How can the state of Texas possibly
take proper care of the 437 children it has removed from the polygamist sect?
Children's homes and shelters across Texas prepared to welcome 437 youngsters from a polygamist sect by turning off TVs, serving a lot of bland chicken and vegetable dishes, setting up home schools and accommodating twice-daily devotionals....
Until this month, the youths inhabited a cloistered world where they couldn't swear, curse, date, dance, watch TV, go to malls or movies, play Nintendo, or surf the Web.
They instead ate fresh food, most of it home-grown; wore long dresses and long-sleeved, buttoned-down shirts; and seldom strayed far from a secluded Eldorado ranch....
"This is a unique population that has already been through quite a bit," said Ed Knight, president of Presbyterian Children's Homes and Services, which expects 14 of the children at its Waxahachie campus. He said the agency will "bend and stretch" its policies and usual practices.
"We are not planning to integrate these children into our normal population," Mr. Knight said. "They will in fact be isolated."
And how can the state
provide appropriate legal counsel?
[The lawyers] with their clients in a corner of the crowded local coliseum. Most lawyers didn't get to talk to parents or do any investigation, as is customary. Most didn't get to see the evidence gathered by Child Protective Services, even in court....
"This is wildly different than anything I've encountered," said Betty J. Luke, a South Texas College of Law professor who works on clinical studies. She's represented children before. But this week, she's had trouble getting to sleep with the begging cries of her new 7-year-old client's last phone call echoing in her head....
"There was no meaningful way to have my client addressed at this cattle call. ... There has been no way yet to meaningfully represent my client," said Luke, who has had trouble reaching a Texas Child Protective Services case worker....
"The biggest complaint is that each child has not had the separate 14-day hearing they are entitled to," [said lawyer Guy Choate.] "There are questions about whether to appeal, whether it would be in state court or federal court, in San Angelo or where the children wind up."
But was the state wrong
to intervene so drastically and dramatically?
"I suspect that they [the FLDS] had a whole lot of kids there without their parents," said [Carolyn] Jessop, who fled the community in 2003 with her eight children....
For several years now, children have been reassigned from one father to another and even one family to another as Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, grew increasingly tyrannical, Carolyn Jessop said in an interview.
That helps explain why so many of the children are unable or unwilling to tell child protection officials who their parents are. This confusion over identities is the reason a Texas judge ordered DNA tests for all of the children and asked that parents voluntarily provide DNA samples....
And while some of the mothers have said they will do anything to get their children back, including leave the reclusive, breakaway Mormon sect, Jessop said Texas ought to require psychiatric evaluations.
"I don't think there is one of them who is stable enough to get their children back. Mind control is classed as a mental illness and a child's right to safety far exceeds a mother's rights."
"The women in this society will never protect their children. . . . They turn them over to the perpetrators."
Posts
95 comments:
Speaking of polygamy and child marriages...
If this were a Muslim sect, do you suppose the official reaction would have been any different? Just wondering.
Mind control is classed as a mental illness and a child's right to safety far exceeds a mother's rights.
Mental discipline at work.
1. No Muslim polygamists will ever be treated this way in the US.
2. The initial tip was phony. And it is unclear what if any laws were broken. What the hell is going on here? A judge is separating women from the babies they are breastfeeding? Wha??
Have we entered the true totalitarian state, that marches into your home and you must comply with even the most insane decrees?
Where's the ACLU? Where are the folks who want to define marriage away from the heteronormative position? Where's the progressive outrage against Government intruding into your bedrooms?
Oh, yeah.
They're white, and they're a subsect of Mormonism.
Carry on then.
There was no child abuse. Will people ever wake up to the horror of State compassion?!
They instead ate fresh food, most of it home-grown; wore long dresses and long-sleeved, buttoned-down shirts;
Aren't there any Amish who foster in Texas?
The women in this society will never protect their children. . . . They turn them over to the perpetrators.
Well, it certainly can't be the fault of the father!
The entire structure of "Child Protective Services" ought to be examined and challenged across North America. On the one hand, they are bigotted, petty tyrants, often bragging of their power to destroy parents' lives.
On the other, they too often (in the name of diversity) overlook major problems in foster homes that have dropped children into situations worse than what they left, even (Florida) to the point of death.
They often are profoundly hostile to people of faith. In southern Ontario, seven Amish children were torn out of the home (by armed police at 3am) because they refused to sign a document declaring they would never spank their children again.
