Three cheers for common sense

The Texas Supreme court has done what few others in state government have been able to accomplish in the case of the Mormon offshoot sect that had all of its children seized a couple of months ago on suspicion that some girls were being forced into underage marriages.

The justices ruled today that all the children must be reunited with their parents and that CPS did not have grounds to justify the mass removal.

From the beginning of this case, I had a bad feeling about it. Tonight I'm feeling vindicated.

No, I'm not a proponent of underage marriage. No way. But I am staunchly supportive of parental rights and obedience to the rule of law that says you can't just up and take away a person's children because you don't like the way they live, what they wear, what they eat or how they worship.

Let's face it, the quirkiness of the FLDS folks HAD to play a role in the state's decision to seize those kids. The state has never been able to gin up proof that perhaps more than three or four girls were involved in marriages to older men. Certainly the vast majority of children taken were in no danger of this practice. More than half of them were under the age of 5, for pete's sake.

Problem is, that if the state didn't like the FLDS and its entrenched practice of polygamy, what else might it decide it doesn't like? Who else might be fair game at some point?

And shame on every single citizen who didn't bother to question the state's action in this case.

Are you a homeschooler? Then you should be sure to breathe a sigh of relief tonight. Homeschoolers have been famously targeted by CPS agencies across the country for the past 20 or so years, and some have even had their children temporarily removed.

Are you a member of a minority religion? Yep, you, too, oughta offer up a prayer of gratitude that the state's highest court saw the light.

Are you incorrect politically with respect to the places you frequent, the things you read or write, the organizations to which you belong? Today's ruling struck a blow to those who would define tolerance as acceptance of only that which is considered by the majority to be "normal."

The irony must not escape us. In this post-modern era, when anything goes as far as sexual identity, sexual practices and proclivities, and moral relativism has become the new rule of thumb, is polygamy really the worst thing people can practice? Is it really the worst that a child can witness? Really?

I won't bother to delve too deeply into the issue of teen pregnancy or the fact that up until well after the turn of the 20th century it was not uncommon for women to marry as early as 14.

Loretta Lynn, the famous country singer, was married at 13. Too early in my book, but it's a fact nonetheless.

This is America, and if the Branch Davidian and Elian Gonzales episodes can teach us anything it is that children ought to be respected and their needs considered before we go smoking them out or yanking them up.

My faith in the democratic rule of law has been salvaged -- at least for now.