Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. ~ John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

The situation in Texas with the fundamentalist LDS church reminded me of this quote. I find it can be applied to all sides of the evolving struggle.

Polygamy, when all parties enter into it freely and with full awareness, is no one's business but that of the the people involved. Period. Polygamy is not the issue here.

Abuse is never acceptable. Unfortunately, the church sects that practice spiritual polygamy also are structured in a way to give absolute power to some members, the men. There are some men who can embrace what they see as the right religious path, a fundamentalist religion the embraces spiritual polygamy, without entering enter the realm of abuse of power. These men and the women who freely consent to this life should be left alone to live their lives and raise their families.

The problem is the men who become corrupted by the power given to them by their religious path. They may start out with noble and wonderful intentions, but along the line, they become corrupted by power. Forced marriages? Not acceptable in our country. Underage marriages? Not acceptable in our country. Any sort of abuse - physical, verbal, emotional or the other kind (that I do not want to type out because I do not want my blog to pop up in a google search for that term)? Not acceptable in our country.

The problem is also in the people in the government who are corrupted by power. Do they have documented evidence of abuse? What right do they have to forcibly remove and separate over four hundred children from the only life they know? If they have documented, clear cases of abuse, they have every right to do so. But do they have the evidence? This mysterious girl, their informant, is no where to be found. What right do they have to lie in order to separate children from their mothers? Do they have evidence the mothers are abusing these children? If so, why return the mothers to their home or offer these women places in battered women's shelters? If not, why separate them? Why only separate mothers of children over age 5? What is so special about that arbitrary age? If the mothers should not be with the children, if there is a real reason for the separation, why can the mothers of younger children stay? Does the government have evidence to back up its claims of abuse or are the official becoming corrupted by power and using this power in a Nazi-esque display of power that should never happen in our country?

Finally, the media. Absolute power is given to the media in our society and it has corrupted. What is the real story here? It is a story of possible abuse on a large scale or is it is story of religious and personal expression? These people have every right to dress how they see fit. There are many women in this nation who wear dresses and have long hair for religious reasons who are not members of this sect. There are countless women who wear dresses and have long hair for other reasons too. Raising children in a strongly religious home or without TV or in an intentional community is not the story here. These people are not automatically guilty because they are living and raising families in a way that is outside the mainstream in our country. Report on the real story - the allegation of abuse, the lack of proof given to this point and the violations of civil liberties of the people involved in the debacle.

If it emerges that there was a large scale pattern of abuse in this community, then the government will have acted correctly in stepping in, but I will still question the treatment of the women and children removed from the community. If concrete evidence of abuse does not exist, it will not actually matter because of the way the media has handled the situation. These people are now guilty of something, anything, in the minds of much of the American public simply because of the way the mainstream national media has handled the situation.