U.S. war resisters and polygamous families no longer have a place to hide.
US soldier ordered to leave Canada
The first woman soldier to flee the U.S. military for Canada to avoid the Iraq war has been ordered deported along with her husband and children.
Kimberly Rivera said Wednesday her requests to stay on humanitarian and compassionate grounds were rejected. Rivera is likely to be court-martialed when she returns to the United States and could face up to five years in prison..
Rivera, a first class army private stationed in Fort Carson, Colorado, served in Iraq in 2006 and came to Canada the following year after she refused redeployment.
The United States has a voluntary military. Those who serve in the armed forces do so of their own free will AND they are informed well in advance what they are signing up for from the get-go, including the possibliity of going into combat. Those who think they will just do a couple of years of active duty and pocket money for college and goverment benefits signed up for the wrong reasons.
When you join the military, you sign a commitment and take an oath to fulfill your duties and follow orders. Those who run away from their obligations when ordered into combat duty are more than just in violation of their obligations. They are cowards.
2 leaders of polygamist group arrested in Canada
Two top leaders of a polygamous community in western Canada have been arrested and charged with practicing polygamy, British Columbia’s attorney general said Wednesday.
Attorney General Wally Oppal said Winston Blackmore is charged with marrying 20 women, while James Oler is accused of marrying two women. Oppal, who said the charges carry a maximum penalty of five yeras in prison, said the case will be the first test of Canada’s polygamy laws.
“This has been a very complex issue,” he said. “It’s been with us for well over 20 years. The problem has always been the defense of religion has always been raised.”
Blackmore, long known as “the Bishop of Bountiful,” runs an independent sect of about 400 members in the town of Bountiful. He once ran the Canadian arm of the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but was ejected in 2003 by that group’s leader, Warren Jeffs.
Oler is the bishop of Bountiful’s FLDS community loyal to Jeffs. Even though many of the town’s residents are related or have same last name, followers of the two leaders are splintered and are not allowed to talk with each other.
FLDS members practice polygamy in arranged marriages, a tradition tied to the early theology of the Mormon church. Mormons renounced polygamy in 1890 as a condition of Utah’s statehood.
On a related note, I’m looking forward to season 3 of “Big Love”…
