I see. I wholeheartedly disagree. The way we respect other religions is by letting them practice within the laws of the USA. We dont generally turn a blind eye. Laws apply to the religious just like everyone else. Do blind eye's happen? Sure. But they happen everywhere. But thats no reason to target religion as a whole.
I will agree to disagree about your tax idea. Thats been discussed ad nauseum. As far as randomly questioning alter boys...how would you feel about randomly questioning muslims and their families to make sure they arent extremists with malicious intent? Right. Not a good idea. Your ideas frankly come from fear and predjudice and have no place in our country.
Do have any examples of this "crimes under the protection & cover of their religion"?
Seems to me that they are prosecuted. I recall that rogue Mormon group out West that used to marry off young girls etc. I recall them being rounded up and all the kids taken away etc.
Umm, you can't tax religion. You could remove the itemized deduction for contributions to churches etc., but you can't tax religion.
Re: unannounced inspections and questioning etc, you might wanna refresh yourself on the 4th Amendment (unreasonable search & seizure). You can't treat religious people as some sub-class with fewer rights than the rest of us (equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment).
Fern
Erm, have you guys been reading the news lately concerning the Vatican's coverups of child abuse? One bishop even went so far as to claim the children were seducing the priests lol...
http://www.religiongonecrazy.com/crazy-bishop-of-tenerife-blames-child-abuse-on-the-children/ Regardless of what the law should, and debatably would, do if it got its hands on priest abusers, the fact is it often doesn't.
Big religions enjoy an above-the-law status. Sure, they went after Mormons, as they went after David Koresh - neither had enough followers to deter police. But the pope? Imagine for a second a nationwide daycare chain's CEO was guilty of complicity in child abuse dating back 25 years - we'd send him to the chair so fast the seat of his pants would smoke. The pope did it though, and he's iving it up in Rome, scot free. Only a few radical atheists are even calling it like it is; most people are so caught up in the machine of religious power they can't even see the part they play.
I would be fine with profiling religious people. We already profile the 15-25 age group and racial minorities, and no one says a thing about that. The police routinely abuse their power of discretion to perform unlawful search & siezure, and usually for victimless drug crimes. Religious crimes generally involve explosives and sex with children - if the end justifies the means then I think if it has to happen, I'd rather have them searching people with fish bumperstickers than people with Grateful Dead ones.
I didn't mean we should actively tax religion, though looking back that's what it sounded like. I meant we should remove their tax-exempt status. But I get the feeling from the first reply that it's a dead horse in this forum, and I admittedly don't know the unwritten rules here so I won't push it.
If she was 7 or 8, yes. But post pubescent =! pedophilia.
13 isn't necessarily post-puberty, though it's extremely likely. Regardless, she bled to death so at the very best it was likely forcible and violent rape. Then there was this one from a while back in Saudi Arabia:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/04/12/saudi.child.marriage/ I can see a few bad apples going around and this sort of thing happening, but the judge OKing it once, and again on appeal, tells me a lot about that religion & culture. After all, they're only going by what their holy text says.
Edit: Updates on the story suggest it was indeed violent rape:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100410/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen_child_bride
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