I know personally another family in which the parents were threatened with an "abuse"-based removal of their children because a 1-yr-old with very bad diaper rash was playing outside bare-bottomed on a sunny April day.
In at least parts of California, parents' belief that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and should be a guide to daily life ... is considered a significant "risk factor" for the children. The Appeals Court in that same state has denied parents' rights to home-school their children on the basis that a prime purpose of education is to "inculcate loyalty to the state" rather than family.
This thing in Texas is yet another example.
We are a very unwillingly childless couple, yet when we looked into the entire 'foster-to-adopt' option we were so utterly repelled by the CPS part of the equation we decided we'd rather remain childless before dealing with them.
It really comes down to a bunch of rather well-paid bureaucrats who can justify their continued employment only by creating abuse and negligence and endangerment crises.
They'll bend over backwards to get some Crack-Momma's kid back to her three times, but somehow when it comes to people of faith, that is such a risk that the kids have to be removed right away, and preferably permanently.
In this current Texas example, nursing children are now being removed from their mothers. Where is the "abuse" in this equation?
The horrible truth is that the 'foster to adopt' demand for young white kids is right through the roof, and healthy white babies are put on a very fast track to irrevocable extinction of parental rights. Those kids will probably never see their mothers again.
It's all very, very, wrong. CPS as currently constituted have long-since outlived their usefulness, and are now part of a much bigger -- statist -- problem that ultimately threatens us all.
Have we entered the true totalitarian state, that marches into your home and you must comply with even the most insane decrees?
Normally, I would agree with you Pogo on this one, however, the whole situation in this compound seems pretty bad - 14 year olds having children with adults. At some point, the state needs to enforce its laws.
It is ironic though. Maybe we should be taking away kids from 16-20 year old welfare moms that live in the ghetto. It seems to me that they are more mentally deficient to care for a child than a 30 year old woman "brain-washed" into a polygamist cult.
Maybe we should bring back orphanages. Would it be better for a kid to live in an orphangage with rules, other kids like you, inspections every day, and real adults than risk it with a foster family. Yeah, many foster parents are great, but some are not.
Until this month, the youths inhabited a cloistered world where they couldn't swear, curse, date, dance, watch TV, go to malls or movies, play Nintendo, or surf the Web.
They instead ate fresh food, most of it home-grown; wore long dresses and long-sleeved, buttoned-down shirts; and seldom strayed far from a secluded Eldorado ranch....
How is any of this child abuse?
What evidence has anyone seen of any child abuse?
I too have read that the "phone call tip" has been confirmed to be a fraud.
The best that can be said so far is that the State did not save the children by killing them all. Of course, if the adults had resisted the State's kidnapping of all of them and their children (apparently, without ANY solid evidence whatsoever), then the State would probably have started killing them to save them.
Better make sure you let your kids curse, screw, shop, eat packaged food and wear short skirts and short sleeved shirts; otherwise they could be forcibly taken from you via accusations of child abuse.
Sloan,
I really have mixed feelings here. I do not like at all the likelihood that these men were impregnating children.
But the state needs some proof BEFORE it starts removing kids, literally taking them away from their mother's breast.
I suspect some very bad things happened to boy children as well. Where are all the young men, as one should assume a 50% male birthrate? The cemeteries there have infants that I would not be surprised to learn are overwhelmingly male. Young men are also evicted, I understand.
But none of findings by the state thus far are illegal.
This should scare the shit out of people. It really should, because it proves the state owns your children, and can remove them at their slightest whim, and with minimal, even false, provocation.
The cosmic overlords of the diffuse gene pool are pleased.
So, the judge issues a broad search warrant based on one anonymous phone call. Seems as if the authorities were just waiting for any excuse to shut them down.
Then, she equates completely separating mothers from breast feeding babies with working moms who are gone maybe 8 hours of the day.
So, if adults are impregnating underage girls who have access to malls and make up and get to dress like prostitutes because of what they see on TV, thats not much of a law enforcement problem; let the social workers help the moms and just attach the "dads" wages(if any). But, if they get married underage and raise their babies in a family environment that contains the Bible, the state will do everything to make it stop.
How come everyone is outraged by the latter but just kinda shrugs about the former and effectively says, well, lets just give them condoms and Planned Parenthood sessions?
Anyone else have a problem with that?
Slowly this topic and the Constitutional issues are making their way onto the mainstream big blogs, and hopefully to more Law Prof. blogs. Thanks for the post.
