The Rest of the Story...

[Jolynna]

In looking in to "who can marry whom" I found some interesting facts.

Fact: It is estimated that 20 percent of all couples worldwide are first cousins. It is also estimated that 80 percent of all marriages historically have been between first cousins!

Fact: In some cultures, the term cousin and mate are synonymous.

Fact: The range of consanguinity in Saudi Arabia is between 34 to 80+ percent. A study has been done on birth defects resulting from consanguineous marriages in this country. Read about it.

Fact: Albert Einstein married his first cousin. And so did Charles Darwin, who had exceptional children.

Fact: Franklin D. Roosevelt, the longest serving US president in history married his cousin (not a first cousin, however they shared the same last name).

Fact: The first Prime Minister of Canada, Sir John A. MacDonald married his first cousin.

Fact: Leviticus 18 lists all forbidden sexual relationships. Cousin relationships are not included.

Fact: God commanded many cousins to marry, including Zelophehad's 5 daughters, Eleazar's daughters, Jacob (who married both Rachel and Leah, first cousins), and Isaac and Rebekkah (first cousins once removed). All were ancestors of Jesus Christ.

Fact: Current studies indicate that cousin couples have a lower ratio of miscarriages -- perhaps because body chemistry of cousins is more similar. The verdict is still out.

http://www.cousincouples.com/info/facts.shtml

In Tennessee marriage between first cousins is legal.

http://marriage.about.com/cs/marriagelicenses/p/tennessee.htm

 

[SewingDeb]

Jolynna,

Would you recommend it?

I would be worried sick about birth defects if I were married to my first cousin. Actually, not that many defects show up in the first mating of family members but it does show up in later generations (from some reading I did a long time ago...don't have a link handy).

 

[SewingDeb]

I should add that as cousins or other related members have children together and their children marry related people and their children do the same and on and on, the chances become very high for all kinds of birth defects. That's why most states outlaw it.

 

[yolorado]

My final point here will be this. This is a group that wants nothing to do with US general society, a closed society within the US but not of the US. They want their own society in which they call all the shots and make all the laws. They don't want to be a part of 'us.' I don't see why US general society has any responsiblity to make nice with this group, to understand them, to respect their 'rights' when they don't respect those same rights of their own members or the laws of the land and when 'respecting their rights' will almost certainly lead to continued abuse of many of their members and generation after generation of more abusers and more abuse. Why should general society exert efforts to 'get them to trust us'...to what end? They won't. They are determined not to. They see themselves as separate, superior, better, God's chosen. Why don't they leave the country, find somewhere else to go? They are determined to structure their own society, make their own laws and ignore whatever local, state and federal laws they want to ignore. It seems like the best solution for them, and certainly for the rest of us. We have enough problems without having to worry about these people too. They aren't 'us,' they are 'them.' That's the way they want it. Why can't they just be 'them' somewhere else where they are none of our problem?

 

[Jolynna]

Jolynna,

Would you recommend it?

I would be worried sick about birth defects if I were married to my first cousin. Actually, not that many defects show up in the first mating of family members but it does show up in later generations (from some reading I did a long time ago...don't have a link handy).

My experience from breeding animals is that crossbred & unrelated make for hardy and healthy animals.

That being said, scientifically, I wouldn't be worried sick to marry a first cousin. If it was a one-generational occurance, I'd barely worry at all. In rural Indian 1/3 of all marriages are between first cousins. In the Arabian Peninsula the rate is 50% or higher.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/synthetic/synth_8.htm

I think when inbreeding is that common generation after generation after generation it does make for more health risks. But, the genetic lines in those parts of the world go back to before written history.

According to the linked article the governments there ARE trying to discourage the practice.

I don't think it is probably a good idea for generation after generation to marry and have children. I was pointing out that it IS legal in some states.

MOO

 

[Glow]

Interesting that you would mention that Jolynna,

I have a friend who is Arabic but was born and raised in the States. She is married to an Arab from Ramallah. They are cousins even though they were raised in seperate parts of the world. They have been married 40 years. She was 17 when they got married.

