Baby, It's Cult Outside

In today's cult-busting news, a "religious retreat" in Texas built by the leader of a breakaway Mormon sect has been raided, and 52 (!) girls rescued by "Child Protective Services". Now, what gets me about news items like this is that they never say what, precisely, were the grounds for this raid by law enforcement officials, and for taking kids into custody. It's just assumed that, well of course, any "secretive" "religious" retreat run by a mysterious cult has to be a den of iniquity, by definition. Why, the article even refers to the fact that the girls were "dressed in the conservative long-sleeve dresses". (The word "the" implies that it's some kind of uniform, I suppose.) And after all, considering the leader of this group is in jail for polygamy, who knows? How many of these girls -- "ages 6 months (sic!) to 17 years" -- were headed for the same fate? I mean, what sort of society would allow young girls to be married to dirty old men while leaving the young guys single and frustrated? (Answer: Almost _any_ society up until about 100 years ago.)

But hey, let's admit that things have improved a bit, at least. You have to admit that any cult foolish enough to set up camp in Texas, after what happened to the Branch Davidians, has to be led by folks with martyrdom on their minds. But in this case -- probably because Janet Reno was airborne at the time, and not standing there in fatigues with a bazooka in her gnarled hands -- it all seems to have ended peacefully.