FLDS and common heritiage

Everyone must be aware of the raid on the FLDS compound in Texas where over 400 children have been removed from their home in the largest such case in U.S. history.   If you want to explore the topic further, CNN has set up a special web page to track all the stories.  Also, the Messenger and Advocate blog is doing a great job tracking the story with commentary and comments.

A lot of info about their church is coming out. I find I have mixed feelings about the whole affair.  On one hand, I think polygamy is inherently bad for women and I'm glad to see  efforts to destroy it.  On the other hand, I think about individual's rights to live their lives the way they want.  I also think about our own heritage and history of government persecution against us in the 1870s and 1880s over polygamy that seem quite similar to what is happening to these people. 

In fact, when I think about persecution against the FLDS, there are:

• The current campaing of 2008 with Warren Jeffs as their prophet,
  
• The Short Creek Raid (that ultimately failed) in 1953 with Joseph White Musser as their prophet
  
• an earlier one spanning several decades, but most focused in the 1880s with John Taylor as their prophet

The fact that LDS and FLDS both share a common history of government persecution against polygamy ought to add enhance our perspective of what is currently going on.