Mexico to arm Mormon community anti-crime force...

In a step similar to deputizing local residents, members of the hamlet of Colonia LeBaron say authorities in northern Chihuahua state are helping them create a community police force.

***snip***

We told the government that we don't trust our local police, because they're always on the payroll of the drug runners," LeBaron said. "They tell us that they'd be willing to train us to train people from our own community so that our cops could be people we could confide in."

***snip***

Neither Chihuahua state authorities nor the community group has said what kind of weapons the patrols would be given. The killings this week in Colonia LeBaron were carried out by men armed with assault rifles.

Mexico's community police forces exist mainly in rural, isolated Indian towns, and are typically armed with single-shot rifles.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090711/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_activist_killed_2

Two leaders of Colonia LeBaron, a community of excommunicated Mormons with roots in the United State, were murdered because they dared to defy the drug/kidnapping gangs that have killed more than 3000 people in Chihuahua, Mexico in the last 18 months.

Benjamin LeBaron, 31 and Luis Widmar were forced out of their homes earlier this week and shot multiple times by gangsters who want to ensure that people in Chihuahua stay afraid of them. Both men died.

The tactic may well work. It’s been said that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Sadly, doing nothing is the easiest thing to do in a conflict, a fact that goes a long way toward explaining the state of Mexico and the world at large.

LeBaron previously ran afoul of the gangs after his younger brother was kidnapped this spring. Unable and/or unwilling to pay a $1M ranson, LeBaron demanded that the government act to root out the criminals terrorizing Chihuahua. His brother was soon released unharmed, but LeBaron’s killers were obviously unwilling to let things go at that.
http://www.poligazette.com/2009/07/11/pic-why-gun-control-is-a-bad-idea-2/

Is polygamy legal in Canada?

It might as well be after a surprise recommendation in British Columbia

Ken MacQueen | Aug 2, 2007 | 02:50:42

If polygamy is illegal, but nobody wants to prosecute it, is it really a crime? The question of the legality of plural marriage is no closer to resolution in British Columbia, home of the Bountiful polygamous community, now that a special prosecutor weighed in Wednesday with his ambivalent opinion.

Prominent Vancouver lawyer Richard Peck has recommended charges not be laid against unspecified members of the Bountiful commune, where plural marriage has been openly practiced for more than 60 years. "The legality of polygamy in Canada has for too long been characterized by uncertainty," Peck wrote.
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070801_225028_11328

He is the latest in a series of B.C. attorneys general that have tried for more than 20 years to have charges laid. The Crown's own lawyers have said repeatedly that charges would not stick and that Canada's anti-polygamy law would likely not survive a constitutional challenge based on guarantees of freedom of religion and liberty contained in the Charter.

***snip***

Members of Bountiful are part of a breakaway sect of fundamentalist Mormons who do not recognize the mainstream church's decision more than a century ago to end the practice of polygamy. But the issue extends far beyond the borders of Bountiful. Many Muslims in Canada, as well as some fundamentalist Christians and others with no religious grounding, also quietly practice polygamy.
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070801_225028_11328

Wicca and Feminism

Wicca has a close association with feminism, and many women Wiccans say they are attracted to Wicca in large part because of its emphasis on female equality, divinity and power. In addition to the emphasis on the Goddess, an attractive aspect of Wicca for feminists is the ability to identify with powerful historical women who were persecuted by the male-dominated Christian church.

Dianic Wicca is the most feminist-oriented tradition of Wicca, in that it emphasizes the Goddess alone and excludes men from covens. Other traditions, however, believe that this approach is improper and interferes with the balance of masculine and feminine in nature.
http://www.religionfacts.com/neopaganism/ethics.htm