Your Religious Beliefs Can Get You Out of Pretty Much Anything Now, Thanks SCOTUS!
Sprinkle yourself in fairy dust and say the magic words “I sincerely believe,” and that’s really all you need for the right-minded judge to sympathize with your oh-so-burdensome burden of having to obey the law and then wave his magic gavel and say, “Okay, you are exempt from the laws you don’t like.” David Sam, senior judge of the United States District Court in Utah, is one such judge.
In Perez v. Paragon, he waved his magic gavel for Vergel [or as the judge calls him in the opinion, “Vernon”] Steed, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If that name sounds vaguely familiar, perhaps polygamist “Prophet” Warren Jeffs rings a bell? He’s the leader of the FLDS cult who thinks god wants him to bang kids. Or at least he was, before he was sentenced to spend the rest of his life — plus 20 years! — in prison for sexually assaulting his 12- and 15-year-old “spiritual wives.”
As ThinkProgress reports, in addition to screwing children literally, the cult is under investigation for violating child labor laws. For Jeebus. Allegedly, but who are we kidding? If these scumbags were okey-dokey with raping children, they probably were even more okey-dokey with using children to pick their pecan trees, and no, that’s not a euphemism. Now the feds are looking into that too, and they’ve issued a subpoena to get some answers, but ol’ Vergel/Vernon, well, he just doesn’t want to cooperate because — surprise! — religious beliefs:
More: Your Religious Beliefs Can Get You Out of Pretty Much Anything Now, Thanks SCOTUS!
@Wonkette It is my #Sincerelyheldreligiousbeliefs that I can drive 60mph in a 25mph zone and park in the handicapped space. Because Jesus!
— aceoaces (@aceoaces) September 17, 2014