Child Abuse? - Are some supporting abuse?

[pushka]

In the UK, the sex education classes that teenagers have at school do not encourage sex outside of marriage, but they do provide valuable information and contraception for those teens that they know are already practising unsafe sex. They are being responsible by recognising that those teens who are going to have sex before marriage at least need to know that they can be protected, and know the correct way to be so...

[WillowTheWhisp]

Also, just wondering what you think of this news story. Do you believe the guy should go to jail or do you believe the girl should go to jail?

Man Sentenced To Prison After Girl's MySpace Page Lies About Age - News Story - WFTV Orlando

I'm appalled that he has been jailed. She is obviously the one in the wrong for intentionally misleading him. As it says in the article. How many more? These two young men will now have a criminal record which I personally feel is unjustified.

[KosherXMorg]

She was taking poetic license with the 50 year old bit. These older men come in a variety of ages.

However, to try to deny that these young girls are being groomed to be given to some older polygamist husband, not of their choosing, will only make one's nose grow.

Ah, but it is of their choosing. They choose to let their prophet decide. Are you willing to take away their free agency to choose to allow the prophet to choose who they will marry?

BTW, the girls aren't just woke up one morning and told to shower and get ready because they're "gettin' hitched". The girl, when SHE feels she is ready for the responsibility of marriage and motherhood, approaches her father and they go to the prophet and tell him of HER decision. She is usually asked if she has someone in mind, and many times they receive that, other times they just want the prophet to pick and she goes where the prophet directs.

You really need to brush up on fundamentalism.

Flora was never married.

Carolyn wasn't a child bride, she was 18

Elissa committed adultery with a embittered ex-FLDS man who was older then her husband.

[KosherXMorg]

Oh please. The bible teaches us to obey the law. If the law tells us that we shouldn't marry someone under a certain age, then we shouldn't do it. This isn't brain surgery.

You know, for someone who is so adamant that our judicial system isn't harsh enough on criminals, you sure seem to support the rights of sex offenders to break the law.

On another note, if Isaac came to me to ask for my ten year old's hand in marriage I would kick him in the groin. Nice to know you would offer yours up though.

Are all LDS this woefully ignorant of scripture and disrespectful towards the men directly associated with Elohim?

Abraham sent his servant to obtain a wife for Issac and Rebecca is whom he brought.

As for "kicking <Isaac> in the groin"... Isaac his father Abraham, and his son Jacob were so righteous that YHWH refers to himself as "The El of Abraham, Isaac, and Jabob"

Are you aware Miss Racelle that, according to your church history, Joseph Smith also took several 14-16 year-old girls as wives under the threat of condemnation if the didn't consent to his proposal? Are you going to kick him in the groin when you meet him?

[Andrew777]

I don't know turning to the Bible to look for moral lessons about the treatment of children is really a poor place to go. The Bible tells us to beat our kids with a rod if they are disobedient a number of times in Proverbs, in Deutoronomy we are instructed to stone a child to death if he's disobedient and a drunk, you should be willing to sacrafice your child if God wills it and of course there's all the kids that are mauled to death by bears for mocking a prophet. As for treatment of women and daughters it gets even worse, you can find those verses on your own they are many and plentiful. Yes, there is hordes of biblical pedophelia, polygamy, God instructed rapes and murders of women and children.

Polygamy, pedophelia, abuse of women ---biblically sound? Yes! Morally and ethically? I'd have to say no!

BTW Pedophiles aren't homosexuals or hetrosexuals, they are pedophiles. Homosexuals and hetrosexuals have sex with adults.

[KosherXMorg]

Statistical research has revealed grave consequences of early motherhood for the health of girls. The most harmless diseases of young mums are serious erosion, ovarian dysfunction, and accompanying system diseases, to name a few. Their infants also have poor health manifested as low birth weight, compromised immunity, and propensity for allergic reactions. The babies are bottle–fed from the very first days of their life as teenage mothers tend to have lactation problems.

Maternal mortality among teenagers is 5 to 8 times higher than among adults. One in every ten women who dies when in labour is under 20. The younger the lying-in woman, the higher the risk of maternal mortality.

Source: Pravda

Google child bride and fistula - I don't recommend it.

