beastie wrote:Do people who support religious freedom believe that freedom should extend to a practice that institutionalizes statutory rape?
Freedom of religion does not and should NOT extend to breaking the law (except perhaps with respect to some drugs). Should it extend to teaching people to break the law? Well, that's a trickier question. I think it's fine to teach kids that the law is wrong. I don't think it's fine to teach them to break the law, but I'm not sure if that should be illegal (should it depend on the law like maybe freeing a slave?). I think telling adults to practice civil disobediance should be protected free speech (although they should be willing to suffer the consequences for disobeying).
In any case no, I do not think religious freedom extends to allowing for illegal actions (save perhaps making exceptions for some drugs).
Is a 14 year old capable of making that decision?
No, and neither is an 18 year old, but we gotta draw the line somewhere and I guess 18 is at least better than 14. Twenty-five would probably be better as far as brain development goes.
Do I think privacy should exist knowing that many crimanls hide behind that and knowing that many children are hurt because of privacy laws? Well, yeah I do. I'm certainly willing to work on some compromises like mandatory registration of all births including the age of the mother and father (especially when they were milking the welfare system). I'm willing to make it difficult for criminals to hide crimes behind privacy.
As crazy as it may seem, I think due process exists to protect the innocent, not the guilty. It's just unfortunate that many of the guilty get away because of it. Even when we know someone is guilty as sin, we're still supposed to stay legal for our own protection.
Now here's the thing for me. Even if the evidence was improperly gathered (and maybe it wasn't, but I have my doubts), I don't feel right sending children back into what we know is an abusive situation. But if it was improperly gathered, I still think that needs to be addressed and those who did it improperly should be punished. What would be wrong would be to punish the children for that by sending them back to be abused.