Government infringing on freedom of religion

If you aren’t taking note of events out in the Texas where authorities have raided a polygamist sect’s ranch based on claims a man was having illegal contact with a 15-year-old, then you better take notice. The ranch, owned by a Mormon branch called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was raided by authorities last month and its 416 children taken away in 19 buses to be warehoused while the government sorts out their case. The entire raid was predicated on an unspecified claim that a man was messing around with a 15-year-old girl at the compound. Under Texas law, a child cannot be married under the age of 16 so the allegation is a felony offense, but lawmen did not know for certain which teen-ager had made the allegation so they put a net over the whole ranch and hauled everyone off. As we watch all this from the comfort of our air conditioned homes, our Ten Commandments hanging on our walls with the family Bible likely sitting on the end table next to our easy chair from where we use the remote to surf our way around the channels, we are all distant to it. After all, these folks are dressed so differently from us, they wear long dresses, wear their hair funny and the men all get to have lots of wives. Why should we care? Those folks are weird. They aren’t like us. Why should we care? We should care because what we are witnessing is another attack by big brother on our fundamental freedom of religion. Those folks out in Texas should be allowed to worship how they see fit without the government peering through their windows. How can a government justify hauling away that many children with little to no evidence against any of these people? Frankly, the government usually goes back to its child molesting claim anytime it wants to vilify a particular sect. Look what they did after they invaded Waco years ago. All they could come up with was that David Carresh may have been messing with underage children there. That was a lot of comfort as we watch the compound burn to the ground with the children inside. In the case of the Texas camp they invaded last month, they couldn’t even identify the girl who made the claim, yet they disbanded the ranch in the interests of the children? How can ripping young children from their parents and housing them in an internment camp before shipping them off to foster care be in their best interests? Talk about marking a child for life, big brother is causing the damage of a busload of child molesters all in the name of watching out for the children. How would you like it if authorities decided to raid the Church of Christ next week and take your children because there had been an allegation there was a child molester in your midst? This is what happened in Texas, but we don’t care because they dress funny and they don’t sing from the same hymnals we use. What does tomorrow bring? What if they decide once saved always saved is a threat to our nation? What if they decide that tongue talking is some kind of conspiracy against the government? What I’m saying is that invasions of freedom of religion are serious. What the government is doing is using fear to take away our liberties so that we gladly give them away in hope of gaining security. In this post 911 world, we, as Americans, have been too quick to give up freedoms without a fight. We’d better start waking up before it’s too late or it may be your church that we’re seeing on the evening news should you fall afoul of the religion police. Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].