Just Another Brick in the Wall

Late last week, the judge in Texas handling the case of the 'polygamists' ordered that all of the children, now in the care of the government, be required to submit a DNA swab to determine which children belong to which parents. However, this judicial order applies only to minor children. The adults from the compound have no such requirements - at least, not yet.

To justify the order, police are saying that a family relationship in this sect is more arbitrary than the traditional "This is my mom and dad", to which we are all familiar. For example, all women in the sect are referred to as 'mother' - regardless of biological relationship. Next, if a male member of the cult falls out of favor with the church leadership, his 'family' can be taken away and 'reassigned' to another male member. Also, police argue, almost no legal documents (marriage or birth certificates) exist to support or refute any legal or biological relationships. To the best of my knowledge, no mention has been made of death certificates or obituaries that would aid in this research. Finally, it is being reported that in many cases the members (adult and child alike) will offer inaccurate or constantly changing information (often called lies) to the authorities. It is unclear to me at this point whether this is through deliberate act or because of the individuals ignorance to traditional interpretation of these matters.

Each male member has one legal wife, the remaining 'wives' are by spiritual designation with no legal credence. The argument against this practice is that the cultists only follow this method to avoid being charged with polygamy. Some would argue similar ceremonies are used by the homosexual community to avoid legal challenges to their unions.

The last point I would like to present, is that this entire case was initiated because of a phone call by an individual that claims she was sixteen years old and was raped and abused by her fifty-year-old husband. Repugnant as that appears on the surface, to date, it does not appear that the woman in question was among the children collected by the state. Not only that, but some reports have been made that she may have called from Colorado, which begs the question: Why call the Texas authorities?

Here's what I would like to hear from you, the readers:
Do you think the police had the authority to raid this 'compound' in the first place?

Is the word Compound a fair characterization of the property or just a biased word being used by the press to foment their viewers? (I ask this because any less controversial property with similar attributes would probably be referred to as a Ranch)

Should the order to provide DNA also apply to the adult members of this sect?

If so, what would be your reaction if the police raided your church, school or neighborhood and made similar demands of you? (Please don't say this couldn't or wouldn't happen to you because you aren't part of a cult. If they get the right to do it here, they can make any claim they want to justify the collection of DNA samples from anyone).

One further note here: Did you know that the police could not conduct this raid without a warrant, but that Child Protective Services has every legal right to enter any home in America under the guise of 'protecting children' - and no warrant is necessary? You cannot refuse their entry because they are not a Law Enforcement Agency. I suppose you could refuse, but this would probably suffice as probable cause for Law Enforcement to obtain a warrant - at least in many jurisdictions.