“Access to this website has been restricted because it is not considered appropriate for ExxonMobil use.
Reason: The Websense category ‘Non-Traditional Religions and Occult and Folklore’ is filtered.”

My only question is which one? :)

Jon

I was describing my observation, not all possible observations. Of course one can overreach because of a religious bias, and the hypothetical you offered is a example of just that. But there are also a myriad of non-bigoted ways to overreach. For instance, the government could say “because we don’t know which child called in the abuse report, we’re going to take all the children.” This can be seen as overreaching (I am withholding judgment until at least the 4/19 hearing), but it doesn’t mean the overreaching is religiously-motivated. The same overreaching could be done if a child at ABC orphange phoned in a report of abuse and officials carried off all the children.

Again, please refer me to anything showing a religious motivation for the actions. Or for starters, you could link me to the “remarks of ‘ordinary’ residents of Eldorado and vicinity” you think demonstrate the mindset of the local officials. Until then, I argue that bigotry is a big enough accusation that it should not be made on mere inferences. Indeed, to do so would make us equally bigoted.

With this statement you disallow any claim of religious bias. I know of no one who has said that bigotry motivated investigation of the claimed telephone report of abuse — *nobody* here believes that religious belief covers sexual or physical abuse. The charges of bigotry are centered in what you have concealed by calling it “overreaching” — seizing all the children, even those whom no exaggerated description of FLDS belief could consider as being at imminent risk.

It is more than “overreaching” if these children were taken not because they were at risk of anything the claimed telephone call reported — if they were taken solely because Texas thinks they are “weird” and extremely modest and don’t watch TV or play with the same Barbie dolls and Warcraft toys that your kids play with and prefer fresh carrots to Chee-tohs.

I don’t know that those factors entered into official decisions, but they all loom large in the remarks of “ordinary” residents of Eldorado and vicinity. Unless the officials are of an entirely different breed from the populace they live among, your “overreaching” is my “religious bigotry.”

When the US government placed Japanese Americans in confinement during WWII because of their racial heritage, that was racial bigotry. A hypothetical example of religious bigotry could be DCFS workers removing children from fundamentalist evangelical homes because the children were being taught that the earth was literally created in seven days. In either of these cases, and particularly in the latter due to our history, I hope that I would speak up against the government action.

In the case at hand, I have seen no suggestion that the government is acting due to the FLDS’s religious beliefs, but rather for the legitimate purpose of preventing child abuse. The broad sweep of the raid gives me pause to think they may be overreaching, but not to question their motivation. Again, if you have anything to suggest an alterior motivation, please do share.

Thanks for your words of caution–the “well known facts” and your link as well. Great comments on this thread as well.