They seem just about as happy as everyone else among my married friends. :crazy:

 

[Jolynna]

My final point here will be this. This is a group that wants nothing to do with US general society, a closed society within the US but not of the US. They want their own society in which they call all the shots and make all the laws. They don't want to be a part of 'us.' I don't see why US general society has any responsiblity to make nice with this group, to understand them, to respect their 'rights' when they don't respect those same rights of their own members or the laws of the land and when 'respecting their rights' will almost certainly lead to continued abuse of many of their members and generation after generation of more abusers and more abuse. Why should general society exert efforts to 'get them to trust us'...to what end? They won't. They are determined not to. They see themselves as separate, superior, better, God's chosen. Why don't they leave the country, find somewhere else to go? They are determined to structure their own society, make their own laws and ignore whatever local, state and federal laws they want to ignore. It seems like the best solution for them, and certainly for the rest of us. We have enough problems without having to worry about these people too. They aren't 'us,' they are 'them.' That's the way they want it. Why can't they just be 'them' somewhere else where they are none of our problem?

Us? Them?

In my neighborhood us are mostly Amish and Mennonite. Their forefathers came to the U.S. to be SEPARATE from the mainstream.

They don't pay social security. Their children don't go to school past the 8th grade.

The family buying a business from my husband and I are from India. They are Sikh. Their marriage is arranged. All Sikh marriages are arranged. The wife doesn't sit at the same table as her husband.

Arabs own the restaurant my husband and I frequent. Their marriage was arranged.

My daughter's husband is Asian. He is the grandson of a second wife in a polygamous marriage.

Are my Amish and Mennonite neighbors, the Sikh family, the arabs or my son-in-law not one of us because their culture or religious beliefs are not the same as yours or mine?

I think most follow their faith from a sincere desire to be one of the creator's "chosen". Isn't that the point?

MOO

And yes, I think everyone's rights must be respected. No exceptions.

IMO

 

[Glow]

Glow, have you heard about No Child Left Behind and the End of Grade testing before they can be promoted. This has been in place in the public schools in this country for years. They are no longer graduating people who cannot read.

Hi SewingDeb,

I have heard of that but I forgot about it until you mentioned it.

Here is a link I found -

U.S. falls in education rank compared to other countries

Story posted: 10-04-2005 07:07


By Elaine Wu
U-Wire

The United States is falling when it comes to international education rankings, as recent studies show that other nations in the developed world have more effective education systems.

In a 2003 study conducted by UNICEF that took the averages from five different international education studies, the researchers ranked the United States No. 18 out of 24 nations in terms of the relative effectiveness of its educational system.

Another prominent 2003 study, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, shows a steady decline in the performance of American students from grades 4 to 12 in comparison to their peers in other countries.

In both studies, Finland, Australia, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Netherlands and the United Kingdom beat the United States, while the Asian nations of South Korea, Japan and Singapore ranked first through third, respectively.

The TIMSS study is a comprehensive study done on a four-year cycle that measures the progress of students in math and science in 46 participating countries. It evaluates fourth, eighth and 12th-graders through questionnaires, tests and extensive videotaping of classroom environments.

The TIMSS results reveal a lot about the weaknesses of the U.S. education system, said David Marsh, a professor at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education.
“In fourth grade, American kids do above average internationally. By eighth grade, they slip a bit, and by 12th-grade, they’ve slipped a lot,” Marsh said. “We’re the only country that slides down that much from fourth to 12th grade.”
http://kapio.kcc.hawaii.edu/upload/fullnews.php?id=52

 

[barb0301]

Us? Them?

In my neighborhood us are mostly Amish and Mennonite. Their forefathers came to the U.S. to be SEPARATE from the mainstream.

They don't pay social security. Their children don't go to school past the 8th grade. Do they work in a business that requires ss to be paid? If so, they should not be exempt. If not, then I have no problem, as long as they dont' expect to receive ss retirement benefits when they reach retirement age. As for the children going to school, I think it is a shame that they are not allowed to go to school past 8th grade. It leaves them at a disadvantage with their peers on a number of levels. What they could learn in grades 9-12 would seem to greatly benefit the entire community, imo.

