Parenting Decision; Gang or Polygamy?
On several occasions I’ve mentioned how strange I find it that within the last couple of generations we’ve gone from a society where women were frequently married by the time they were 15 to a society that makes criminals out of any male having sex with a female under the age of 18.
The latest case of this comes from Texas where a Mormon polygamist sect has been raided by the state and all children removed from their homes.
OK, as a society we frown on polygamy. As a general rule it seems we frown on Mormonism, but we only talk about that when one wants to run for president! So a Mormon polygamist must be dealt with, and the sooner the better.
The government, under the guise of protecting children, goes in and removes the children from their homes and places them in foster homes with strangers. There have been no reports of abuse against the children that I have seen. They all lived in their parents homes. Yet now they have been placed in the foster home system. A system where we hear of abuse almost daily.
The mothers of these children appear to have done nothing wrong. The children appear to have done nothing wrong. If the state felt they needed protecting, why didn’t they take the men out of the homes? The men are the ones accused of marrying underage girls and having sex with them.
Compare this with another article I read concerning two parents from the Denver, Colorado area.
This couple wasn’t married. They had a son when they were both 15. Recently the father, Joseph Manzanares, went to the video store where his ex-girlfriend, the babies mother, worked. They began to argue, he threatened to kill her, and knocked over several displays and a computer.
The cause of all this ruckus? “The mother of the child told police that she and the boy’s father have been involved in ongoing domestic disputes regarding their son.”
“The woman said she is a `Crip’ gang member and that Manzanares is a `Baller’ gang member, and `they have different ideas on how the baby should be raised,’ said Commerce City Police Sgt. Joe Sandoval.”
“`Basically she said they cannot agree on which gang the baby would claim,’ Sandoval said.”
Now pardon me if I seem stupid here, but if you are already planning your child’s life of crime, shouldn’t you have the child taken away? And what about the fact that the mother of this child was only 15 when the child was born?
On the one hand we have a group of people who are raised in a society that believes that polygamy is OK and marriage at 15 is OK so we attack them and take their children away. On the other hand we have a couple that doesn’t give a damn about marriage, children, or crime and we only arrest one of them when he goes in and busts up someone’s business!
Does this seem as screwed up to you as it does to me? Do you think the Mormon girls are being abused by following the tradition of the society they were raised in? Do you think the Colorado child is being abused by having parents who fight over which gang he will be in rather than what school he should attend to escape the life his parents have apparently had?
Is the polygamist case discrimination against a religious belief we don’t agree with? Would the Colorado child be helped if he weren’t Hispanic?