This is so cool! I get home from a long day at work, and a long drive to Simi Valley to pick up my kids, and decide to check the BC website for any news or fun blogs. I do this nightly, but this time the first thing I see when I open the web page is a photo of my husband and me in the top box on the homepage! It is under the heading, "Applause" and is accompanied by a story I wrote for the Californian last year, called Love Lost and Found. I am pretty sure it will be there for most of Saturday, and by now, my parents have accessed the home page fifteen times. If you're interested check it out.

I can't wait until the kids wake up so I can show it to them!

The authorities just raided a polygamist cult compound in Texas, "Fundamentalist Mormons" who are decried by the true LDS church they profess to follow. Law enforcement agents are in the process of relocating the slaves [read: women and children] imprisoned in this compound, or as they are fond of calling it, "retreat". The place was run by, and continues to answer to, a convicted sex offender serving time in prison for forcing underage girls to submit to rape by men in the compound, a practice these religious zealots and perverts call "marriage". Obviously the state and federal authorities have been aware of the existence and practices of this slave camp. Why is it that they have heretofore allowed those who commit these criminal acts to go (pardon the pun) unmolested?

The practice of polygamy is illegal in the US, and has been for many years. Adults having sex with minors is a felony; rape, especially that of a child, is a perversion that, while sadly ineligible for the death penalty in our courts, is often punished by death at the hands of vigilante prison inmates; even convicted felons hate child molesters! Why, then, is it that, when someone whines "religious persecution," these crimes are allowed to continue? It is as if the authorities turn their heads and pretend that the huge red, white and blue elephant is not in the room. Rape is continuing, slavery and mind control exist, American citizens are being abused daily, but it isn't really that bad, is it? After all, it's religion. It can't be completely terrible, can it?

Just ask the children of the Branch Davidians, who were forced to burn to death with their religious-fanatic parents, at the command of a lunatic who had convinced them he was Jesus Christ.

It will take years, in some cases decades, for the people rescued from this slave ranch to assimilate into society, to realize that they are more than just someone's property. In many cases, they never really do so. Regardless of the abuse that they have suffered, many run back to their abusers as soon as they are able, thinking that "God" will punish them if they do not. Sad. Really pathetic. Reminds me a bit of the college hazings in the movies when the guy bent over in his underwear, after receiving a brutal butt-flattening blow with a huge paddle, yells through tears, "thank you sir, may I have another!" Except, this is no movie.

Once again, as with Waco so many years ago, the authorities are several years late and many dollars short in dealing with known illegal activities. But then, our government is famous for that, aren't they?