Prosecuting Polygamy

AlterNet

My comment:

I have no problem with polygamy, polyandry, or any other form of plural marriage in which all participants are willing and over 18. Adults should live as they choose. That is freedom. It's not the issue here.

The problem with these cults is that they're abusing children. No girl of 14 should be married to anyone for any reason, but forcing her to marry an old man, who is often a relative, or even her mother's husband in some cases, is child molestation, plain and simple. The state has an obligation to protect children when the parents are incapable or unwilling to do so. These groups are fronts for institutionalized pedophilia. Young girls are raped, young boys driven out into the world with nothing, babies forced to have babies. That's what has to stop.

We have to stop kowtowing to ancient desert custom. This is NOT religion - it's culture that's been passed down from thousands of years and half a world away. It has nothing to do with worship, belief or free exercise of anything. Have 45 wives if you choose, but let them enter the arrangement willingly after age 18. If you can't find adult women who'll marry you, tough luck. We don't all get to live as we choose, and nothing gives anyone the right to force a child into an adult relationship. This is the 21st century - we know better than this, and we must do better than this. The state needs to be far more aggressive in saving these children.