You are referring to young women in general society engaged in pre-marital sex and who knows what other whoredoms. Not young women you have reserved their virtue for motherhood. I would be interested in the rates of the things you mentioned amoung FLDS mothers. I'll bet you $500 bucks FLDS mothers breast-feed.

Quit equating the FLDS people with the perversions of modern culture.

[Andrew777]

Ah, but it is of their choosing. They choose to let their prophet decide. Are you willing to take away their free agency to choose to allow the prophet to choose who they will marry?

Yes. It's good to see the government treating this in the same way the LDS were treated back in the day when they were still polygamous and marrying litte girls. The rights of those who haven't reached the age of 'responsibility' need to be protected by the government from religions, parents and cult groups.

[KosherXMorg]

:offtopic:The extermination order, and the majority of attacks against the Mormons, had nothing to do with their theology. Rather, their actions often caused others to make fun of their theology, and to use it against them when the situations escalated to horrorible bloodshed, on both sides.

For example, Sidney Rigdon was the first to talk of extermination in a fourth of July tirade. In fact, after Joseph's death, Brigham was able to use Sidney's fourth of July "extermination speech" against him when vying for the presidency, because, at the time, everyone knew Sidney's flammable speech was the precursor to much of the dangers and ultimate bloodshed the Saints had experienced.

This had nothing to do with theology. It had to do with a religious group that kept itself isolated from outsiders, and insisted, often arrogantly to the settlers that already lived on the land, that God had given them these lands.

Certainly the Mormons experienced the worst of the horrors, including Joseph's and Hyrum's murders. In fact, they were lucky, IMO. Women forced to cross the frozen Mississippi River in the dead of winter with people dying all around them, including their children, is a horror I cannot imagine. And THAT is a great manifestation of their commitment to God and their religion.

But, in some situations, the Mormons gave as good as they got, which escalated others. You are taking a very complicated historical situation and reducing it to a whitewashed version of "us" against "them."

And to compare what is happening today with the FLDS children, many of whom ARE being abused, which IS illegal, to the horrors the early members of the Church experienced, is an insult to their memory.

Elphaba

So you are saying a bragadocious (sp?) attitude and isolation are justification for a governmental order demanding they leave or be murdered?

Their practice of polygamy IS one reason the early Saints were persecuted. Spare me the "dishonor to their memory" bit.

[Andrew777]

You are referring to young women in general society engaged in pre-marital sex and who knows what other whoredoms. Not young women you have reserved their virtue for motherhood. I would be interested in the rates of the things you mentioned amoung FLDS mothers. I'll bet you $500 bucks FLDS mothers breast-feed.

Quit equating the FLDS people with the perversions of modern culture.

Andrew: Insulting other posters here is not acceptable. Take a break.

Seraphim

[KosherXMorg]

I don't know what the situation is in the USA but here in the UK contraceptive advice and devices are available to girls and boys under the age of 16 and parents are not informed. It is all done 'confidentially' and parents do not even have the right to know! If you ask me this whole country is a darned site worse than the FLDS for advocating under age sex, at least the FLDS do not promote promiscuity.

Are you really absolutely certain and positive about that? After all the raid was as a result of an unproven accusation in an untraced phone call, wasn't it? Why were innocent children removed from their parents?

Heck, 12 year-old girls can get abortions over here without telling their parents.

[KosherXMorg]

Yes. If they had intercourse with children, then yes, they were child molesters. That is how we define child molesters. Adults who have intercourse, or other sexual relations, with children. And 13-year-old girls are children.

Does it matter that the culture condoned it? No it does not. Did the little girls cry when the men forced them to have intercourse with him? Yes, they did. Were their cries ignored? Yes they were. That is child molestation.

You are so wont to write posts about girls and the cultures that condoned their being raped early in their lives, it is creepy. Yes, I know, these cultures did not see it as rape. I don’t care.

Let’s look at it another way.

Do you consider clitoral castration child abuse? The cultures that insist on this will be using rocks, glass or whatever sharp instruments they can find, on little six-year-old girls tomorrow.

Yet, this is an acient Muslim and Christian custom in Africa that is so ingrained, there are stories of parents trying to sneak their daughters away so she does not have to suffer this horror, only for the WOMEN of the tribes to steal her back, and then slice her body in the most excruciating manner imaginable.