The apparent due process violations are mind boggling. Now individual hearings for the children after the initial separation--clearly contemplated by the Texas Family Code.
Over reaching searches and seizures of the entire community
No credible evidence of imminent threat of harm to most, if not all of the 400 plus children.
Guy Murray
For many of us, the medieval Inquisition represents the epitome of officially sanctioned, sadistic lust for power. When, in modern social work, we sometimes force on an individual things which he himself rejects, our motives are surely better. Or perhaps not always? In my years of analytical work with social workers, I have noticed time and again that whenever something must be imposed by force, the conscious and unconscious motives of those involved are many-faceted. An uncanny lust for power lurks in the background; dreams and fantasies show motives which consciousness prefers to ignore...Quite frequently, the issue at stake appears to be not the welfare of the protected but the power of the protector. The imposition of a carefully justified measure against the will of the person concerned often gives rise to a deep sense of satisfaction in the case worker - the same kind of satisfaction felt by a schoolboy who has thoroughly beaten up another, proven himself the stronger, and thinks : ``That will show him! He'd better not fool around with me.''
Another interesting psychological phemonemon has struck me. The greater the contamination by dark motives, the more the case worker seems to cling to his alleged ``objectivity.'' In such cases the discussion of the actions to be taken in a case become[s] blatantly dogmatic, as if there could be only one correct solution to the problem...
Guggenbuhl-Craig Power in the Helping Professions p.7-8
While I tend to be very wary of Child Protective Services (and the like) having been a home schooler), however idylliic this scenario may appear, the fate of young girls growing up in a place where the phrase "old enough to bleed, old enough to breed" is an actual way of life, is intolerable in a society that frets about things like second hand smoke and V-Chips.
And let's not even consider the fate of young men growing up in such places.
Yes there are huge challenges and mistakes will be made, but this is not a new or unknown problem, it just moved to the wrong place for hiding.
As far as no laws being broken, please disregard statutory rape and feel free to make your case.
So, the judge issues a broad search warrant based on one anonymous phone call. Seems as if the authorities were just waiting for any excuse to shut them down.
Absolutely,
When the FLDS community began in Texas, the legal age of consent for marriage was 14 years old. In 2005, legislators changed that age upward to 16 years old, specifically to target this particular group. Prior to their arrival it was just fine with Texas if young girls married at 14 with parental consent. But, once an unpopular religion came to the West Texas prairie, shut em down!
Guy Murray
This should scare the shit out of people. It really should, because it proves the state owns your children, and can remove them at their slightest whim, and with minimal, even false, provocation.
Yeah I totally agree with you Pogo. Unfortuantely, people who work for the state are not always "moderate" in they way they do things. I hope the state did their homework.
This is another great example of why we need less government in general. Yeah the liberals grope over Obama, and Obama talks like when he is in charge of governemnt everything will be great. But in reality, its not Obama himself who will be executing big government, its the 8-4 bureaucrat who doesn't give a crap about who it is they are "helping."
Less government = more freedom and better lives for all.
Did I just talk about Obama and polygamy in the same post!!! That was my whole goal you know....
Less government = more freedom and better lives for all.
Hmm. And how has the size of the Federal Government changed in the past 7+ years of a Republican Presidency? How did it change from 2001-2007 when both the Executive and Legislative branches were solidly Republican?
There is no shortage of difficult issues to wrestle with here. The things I've read about the FLDS -- the abuses of powerless women and children -- are truly terrible. And at the same time, it seems more and more obvious that the state, even if it had solid evidence, has overreached, is causing more harm to the children, and is denying due process.
How bad to things have to be to determine its worth ripping families apart? What are the parents' right, as opposed to the state's? Do parents have a right to raise children in a way the state doesn't like? Where are those lines drawn? By whom? Is the state expecting that children should be totally free from any exposure to any influences, teachings, or practices it doesn't like? And if so, are those rules going to be applied in other situations (as Pogo and Sloan ask)?
difficult issues
I haven't followed it but the only issue of interest to the state would seem to be statuatory rape, which presumably can be handled one person at a time.
The rest strikes me as just Amish-like, a lifestyle that most people regard as touchingly pleasant rather than abusive. Not that it matters how it strikes most people.
We know several families who take in children from DSS. Tragic cases. In our small community, one family of three children can overload of the system. I can't imagine the logistical nightmare of 400+ children suddenly being added to the chaos.
Remember Janet Reno's solution to this type of problem: burn them! Burn them all!
