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The recent sentence of thirty-three years imprisonment for Allan Keate is one of the most glaring injustices perpetrated in our country in modern times.

 

Allan Keate is one of my cherished personal friends. I have worked beside him, visited with him, heard him speak in religious services, and heard him pray. This is a man who is kind, gentle, honest, and deeply religious. In no way does he fit the mold of a sexual abuser. His actions are criminal only because the State of Texas has chosen to define them as such, not because they are inherently wrong in and of themselves. A state investigator admitted at the trial that Allan has no prior criminal record and is not a threat to anyone, yet he has been given a harsher sentence than is meted out to many murderers. During the trial Allan never complained or criticized those who were bringing the persecution upon him but only said, “This is in the Lord’s hands, and they can only do what He allows them to do.” When the verdict was announced, he gave his attorney a hug, and as he was taken from the courtroom in handcuffs smiled at his family and friends and said quietly, “I love you.”

 

At this season of the year when Christian nations are commemorating the birth of the Savior, let us put things into perspective by considering the case of His mother Mary. Biblical scholars generally believe that she was between the ages of twelve and fourteen when she conceived the Christ child and that her betrothed husband Joseph was a much older man. Marriages of this sort were more the norm than the exception at this period of time; and since plural marriage had been practiced among the Jews for centuries, it is highly unlikely that Mary was Joseph’s first wife either. God obviously did not condemn Joseph for marrying this young lady. When Joseph learned that his betrothed wife was due to give birth to a child and was “minded to put her away privily,” the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and counseled him to take unto himself his wife “for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.” Joseph was further favored of the Lord when the angel appeared to him in dreams, warning him to take the child into Egypt for protection and advising him when it was safe to return. Had Joseph and his family lived in modern-day Texas, however, he would have been imprisoned as a pedophile, Mary placed in a battered women’s shelter, and Jesus made a ward of the state.

 

Texas authorities today have chosen to selectively prosecute FLDS men in a vain attempt to justify the horrendous abuses they heaped upon the families of the YFZ community during the raid that commenced April 3, 2008. Since the Texas Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court both ruled that the state was not justified in removing children from their parents, state authorities are now attempting to accomplish the same destruction of FLDS families by removing and imprisoning the husbands and fathers.

 

The so-called “victim” in the Allan Keate case is today an adult, who stoutly denies that she has been abused by Allan in any way. Can the State of Texas really claim that they care about this young lady and have improved her life by labeling her husband a criminal, giving him what amounts to a life sentence in prison, and leaving his family without the financial and emotional support of the husband and father that they love and depend on?