A six-year-old's body does not hurt more today than it did two thousand years ago.

So, the question goes back to you? Do you consider what these little girls experienced 2000 years ago to be child abuse? And those who are sliced open today? Is that child abuse?

Elphaba

Apples and Oranges. YHWH never commanded females circumcision but He did approve of Isaac's marriage.

[WillowTheWhisp]

Yes I think they can here too. The irony is that they can be treated for something so serious without parental consent and yet they can't be given a headache tablet or even have sun screen applied at school.

[KosherXMorg]

I don't know turning to the Bible to look for moral lessons about the treatment of children is really a poor place to go. The Bible tells us to beat our kids with a rod if they are disobedient a number of times in Proverbs, in Deutoronomy we are instructed to stone a child to death if he's disobedient and a drunk, you should be willing to sacrafice your child if God wills it and of course there's all the kids that are mauled to death by bears for mocking a prophet. As for treatment of women and daughters it gets even worse, you can find those verses on your own they are many and plentiful. Yes, there is hordes of biblical pedophelia, polygamy, God instructed rapes and murders of women and children.

Polygamy, pedophelia, abuse of women ---biblically sound? Yes! Morally and ethically? I'd have to say no!

BTW Pedophiles aren't homosexuals or hetrosexuals, they are pedophiles. Homosexuals and hetrosexuals have sex with adults.

You need to brush up on your Hebrew. The "kids" mauled by bears were adult men.

"Spare the rod, spoil the child" is not saying to beat your kid, only the you must reprove them when they are in error, or they'll be spoiled brats (as evidenced by our "spank a kid, go to jail" culture)

Please, cite the examples of how YHWH instructs Israel to treat women horribly.

[KosherXMorg]

You are one sick and perverted person KosherXMorg.

Because I question the studies cited as relevant to the FLDS mothers:huh: Okey doke.

YHWH said in the last days, "They will call good evil and evil good".

[KosherXMorg]

Yes I think they can here too. The irony is that they can be treated for something so serious without parental consent and yet they can't be given a headache tablet or even have sun screen applied at school.

Yep, pretty ironic.

[Moksha]

In fact, heterosexual pedophiles far outnumber homosexual pedophiles. Perhaps some critical thinking is in order?

Elphaba

Yes, but are you not forgetting the slogan issued on the Short Creek FARM back in 1984:

Polygamy Pedophilia pleasing

Other Pedophelia abominating

?

[ruthiechan]

Isaac and Mohammed were not pedophiles as the women they married were at reproductive development when they finally did consumate the marriages.

Reproductive age. . . that starts with a girl's menstrual cycle.

I started my period when I was ten, I had breasts, hips, pubic hair, and arm pit hair. When I was twelve a met a girl one year old than me, we became best friends. But she had twins when she was ten. The father was one of her mother's friends. The twins were in foster care. So, because she started her period, and had all the womanly things I did, did that make it okay for this man to have had sex with her and impregnate her? (barring the whole out of wedlock issue).

I do not think so.

[ruthiechan]

So, was it just the homosexuals that advocate sex with minor boys? Did your instructor just forget to tell you about the heterosexual pedophiles as well?

Or, perhaps, he/she told you the "homosexual pedophiles advocating sex with minors" is a myth, perpetuated by bigots? In fact, heterosexual pedophiles far outnumber homosexual pedophiles. Perhaps some critical thinking is in order?

Elphaba

Apologies Elphaba, I was simply using that group as an example. That was the group that came immediately to mind when I made that post.

Of course we spoke about "heterosexual" pedophiles and those groups, and how most pedophiles prefer sex with children of the opposite gender. We also spoke about their tactics, how they romance the child into the relationship and all sorts of things. It was very in depth.

[ruthiechan]

I don't know what the situation is in the USA but here in the UK contraceptive advice and devices are available to girls and boys under the age of 16 and parents are not informed. It is all done 'confidentially' and parents do not even have the right to know! If you ask me this whole country is a darned site worse than the FLDS for advocating under age sex, at least the FLDS do not promote promiscuity.

Are you really absolutely certain and positive about that? After all the raid was as a result of an unproven accusation in an untraced phone call, wasn't it? Why were innocent children removed from their parents?

