We are witnessing the demonization of some crazy Morman polygamist sect in rural Texas.   Some have suggested that Bush invented this to distract from his faults or Republican apparent inability to run the country as Clinton used Waco to move news coverage to something other than himself.   That may be - I have no idea one way or the other.   It is a tough thing to prove.   But a President isn't the only one who changes news coverage in order to alter the consciousness of the public.   The media themselves certainly engage in the practice.

On the surface, the practices of this sect certainly go past the line of what Americans consider normal and acceptable behavior.   But these things are allegations, not facts which have been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.   If they happened in the manner the news media says they did - children forced to "spiritually marry" and bear the children of middle aged men, borderline pedophilia, not to mention general "emotional, physical, and-or sexual abuse," the practices certainly should be stopped and the perpetrators prosecuted under the law.   But this should not be a front-page news item.   This should not involve a storming of the compound.   Not in this country.

We should not be obsessed with a single group of less than one thousand people whose, some would argue, legitimate religious practices involve men marrying minors who have attained sexual maturity, such marriages apparently occurring with the consent of the girls' parents.   We should not be obsessed with this in a country in which there is a legal aid society, the ACLU, indirectly supported by government (tax exempt status being in effect financial support), whose practices include defending an organization of middle age men whose sole reason for being involves the coercion (including seduction, kidnapping, you name it) of minor males into homosexual acts.

Come to think of it, where is the ACLU in this?   I have not yet read about how they have mobilized to defend this sect.   Have they made any public statements in support of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints yet?   Why weren't they there immediately?   If they can defend the most disgusting practices of the members of NAMBLA, certainly they can more than mobilize in defense of this group.   If they cannot, they are mere idealogues and their tax exempt status should be pulled since they obviously follow a politically motivated agenda.

We should not be obsessed with this group of polygamists in a country in which the media tells us regularly to simultaneously embrace multi-culturalism, especially as that concerns fundamentalist Islamic practices, homosexuality, and almost any other behavior or belief which does not fit neatly into our main-stream, heterosexual, Judaeo-Christian practices.   Never mind that the fundamentalist Islamic way of dealing with deviant behavior is rather more harsh than our own, punishing any act of homosexuality in a manner similar to the way we deal with murderers and other violent criminals.   We are supposed to be tolerant of others who practice "alternative lifestyles" to the point of promoting their "style" in public schools, as well as those who would jail them, perhaps even put them to death for the practice of their "style."   The only practices we are supposed to question are those of any fundamentalist Christian organization because, we are told, they are intolerant!

The media decides who and what it will demonize.   It forms an interesting juxtaposition with what it chooses to make angels out of.

Labels: ACLU, liberal spin, Media, Multiculturalism