Update:
AS has nothing. Government power? How about parental power? Where is the absence of power in having 22 wives. No, that's not made up:State witnesses on Thursday testified to a household with a 13-year-old mother, a household with 22 wives for one man, and at least one home with a 17-year-old girl married to a 46-year-old man.
- These kids do not have birth certificates. Is that fair to them?
- They do not have legally known parents. Over the range of life's risks (including that YFZ might bankrupt), is that fair to them?
- I read that some of them did not go through 'the system', so they don't have what we consider standard inoculation in the USA. Is that fair to them?
- And you tell me, if you get pregnant at age 16, how that doesn't "trap" you in the system? Where is the adult choice?
- You disobey, you get your kids taken away from you by the cult leader. We have this by testimony. That includes, but isn't limited to, the choice to leave for something else. This is somehow not an exercise of power?
Yet, it is the government power in this case that upsets AS the most?
And if you still have objections, all one can say is this. Imagine if you had to bear some 50-year old's children when you were 16 and live with that "choice" for the rest of your life, while your brother went on to have 15 wives and unquestioned say-so over all his domain.
Last, the fathers (and mothers) have intentionally subverted the laws of the land, by having off-the-books marriages. How is the required remediation then, as painful as it obviously is, not also part of their responsibility?