The family buying a business from my husband and I are from India. They are Sikh. Their marriage is arranged. All Sikh marriages are arranged. The wife doesn't sit at the same table as her husband. As long as the marriages are arranged between 2 consenting adults, I have no problem. It is when underage girls are forced to marry men many years older than them, and then to bear children at a young age that the protests from the mainstream America begin, me being one of them. Follow the laws on the age a child can be married, and all will be well.

Arabs own the restaurant my husband and I frequent. Their marriage was arranged.

My daughter's husband is Asian. He is the grandson of a second wife in a polygamous marriage.

Are my Amish and Mennonite neighbors, the Sikh family, the arabs or my son-in-law not one of us because their culture or religious beliefs are not the same as yours or mine?

I think most follow their faith from a sincere desire to be one of the creator's "chosen". Isn't that the point? I agree with you here. It is when people follow their "faith" and do what many consider "ungodly things" such as marry young, underage children, force them to have babies and sometimes give them up to other "mothers" in the sect" that it becomes something other than a religious group. It becomes a group of lawbreakers, holding a banner above their heads stating "WE ARE A RELIGIOUS GROUP, AND YOU CANNOT PERSECUTE US FOR OUR BELIEFS", when in reality, all sorts of sick perversions are going on behind that banner.

MOO

And yes, I think everyone's rights must be respected. No exceptions. Including the childrens' rights?

IMO

The quotes in red are simply my opinions.

 

[lynie]

Glow, have you heard about No Child Left Behind and the End of Grade testing before they can be promoted. This has been in place in the public schools in this country for years. They are no longer graduating people who cannot read.

Ummmm....that isn't exactly true....

I just read a transcript the other day of a student that just graduated with
a 1.0 and know several that should never have been promoted. NCLB is a joke, and End of Grade testing is not a national program.....

Lynie

 

[SewingDeb]

Lynie, could those students read? I was answering Glow's claim that we are still graduating students who cannot read.

I didn't realize EOG testing is not national. I know we have it in NC and just assumed it was part of the national mandate from NCLB.

 

[Pepper]

The quotes in red are simply my opinions.

Bravo Barb! I completely agree - especially about the children's rights. To me that is what this case is all about - THE CHILDREN.

Parents say they have the right to raise their children any way they want.

But what about the children? Should the girls be forced into bed with an uncle, half brother or even their own biological father because the parent says they must?

Should underage boys with no education be dumped along the side of the road to fend for themselves because they dared roll up their shirt sleeves on a hot day?

Should these children be denied an education that would make them self-sufficient, when denying this education makes them dependent upon the cult for support?

Their whole "religion" is based around child abuse, and that is what is so wrong. I don't care that they wear prairie dresses or have long hair or ban the color red. I do care that the children are the victims of brain washing and mind control to the point that they have no choices.

 

[SewingDeb]

Great post Pepper.

I would like to think if I were raised FLDS and the prophet ordered my child to be married to an older man, I would raise holy h*ll. Maybe I would lose my place in heaven but my child would come first.

 

[Glow]

Bravo Barb! I completely agree - especially about the children's rights. To me that is what this case is all about - THE CHILDREN.
Parents say they have the right to raise their children any way they want.

But what about the children? Should the girls be forced into bed with an uncle, half brother or even their own biological father because the parent says they must?

Should underage boys with no education be dumped along the side of the road to fend for themselves because they dared roll up their shirt sleeves on a hot day?

Should these children be denied an education that would make them self-sufficient, when denying this education makes them dependent upon the cult for support?

Their whole "religion" is based around child abuse, and that is what is so wrong. I don't care that they wear prairie dresses or have long hair or ban the color red. I do care that the children are the victims of brain washing and mind control to the point that they have no choices.

Should children be forced out of bed in the middle of the night and interrogated by strangers?

Should breastfeeding babies be physically torn out of their mothers arms with no proof that they have ever been harmed and without any charges OR legal representation?

Should children be corralled in mass in stable where there is still hay on the floor to live basically like animals with only a bucket to bathe in?

