.

And in many cases, neither do many other people who are married via arranged marriage. Are you ready to go ahead and say that this is also desipicable?

Arranged marriage can be and often is carried out peacefully and submissively and often ends with good success.

However, what I'm trying to point out is that what we should be getting upset about is the violent aspect of what has been done. Not the age in numbers. By getting upset and preoccupied with the age of the girls involved, the law, the media and the readers miss out on the thing that is inappropriate at any age... and that is non-consensual sex including violence. All of those women who left the camp voluntarily who were subject to violence are not being given the same consideration as the youth who may have been willing and therefore not subject to violence.

chesire

Canon EOS-60D