some sanity
May. 22nd, 2008 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonCourt: Texas had no right to remove FLDS children
and
Court grants appeal by FLDS mothers
This eases my mind a bit. I have no knowledge of what was or was not going on in the FLDS compound, and if there was child abuse happening, in isolated cases or systematically, it should be prosecuted, no question.
But to sweep in, and, from what I have heard via the media, with no or little specific evidence of any wrong-doing, forcibly remove hundreds of children from their parents is a serious and egregious breach of state authority. And of course breaking up families who follow a minority religion and are living a non-mainstream lifestyle hits close to home. For the State to split up families, the legal bar should be high, and require credible and specific allegations backed up by concrete evidence.
Just as catching one terrorist does not justify diminishing or removing the civil rights of thousands or millions of innocent people, so investigating and putting a stop to possible child abuse does not justify infringing and eliminating fundamental civil rights for hundreds of families. We are all presumed innocent unless proven guilty, even (perhaps especially) when the stakes are high.
and
Court grants appeal by FLDS mothers
This eases my mind a bit. I have no knowledge of what was or was not going on in the FLDS compound, and if there was child abuse happening, in isolated cases or systematically, it should be prosecuted, no question.
But to sweep in, and, from what I have heard via the media, with no or little specific evidence of any wrong-doing, forcibly remove hundreds of children from their parents is a serious and egregious breach of state authority. And of course breaking up families who follow a minority religion and are living a non-mainstream lifestyle hits close to home. For the State to split up families, the legal bar should be high, and require credible and specific allegations backed up by concrete evidence.
Just as catching one terrorist does not justify diminishing or removing the civil rights of thousands or millions of innocent people, so investigating and putting a stop to possible child abuse does not justify infringing and eliminating fundamental civil rights for hundreds of families. We are all presumed innocent unless proven guilty, even (perhaps especially) when the stakes are high.