Should young girls have to lay down and be forcibly poked and prodded in their vagina by a stranger looking for "proof"of virginity?

See where I am going with this?

All the statements you made Pepper are inflammatory and geared in one direction. All of my statements above are inflammatory and geared in one direction. It doesn't matter that all of your statements and mine are both true. What matters is that they invoke intense emotion and outrage. That is not ever a climate in which a childs best interest should be decided. That is what has been wrong with this case from the beginning.

Where are they calm cool heads? CPS got calls from an alleged Sarah. Flora was talking with her on her cell phone. As we all know it is easy to see where a call is coming from on a cell phone. She wasn't calling with a Texas area code! The Texas Rangers wanted to go in and raid and went looking for a Judge to sign a warrent. The first Judge refused so they kept looking. Finally found Judge Walthers and she agreed to do it. CPS wasn't sincere in trying to "save" Sarah. They waited 4 days because the Rangers said THEY werent ready. All along it was meant to be just as massive as it was. True, they didn't know how many children were in there BUT they knew how much muscle they planned to bring in on their end! So CPS sits..................and they wait.............hour after hour.............day after day................for 4 days and then they go in to "rescue Sarah?

Why isnt everyone SO upset with CPS for delaying by DAYS the rescue of Sarah? Poor Sarah being beaten by her mean old husband and picked on by the sister wives. Flora Jessop is personal friends with the head Ranger that gave the command to raid YFZ. Couldn't she have told him that they would meet with passive resistance because that is part of their religion?

And on that note...what is that exactly that Ranger Long and Flora were choreographing the whole raid? That has a very fishy smell.

This case is not just about whether young women are being married off to old men. Would that it were that simple. This case is about a small and strange religion or cult. Also, apostates from that religion - and EVERY religion has them - are being lauded as the "experts" on that religion. They are apostate for a reason, obviously they did not mesh with the group. That may be the because of the group OR it could be because of them. Surely they should just be ONE of the many voices that are taken into account here.

This case is also about how much power a government appointed entity can and should have. An entity that is under its own governments scrutiny for doing the SAME things to children that the FLDS is accused of. How much unlimited power is TOO much?

This case is also about what a persons civil rights are and that especially includes the children. If the most innocent among us do not even have the right to due process then who does?

Also the women. I have seen these women made fun of because of how they dress. How they wear their hair. Even how they speak. How sad. How sad that we mainstream women who claim such great pride in our liberated views and the empowerment of women have reduced ourselves to trashing these women on such petty things. What about our own horrendous beehive hairdo's of the 60's? What about some of the clothes that went along with those hairdo's? Think Go- Go boots and fishnet stockings for example. We really have room to criticize their clothes? What does that have to do with anything??? As far as how they speak it is completely moronic to criticize them. Any people in a closed community begin to talk alike. That is not unique to them. Have you ever noticed the entire Kennedy family? From Ted to Maria. They all have the same jawline the same mannarisms the same accent and the same inflection. The FLDS are not alone in that.

Those are just some of the petty and shallow points that we "mainstream" women have offered up about these women that we know very little about. We know very little about them because

a) we only read the words of their enemies to inform oursleves
b) we find out there is abuse and we can hear no more - ears are closed.

There are no words to describe how sad that is. That in this day and age women are reduced to that level of cattiness towards fellow women. Ethnocentrism is alive and well especially among us liberated and mainstream women it seems.

And lastly this case is about religion. Everybody gets a little scared to mention that but it is still true. These people practice and believe some things that are putting them at odds with the laws of the state they live in. Naturally SOMETHING is going to have to be decided. This age old and global clash of religion VS government is in part, why we even have a country called America.

These reasons (and there are more) are what need to be looked at in this case. We need to have conversations that are cool headed and based on facts. The goal here should be change for these children. Change comes through enlightenment NOT through raids and threats and hate.

Yes, hate. Some, not all, HATE these people and they use they "ick" factor of the young girls/forced marriage as their "rightful" basis to do so. Nothing good in the history of the world was ever accomplished for the sake of children, when it was based on hate. We need to hope that changes - for the children.