Of course not. But if such were the case and the raid still occurred then I think we'd have good reason to pitch a fit.

In the USA btw, it's the same regarding abortions and contraception. Parents no longer have the right to know which is ridiculous.

[Fiannan]

You are one sick and perverted person KosherXMorg.

Is this fun sarcasm or a personal attack?

[Fiannan]

I don't know turning to the Bible to look for moral lessons about the treatment of children is really a poor place to go. The Bible tells us to beat our kids with a rod if they are disobedient a number of times in Proverbs, in Deutoronomy we are instructed to stone a child to death if he's disobedient and a drunk, you should be willing to sacrafice your child if God wills it and of course there's all the kids that are mauled to death by bears for mocking a prophet. As for treatment of women and daughters it gets even worse, you can find those verses on your own they are many and plentiful. Yes, there is hordes of biblical pedophelia, polygamy, God instructed rapes and murders of women and children.

Polygamy, pedophelia, abuse of women ---biblically sound? Yes! Morally and ethically? I'd have to say no!

BTW Pedophiles aren't homosexuals or hetrosexuals, they are pedophiles. Homosexuals and hetrosexuals have sex with adults.

Okay fine then, I guess we can't use the Koran either since it honors the same prophets as the Bible. Then maybe we should consult evolutionary psychology and studies on primates to see what IS natural for people to base their moral judgements on.

Let's see, incest? A big topic in Freud's "Totum" speculations. Primates do it. They also commit adultery, have sex with females as soon as they become impregnatable, and do all sorts of nasty, violent things to each other. There was a song a couple of years ago with a line that went "You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel". A silly pop song perhaps but a message that hits at a deep philosophical question if we do indeed throw out the God of Abraham as our standard setter.

As for polygamy or any number of non-conventional sexual arrangements or habits then again, nature will give you plenty of examples of some pretty nasty stuff and any study of human psychology will do likewise. If you dan't base your morals on God then all you may be left with is societal preferences that can change in a generation. If, instead, you say you support the Bible or the Koran and then say what God approved of or even encouraged is wrong then you set yourself up as superior to God. Kinda a dangerous position.

[KosherXMorg]

Is this fun sarcasm or a personal attack?

I think it's funny that of all the things I've posted he decided my questioning of the relevance of the underage pregnancy stats in relation to the FLDS community is what was over-the-top.

[WANDERER]

Age of consent in Australia is 16. With some variations according to state:

in some being under the care of a person (teacher, religious leader etc) makes it illegal for the under 18s;

is defensable in some states if the child was 10 and the offender was no more than two years older.

In the US it appears to be

16 and in quite a few states older (e.g. Arizona); it would appear to be the same ruling in most states of the USA for girls. I checked, expecting that it would appear as 14 far more frequently...apparently not. In most cases it is stricter than in Australia.

If you consider the age of menstruation as a sign of sexual maturity (hardly the case for an 8 year old) this may be as late as 16.

The law is the law regardless of cultural, traditional and biblical historical practices or your personal religious beliefs. To suggest not following the laws ...lacks wisdom. Are you suggesting that we base our morality on the fact that we are superior to them and answerable only to God's superior laws which you understand to include a good case for an age of consent of ten or was it 14?

[Fiannan]

The law is the law regardless of cultural, traditional and biblical historical practices or your personal religious beliefs. To suggest not following the laws ...lacks wisdom. Are you suggesting that we base our morality on the fact that we are superior to them and answerable only to God's superior laws which you understand to include a good case for an age of consent of ten or was it 14?

First, in regards to your question in regards to laws then that WOULD be the position of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and John Taylor to name a few. In their talks they urged people to follow the law but only in so far as the law conformed to a rather libertarian interpretation of the US Constitution. If the laws of the US were out of step with that document's support of religious liberty then the laws were suspect and did not need to be followed.

As for the whole age thing I am actually happy tht the FLDS have agreed to not marry anyone unless they have reached the age of consent in that state. While at least one state in the USA in the 1800s had the legal age of consent at 10 years of age, and while many Islamic nations allow a girl to marry at 9 (or as in the case of Yemen 8) because Mohammed did it I think a case could be made that 10 is too young for consent. I do not believe that 14 is too young for marriage but agree with the states that require parental consent coupled with a judicial permission to marry. I have a relative who got pregnant at 14 and did get married to the guy. They have been married for about 30 years now. If the law had said they had to wait until she was older maybe their relationship would have drifted and things would not have worked out well.

