but what do folks think of the state of Texas carrying off hundreds of kids from the FLDS compound?

Me, I have severely mixed feelings. I do not hold with the "marrying" of underage girls to older men in the name of religion or anything else. I am real happy Warren Jeffs is in jail where he belongs, as an actual harmed party came forward and brought charges.

However. It is becoming increasingly clear that the pretext for moving in on the compound was as fraudulent as the nonexistent WMD that were the pretext for invading the sovereign nation of Iraq. The alleged perp has demonstrably been out of state for years; a 30-year-old disaffected former member of the FLDS, who has conveniently vanished, is now believed to have been responsible for the calls to the crisis line that led to the raid and the massive displacement of entire families and, in general, a circus.

I keep thinking what would happen if the people in question were hippies instead of fundie Mormons, and the pretext was, say, the presence of DRUGS (booga booga) in the compound. I don't share their religious belief, but I support their right to it.

In an era where roughly as many kids are born outside of formal wedlock as in, I figure consenting adults can engage in polygamy if they want--consenting adults being the operative term--as long as everyone's getting cared for. I'm all for prosecuting the fathers of the kids of underage mothers, as the kids themselves are evidence of a crime (as with the loathsome Yusuf Bey, who I hope is paying for his crimes in a particularly unpleasant corner of hell). But ripping hundreds of kids from their homes and forcing their mothers to leave them, as is now happening, no. That just smacks of persecuting people for being different, and that ain't right in my book.

I think much remains unknown here and am trying to keep an open mind, but overall this looks like unwarranted interference in people's own business and religious practice. I think the actual criminal issues can and should be addressed, but belonging to a religion mainstream people consider weird is not a crime. It's a founding principle of the country.