 

[Truly]

...

Those are just some of the petty and shallow points that we "mainstream" women have offered up about these women that we know very little about.

...

Yes, hate. Some, not all, HATE these people and they use they "ick" factor of the young girls/forced marriage as their "rightful" basis to do so.

Glow, you are the only one who has remained steadfastedly focused only upon the shallow issues while ignoring the elephant in the room. You refuse to acknowledge or discuss our rightful concerns that the FLDS children have been enslaved in armed compounds and forced to submit to sex with older male relatives, and insult all of us who care about the victims of child abuse by dismissing our desire to seek justice for the children as some sort of warrantless, infantile emotion you have christened 'the ick factor'. It is insulting and demeaning, especially to those of us who have actually survived childhood sexual assault.

 

[Pepper]

Glow, I must agree with Truly.

Glow, you are the only one who has remained steadfastedly focused only upon the shallow issues while ignoring the elephant in the room. You refuse to acknowledge or discuss our rightful concerns that the FLDS children have been enslaved in armed compounds and forced to submit to sex with older male relatives, and insult all of us who care about the victims of child abuse by dismissing our desire to seek justice for the children as some sort of warrantless, infantile emotion you have christened 'the ick factor'. It is insulting and demeaning, especially to those of us who have actually survived childhood sexual assault.

You ignored the important part of my post:

Their whole "religion" is based around child abuse, and that is what is so wrong. I don't care that they wear prairie dresses or have long hair or ban the color red. I do care that the children are the victims of brain washing and mind control to the point that they have no choices.

I don't think we are ever going to agree. I don't hate these people or laugh at them because of their dress. I PITY them because they are so clueless to the degree they are being manipulated by the men they believe have a direct pipeline to God.

Frankly I think you are being condescending and insulting to even hint that those of us on the children's side of this issue would feel the way you describe. I'm beginning to think you have a personal vendetta against the CPS as if they were agents of the devil! As I've said before, I have no personal reason to judge the CPS one way or another, especially the Texas people. I do know that here in California children DIE way too often at the hands of their parents because the CA CPS does not act quickly enough to protect the children and they are often returned to abusive parents prematurely.

I think you are way underestimating the degree of mind control that has gone on within the walls of the FLDS. Children and mothers have been "reassigned" to other families when the father head has been found to be "unworthy." Glow, you keep trying to paint these people with your value system, and that just doesn't work. Mothers are kept from bonding with the children they bore. I firmly believe that if the father decides to kill one of his children because of some egregious error, the mother would accept that decision with very little or any protest. These people are trained to become robots.

 

[Jolynna]

The quotes in red are simply my opinions.

I have posted many, many times that I oppose anyone having sex with a minor. I don't condone that.

I don't think children should be dumped by the side of the road.

Anyone guilty of either of those acts should be prosecuted. Absolutely.

But, yes, there does need to be evidence those crimes were committed.

I think it possible to oppose having sex with or dumping children and also to support everyone's right to due process.

IMO

 

[SewingDeb]

Glow, how would you propose enlightenment for these people?

 

[SewingDeb]

It is my understanding that the investigation is ongoing and the parents have rules to abide by and CPS will be checking on the children. Am I wrong?

Everyone has a right to due process...that is correct. It was the lies about who belonged to who, etc. that forced the taking of the children and the mass hearing right after the raid.

CPS did not take the children the first day. They were there to find Sarah. While they were there, they found other things (broken bones and pregnant teens as well as very young looking mothers) that concerned them and it was the next day and with paperwork that they returned, iirc.

 

[Jolynna]

It is my understanding that the investigation is ongoing and the parents have rules to abide by and CPS will be checking on the children. Am I wrong?

Everyone has a right to due process...that is correct. It was the lies about who belonged to who, etc. that forced the taking of the children and the mass hearing right after the raid.

CPS did not take the children the first day. They were there to find Sarah. While they were there, they found other things (broken bones and pregnant teens as well as very young looking mothers) that concerned them and it was the next day and with paperwork that they returned, iirc.

That is my understanding too.