Yearning For Zion

I find the continuing media coverage of the April 7th, 2008 raid on the Yearning for Zion polygamist ranch in Texas troubling. The reporting is biased and suffers from an incredible lack of perspective. Despite the fact I believe marriage is a sacrament between one man and one woman there are points concerning the ranch and the ensuing reporting that need to be addressed. The ranch is described as a compound no doubt to paint an image of a withdrawn isolated people possibly defensive and hostile. Aerial photos do not support this supposition and the inhabitants who have spoken with the media have noted they find the description to be inaccurate and yet the characterization continues. It bothers me that Texas changed the legal age for marriage after the group moved to Texas. I find it troubling the authorities devised a plan to enter the ranch soon after the group purchased the property and admit that they had to wait until they “got the break we needed”. The break was ostensibly a young wife who was raped and abused by her older husband and yet after 3 weeks of searching for this person to no avail it now appears the phone call was generated by a 33 year old woman in Colorado. Do the police not have caller ID? Did they not know the caller was from another state or did they simply not care? No matter it fit the template so they put their plan in motion. The women and children were rounded up and removed from the ranch because they were abused or “about to be abused”! Talk about prescience, now reports are claiming the boys are raised to be predators. Based on what evidence? Simply being male? Nothing is offered to substantiate this slander and yet it is repeated endlessly. And the girls – the state is unable to even count their numbers. The number has been revised up to include some who were under 18 despite being a wife or a mother. And here you see the real crux of the problem and why I am concerned with how these people are being treated. The members of this community are raising their children outside society’s norms. Our society on the contrary is steeped, wallowing, literally drowning in sex. We are targeted with sex in advertisements, music, movies, and magazines, seemingly everywhere. Birth control is pushed from every corner, emergency contraceptives hawked and safe sex promoted (what kind of people are you hanging with if the most unitive, intimate act we can participate in might be unsafe?) Safe from what? Disease? See above. Children? The fruit of love is never an accident, never unintended. This sexual assault is most damaging to our kids who have not been completely formed and developed and are vulnerable to the “attractions” of our modern world. So why does George Clooney date women half his age? Because he can. Our society and culture revel in the image of older men with younger wives, trophy wives don’t you know. And why should the fun be limited to men? The age gap between women of means and success and their “young things” are heralded as signs of progress in our enlightened world. But throw in old fashioned values like marriage, children, commitment and our guardians of tolerance come unglued. Unquestionably polygamy is not the path laid out for us by our Lord but with 85% of black babies and 55% of white babies born in our urban areas being born into single parent homes this focus on the FDLS is silly, foolish and a waste of resources. The powers that be are no doubt pleased that they have addressed this “problem” even as they completely destroy these families in the name of saving them. Go figure.