And how has the size of the Federal Government changed in the past 7+ years of a Republican Presidency?
If you're talking about the budget, I think we know the answer to that.
If you're talking about executive power ... well, I guess that depends on whether one believes the nature of the threat we face is significant enough to warrant extended governmental powers. And even if the answer is "Yes," there should be limits, oversight, and review. But that also presupposes a consensus on national security that rises above partisan divisions. Neither side has managed that.
What I don't understand in all of this is why the State of Texas took all of the children. If the concern was with underage girls being impregnated, why not just take those girls aged 11-15? If they are 16, then they can marry (with parental consent and if younger than 11, probably not sexually mature.
Why remove babies (or any boys)? There haven't been any allegations of abuse of these kids.
The origin of this and all other CPS abuses is the concept of "best interests of the child."
Whose bright idea was it to introduce such a vague and subjective standard into American jurisprudence -- at all -- let alone into the situation where the government has the power to tear apart a family?
I agree with SGT Ted. common sense comments.
1. So, the judge issues a broad search warrant based on one anonymous phone call. I thought the standard for a search warrant was geneally higher than that. I thought that you needed addition evidence if you had no basis for validating the accuracy of a call. I would think that a 30+y/o black woman who had not lived in the compound, would both not sound convincing, and would not have a lot of local knowledge about a closed compound. I wonder if the sect is going to challenge the warrant.
2. How does one get a NTO (non-testimonial order) served on mothers? What crime are you going to present in the warrant?
3. As SGT Ted mentioned, CPS doesn't seem to have any problem allowing young woman to get pregnant and bear children alone. They just can't do it with a man in the house over 18? While I abhor forced marriage or sex, thre are a lot of other places to spend CPS and police dollars.
4. Just curious when the police are going to round up all those Muslims with multiple wives (as young as 6 y/o). What exactly is the distinction between:
Fundamentalist Muslim <-> Fundamentational Christian
Multiple underage wives <-> Multiple underaged wives
Closed society <-> Closed Society
Strong Belief system based on a religious text <-> Strong Belief system based on a religious text
Maybe one is Christian and one isn't?
And our PC based multi-cultural code says marrying 6 y/os (no sex till 9) is fine if you are not from around here.
So far, Texas CPS is only pressing civil claims to custody of the children from the polygamist compound. It has been much worse. I recommend all of you to read Dorothy Rabinowitz's excellent series of articles in The Wall St. Journal about the persecution of the Amirault family over charges of child abuse at the Fells Acres day care center in Massachusetts some 20 odd years ago. Those will make you think the current proceedings in Texas are like speeding tickets.
Unfortunately, "the village" is going to come take your kids away from you if you bring them up an a manner the village doesn't particularly like. We have too willingly handed-over authority to the state to deal with certain child welfare issues, for the well intentioned purpose of protecting children who are really at risk of injury and/or psychological trauma. What we accomplished, instead, was an overraction to an much-hyped "crisis" of child abuse and neglect. It is the case in Texas that custody and parental rights proceedings are general civil matters, and the standard of proof for terminating parental rights or awarding custody is perponderance of the evidence, just as in most any other civil proceeding. Think of how that empowers a fact finder who may have prejudice concerning a respondent guardian's chosen lifestyle.
The practical result has been loss of parental rights and/or custody where the guardian is not a member of a protected minority group, but chooses some lifestyle the judge or jury finds objectionable if not acttually harmful to the child. Yes, I had to bring up the "protected minority" thing, because as some have correctly observed, if the challenged guardian has any basis to invoke such status, the state effectively has to prove it isn't motivated by discriminatory intent in removing the child.
A brief read through the Texas Family Code would scare the bejeesus out of any rational person knowing what power CPS has to remove children from homes under "emergency" circumstances without due process afforded the guardians.
We have too willingly handed-over authority to the state to deal with certain child welfare issues, for the well intentioned purpose of protecting children who are really at risk of injury and/or psychological trauma. What we accomplished, instead, was an overraction to an much-hyped "crisis" of child abuse and neglect. It is the case in Texas that custody and parental rights proceedings are general civil matters
sort of begs the question about why a larger percentage of the 69% of black babies born to single mothers dont end up in state custody doesn't it.
Pastor Jeff, actually I was talking about the size of the Government. Number of bureaucrats workin' for us.
"I suspect that they [the FLDS] had a whole lot of kids there without their parents," said [Carolyn] