Reply #16: The head of this cult is in prison. A girl who escaped from this group will tell you

[DuaneBidoux]

that it is going on en masse in this cult.

The adults don't deserve the benefit of the doubt, the girls do. Numerous girls over numerous cults (related to this sect) have come out and said that it always happens (and why wouldn't it if the core belief is that you oppress girls, keep them illiterate and uneducated,give them no contact with the outside world, and marry them off to old men?).

Again, if these were only consenting adults of age then I would say fine, but in view of this cults history I simply do not believe we can take a chance with these children (although obviously, that was not the courts ruling).

Spend a little time studying how polygamy has ALWAYS worked in all cultures--women will not marry, willfully, a man who is 35 years their senior when he has many other wives unless it is done young, usually before the child has become an adult, and with extremely heavy coercion. Very early in life it is a rare girl that voluntarily marries into a polygamous relationship, and again, even if it is "voluntary," a child cannot give consent.