Yet another religious cult raided

[kandrathe]

The same with this religious group. The point is that (in my opinion) these marriage and sex with underage girls is not based on equality and respect but on power and oppression. And that is the point. It is in the basis of this cult that these things happen.

So, here is where I would point out your cultural bias against them. You believe that the relationship (in marriage and outside of it) should be a mutually respectful and equal one. That is a modern cultural bias, and one I share with you. But should all cultures be expected to change to our ideals of egalitarian marriage? Are we imposing our belief system upon another culture, or in this case religious group? America prides itself on being the refuge from the tyranny of religious intolerance practiced in Europe in the last 400 years. Now admittedly we've drawn the line with Polygamy and the LDS in the past, and mostly they've agreed. I think it has always remained a controversial decision, and in the light of America being a richer, more heterogeneous blend of cultures now we should be careful about how we try to homogenize it.

So, as an interesting footnote here as I reflect on this; I support your notions of gender and racial egalitarianism, but reject your notions of social egalitarianism. :)

Abuse of under aged girls or relations with mutual consent happen also with whites, blacks and Hispanics and everywhere in the world but it is not an organized phenomenon in these cases. And that is exactly why I think the government did the right thing here in the case of this sect. Even though it might for sure be possible that some of these girls were perfectly happy.

So "abuse" here is defined to be under-aged marriage. However, as Occhi pointed out, it is still practiced extensively in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South/Central Americas. Only in Europe/North America do we have an exclusively "modern" view of the age of marriage. Even in the US, as I suspected when checking the US pregnancy statistics, there is a correlation between underage (<15) pregnancy and your proximity to the southern border. Yes, some nations in the "red necked" continents I've mentioned have more restricted marriage laws, but many do not or choose to ignore their national laws in the backwater more "primitive" areas. So, is it "abuse" when practiced in Iran where the legal age for girls to marry is 13? Should we encourage "the government" to do "the right thing" and protect the human rights of the all the nations that persecute their girls with non-egalitarian marriage? What do you think then of the "enlightened" approach of the Scandinavians to sex and marriage? That is... Marriage has been mostly rendered meaningless there. How does a society function when paternity is optional, and women and their children often become wards of the state? Isn't this also of concern to women, and against our notions of sexual egalitarianism?