Forced marriage and sexual abuse were "pervasive" inside Texas compound.

In a harrowing District Court affidavit, a Child Protective Services investigator charged that the children were placed in risk of "emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse" at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints facility, where female children were groomed to "accept spiritual marriages to adult male members of the YFZ Ranch resulting in them being sexually abused." Similarly, investigator Lynn McFadden noted, young men on the YFZ Ranch were "spiritually married to minor female children," with whom they engaged in sexual relationships, becoming, in the process, sexual "perpetrators."

This story continues to distress me.

I have found absolutely universal revulsion from everybody that I have talked to about it. Even those who are huge defenders of religious freedom are angered and disgusted by the actions of this "religious" community. And I am gratified by that.

Of course my main frustration at this story is the fact that without the cover of "religious freedom" these people could never have gotten away with this massive pedophilia for such a long period of time.

Just think of how many young girls could have been saved if the authorities were not afraid to be sued under the first amendment. Is it fair for people to use our own laws as cover when causing injury to our citizens?

I think it is time to stop allowing child abuse to hide behind the Constitution. And I include those parents who home school their children using religious materials to keep them from discovering that science does not support their churches beliefs.

Raping young girls bodies is vile in the extreme, but raping the minds of young children is also indefensible in my opinion.