However, I admit that my cultural bias is showing here. The Bible may not conform to this idea since it appears that God permitted or even blessed relationships that in contemporary western society would be illegal -- note, again, not illegal in Islamic nations since they stick to the idea that laws should conform to God's commandments and not visa versa. You know, one of these days when Australia, France, Sweden, Britain, etc. are majority Muslim there will be a revision of laws in these countries.

[Elphaba]

Fiannan,

Obviously you missed the point of my post, which is confusing since it always seems to be the point of your posts on this subject.

You keep claiming because ancient cultures condoned young girls being married and having intercourse with men, that we should not judge them by our standards today.

Using YOUR criteria, my counterpoint is that because cultures condone slicing young girls’ clitoris' off to this day, then this unspeakable practice should be okay with you.

So, is it? Is it okay with you? Or does it need to be practiced for another 2,000 years before people are enlightened enough to know how barbaric it is?

Do you now understand my argument? Because nothing you wrote indicates you do. If I need to be clearer, please let me know.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was 14 when she conceived Jesus. So I guess not only was God an absentee father but also something far more serious?

Why would you ask me? I don’t believe any of this happened, and you know that.

Besides, if I recall correctly, Mary was a virgin when she became pregnant. Therefore, there was no intercourse. Of course, pregnancy is unhealthy, and painful, for a 14-year-old girl. Hopefully it was not a long labor.

Cutting off a girl"s clitoris is not a Christian or a Muslim practice. It is an animistic tradition that has been incorporated into these religions in Africa as much as voodo and Catholicism can go together in Haiti.

I agree. So what? It’s principally Muslims who practice it now. Christian Coptics do as well. I do acknowledge other cultures practice it with no religious meaning attached.

Nevertheless, if the Imams and Mullahs wanted to stop this barbaric practice, they could. But they don’t. So while it did not originate with Islam, a major number of those who do practice it ARE Muslims.

And one cannot connect that to marriage practices.

Of course they can--it is the major non-religious reason for FGM! It’s why this nightmare is still inflicted on about 8,000 little girls each day. Uncircumcised women in these cultures have a hard time finding a marriage partner.

Parents believe FGM is the only way to guarantee their little girls will remain “pure” until marriage. This belief is so strong it overcomes the dangers to the girls: some do not survive the blood loss during the operation; others die from infection; most suffer life-long complications. It is also why they sew up the vulva, leaving a small opening for urine and menstrual blood.

In some cultures, the woman is cut open by her husband on their wedding night with a double edged dagger, and may be sewn up again if her husband leaves on a long trip. So, yes, FGM can be, and IS, connected to marriage practices.

Isaac and Mohammed were not pedophiles as the women they married were at reproductive development when they finally did consumate the marriages.

So you didn’t really want an answer to your question, did you?

Young girls can become “reproductive” at nine-years-old. So, does that mean Isaac or Mohammad should have had intercourse with her? Or any of the other men in these societies, primarily polygamous, that practice this even to this day?

Also, just wondering what you think of this news story. Do you believe the guy should go to jail or do you believe the girl should go to jail?

I believe both parties are at fault, and that neither should be in jail. What does that have to do with the discussion? Because she was 13?

Is it your thinking that because some 13-year-old girls have no problem having sex with a man that all 13-year-old girls have no problem with it? If it is, I assure you, you would be wrong.

Now, I would appreciate you addressing the crux of my point, which is that you condone an ancient culture’s practice of having intercourse with young girls.

So, since there are currently hundreds of cultures that slice off little girls clitoris’, do you also condone that? If not, why not?

Both practices are/were condoned by their respective cultures. That is your argument, isn’t it?

Condoning child abuse because it was accepted by the past culture is still condoning child abuse. And yes, if Isaac and Abraham even existed, if they had intercourse with them, that is child abuse.

Why in the world do you think we consider it so today, Fiannan? Because it HURTS! It HURTS young girls. You just never seem to catch on to that.

Elphaba