Are good intentions a good defense for doing bad things?

A group of Baptists are being held in Haiti for trying to take children out of the country. What do religious groups think about this and do good intentions present a reasonable defense for what might be breaking the law?

Haiti has a distinct culture, as experts point out. It is a Catholic country that mixes voodoo and mysticism with its faith. Its particular practices are unique for its culture. It has laws regarding the care of children and outlines the legal responsibilities of parents as well as their rights and specific laws regarding adoption. Those laws specify that government permission be given for adoption with a specific process involved, the details of which can be found here. The disaster changed the infrastructure of Haiti, but as folks point out, the culture remains viable in many important ways. Reports, like those of the Independent World , say the Baptists may have had good intentions but knowingly broke the law. The Boston media examined this story, presenting the Baptists' defense of their actions. They declared they were just trying to help the children, to take them to a place that was safe and were given permission by the children's parents to do so. There are issues raised about human trafficking with regard to the action of this group of Baptists, who were reported headed for the Dominican Republican with 33 children when they were caught. The Prime Minister initially referred to what they did as kidnapping while the group maintained they were only trying to save the children's lives with their parents' permission. But was that the only agenda of the group and did these good intentions negate the fact they may have broke Haitian law? The Seminal writes of a conversation with one of Lara Silsby's former employee's. Silsby has been the leader of the group of missionaries who had convinced the others to join her in the trip to Haiti to save the children. The story the Seminal presents quotes from the unnamed source it refers to as "Carol," who said Silsby, the leader of the group, has the orientation and behavior of a "snake oil salesman." Various news sources, including CNN, have pointed out Sislby's financial problems and desperate attempts to stay afloat financially before the disaster occurred. Silsby even denied knowing the disaster occurred initially and defended what she did as something with good intentions. The "Carol" cited says this, “Laura Silsby is incredibly good at getting enormous sums of money from people. 10 years good at it. She has probably smooth talked these poor people and now they’re stuck in jail with her." The New York Times quotes Edwin Coq, the Baptist’s lawyer, stating that 9 of his 10 clients were “completely innocent,” but that, in an apparent reference to Ms. Silsby, “if the judiciary were to keep one, it could be the leader of the group.” An Episcopal publication, the Lead, points out good intentions aren't an excuse for breaking the law. Anthea Butler's work on The Dispatches is cited as she reviews the history of the missionary movement, where groups bypassed culture in order to do what they considered good and to try to convert people to Christianity. Good intentions are found not to be a reasonable defense in Haiti's case according to Butler, who writes somewhat extensively on the matter, but this excerpt presents a brief summation of her argument: "The misplaced missionary impulse to save the heathen children and impart “civilization” by loading a bunch of Haitian kids in a bus and heading for a resort with a swimming pool, to share the “good news” and be adopted, is simply ludicrous. No reputable missions organization works that way. Still, despite the group’s irresponsible and crude behavior, I suspect that many in America thought that the missionaries would be on a transport home by now." She goes on to write that if the group had bothered to read about Haiti even on Wikipedia they would have known the specifics of the culture and the problems in taking children out of their country and culture. She also observes that this strategy has often been used by missionary groups in the past, in what she considers are extra-Biblical and somewhat unethical ways. Butler continues to write, "Last time I checked, however, that scripture did not mean take children and make them Christians by spiriting them away to be adopted by other families. Unfortunately, Missions history shows otherwise. In the United States, and many other countries, families of non-Christian groups were subjected to Christian missionaries in the nineteenth and twentieth century who took children away for adoptions or at the very least to attend church schools. Many were never reunited with their parents, and some came to hate their parents as a result of the indoctrination." Even with these arguments, the minister of the Idaho group of Baptists, Drew Ham, asserts good intentions present an excuse for what his group did. He was reported to have said this to CBS when interviewed about it six days ago, "Based on the information we have, I'm not sure that we would do anything different. I think they did handle it in the best manner possible. " The article in the Episcopalian publication by Butler, however, underscores the key issue the courts and the court of public opinion will weigh, "Paving the road to hell with good intentions," presents the case within certain of the spiritual community raising the questions about the Baptist group's attempt to take children from Haiti and whether good intentions makes a good excuse.