Why Does This Bother Me So Much?!

Okay, I am going to admit it out loud...I am so conflicted over the Utah polygamists. I spend way too much time checking the news updates. I want to know what is going on...

Especially with the children.
Over 400 removed from the custody of their parents, although from what I have read, the children involved may not even know who their real parents are because a lot of child swapping occurs, including name changing...

So what is up with that?
I don't like my own kid so I trade you for yours?
Or is it a safety thing? Keep everyone confused enough and then does it really matter what is going on anyway? Because would I throw a fit if my thirteen or fourteen year old daughter was forced to marry my husbands uncle Joe who just happens to be fifty-two and has four other wives to worry about? You betcha...but on the other hand, if I think it is really your kid...does it really matter that much?

Uhhh....yeah...in my head it does.

Especially when I read this from aol:
"Last week, agents searching the sect's vast polygamist compound said they found a bed in the sect's temple, above, that prosecutors believe was used for men to have sex with their underage "wives" right after they were "married." "

I can only imagine the horror a young girl would feel being forced to marry someone she isn't interested in...maybe kicking and screaming that she doesn't want this...maybe already "in love" with a cute guy her own age... and then, right there in the church being raped to make it all legal and tidy.

How and why is this happening in our country?
aol has this to say...
"Jeffs, the polygamist leader, is serving two consecutive sentences of five years to life in Utah as an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who wed her cousin in an arranged marriage. He awaits trial in Arizona on charges of incest and sex with a minor in connection with arranged marriages of teenage girls to older male relatives."

...from additional reading, he actually held the girl down while she was raped by her "new husband"...

Does this seem reminiscently familiar from an old romance novel I read that was supposedly based in the Scottish Highlands during the sixteen hundres? Yes, it does...and how had fiction seemed so romantic...and this real life scenario comparatively horrifically tragic?

This should seem so cut and dry...
Right is right and wrong is wrong? Riggggghhttt?
But in this case how can right and wrong be determined...?

It seems right that the children should be returned to their crying, broken hearted mothers...but at what cost? Only to be denied what is deemed "a normal upbringing" in this country...to be taught that rape is ok? That it is even sanctified by god?

You will hear me say it again and again...
All religions should share the freedom to live and worship the way they believe...

How does this scenario make me feel about that belief?
Squishy to be certain...

Where does the line get drawn? And who draws it?
One thing is for certain, I do not envy the judge overseeing this case...

Because as it stands...I know what my conclusion is and I think that would probably be illegal in several states...but I think I could also find a few good men, and a few good women wearing strap-ons, who would be more than willing to teach the men responsible for raping those young girls what it actually feels like to be forced into doing something wholly against their will...

I have a million more thoughts on this issue, including the question, If it is deemed socially unacceptable that this activity continues (the raping and pre-arranged marriage of very young girls) then how do you convince generations of women (and men) that they have been brainwashed into believing it was morally right?

Comments? Anyone?