"I'm from the Government and I can help"

Does that sentence make you as uneasy as it does me? We now have a bigger and more intrusive government than ever. They think they know what is right for us and they'll force you to comply whether you want to or not. Big brother is alive and well in the U.S.

Texas Raids on Polygamists

On April 3rd, 2008, hundreds of agents (a SWAT team, FBI agents, Texas Rangers, San Angelo police, highway patrol, and sheriff’s department officers from four counties) raided the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the Yearning for Zion Ranch near San Angelo, Texas. They were backed by an armored personnel carrier, K9 dog units, and ambulances. 

Armed SWAT members raiding the Zion Ranch near San Angelo, Texas.

A total of 465 children were forcibly removed from their mothers and fathers. The men were held for 24 hours without any charges filed. This all happened because of a call on an abuse line from a 16 year old saying that she had been beaten and raped by her 50 year old husband. The authorities never met with the 16 year old and they never confirmed the claim. They just came in force and figured that they would sort it all out later.

Well, that later is now, and the courts have just decided that there never should have been a raid and that the State had no right to take the children from their parents. They also believe that the phone call (the 16 year old) was a hoax. In all, they figured that this little miscue cost the State 7.5 million dollars in just the first 19 days (and that isn't including the lawyer’s fees)! In the end, this debacle will cost the Texas taxpayers tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. Whoops.

While you may or may not agree with their beliefs, this comes down to a question of, “how do you handle a situation like this?” Do you investigate a single, anonymous complaint by a teenager or do you forcibly remove 465 children by gunpoint based on "guilt by association?"

Let's get the facts straight

Not only was the original phone call (compliant) deemed a hoax, but there were a lot more facts that came out that makes you wonder. The state of Texas took newborn children from mothers that were 22 years old and said that they were underage minors. At least one of the "underage” mothers never even had any children, but she was taken from the ranch anyway. In fact, most of the underage mothers turned out to be 21 to 26 years of age and should have never been taken from their home in the first place.

How do you take 6 year old children, with no signs of abuse, away from their parents because they might grow up to be an underage mother when the girl turns 14? Or they might turn into a predator when the boy turns 30 or 40? If that is allowed to happen, they can take our kids away because living with a couple that believes in alternative lifestyles might grow up to turn into a sexual deviant. This is called "guilt by association."

Here comes the Judge

Judge Barbara Walther ordered 465 children to be forcibly reoved from their homes.

The Judge that made all of this happen was Judge Walther when she ruled that all of the children should be removed. Normally, only the children from the one family that the complaint was made would be subject to this court order, but she broadened the ruling to include anyone that followed the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and lived on the Yearning for Zion Ranch. Could judges now group "types of families" together when issuing orders for protection? What about families with similar religious or sexual beliefs?

Other prominent judges have said that Judge Walther used a shotgun when she should have used a rifle, meaning that her order was much too broad given the circumstances. It also reminds me of the Duke Lacrosse case where they arrested the Duke players on very shoddy evidence creating a lot of suffering for the players only to find out that they were innocent in the end. Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty?"

While there certainly might be some guilty parties in this case, it surely isn't all 1,600 residents at the ranch. Their children will surely suffer from a form of abuse because they had to endure this situation and were torn from their families for an indefinite amount of time.

Police State Spectre

The police are supposed to protect and to serve. That means serving different religious organizations and people with varied sexual lifestyles. If a club is caught breaking the law (serving liquor without a license, operating a business from a home without a permit, or allowing nudity in an establishment with a liquor license) then I am the first to applaud law enforcement that educates and enforces the law. What I cannot tolerate is when law enforcement tries to intimidate both the owners and the customers and tries to punish, rather than teach or give a club the ability to comply with all of the laws.

We have had police chiefs write and call our hotels to warn them, "We can't be responsible for what might happen" if the hotel allows our events to continue. They made direct threats to the hotels in an attempt to get them to ban us from their property instead of having an open dialog where we could address their fears and concerns.

Swing Club Raids

You may not think so, but this has many direct correlations to "swing clubs." I can list at least 20 clubs that have been raided by heavily armored SWAT teams, in full riot gear, during the past few years. Like this case, most were instigated by anonymous phone calls where someone complained that there were illegal drugs or sex going on at the club.

In all of these cases, it would make a lot more sense (and save us taxpayers a lot of money) if they simply investigated the claim by going undercover or contacting the offending person (or persons) before initiating a full fledged "raid."

What threat was imminent that full SWAT (and tanks in the Texas raid) was needed in these examples? Did they really think that "swingers" would be "packing heat" and be a violent threat to their investigation? Or were they simply sending a message of who was in charge and what to expect in the future?

You can make a difference

If there were older men sleeping with underage girls in Texas, then I think they should lock them up and protect the girls from any future possibility of abuse. But once again, we have more examples where the government oversteps its authority and chooses to fight with intimidation, deception, and brute force, instead of with reasonable doubt, the order of law, and probable cause.

We must speak out against a "Police State." We must not sit back and allow our clubs to get raided without any repercussions. We must either choose to be vocal critics or support those that can if being outspoken will cause harm to your personal or professional life. Please join organizations like the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (www.NCSFreedom.org) or the Woodhull Freedom Foundations (http://www.woodhullfoundation.org/) to ensure that we have the right to attend clubs, conventions, and house parties without fear of SWAT teams breaking in our doors at 2 am.

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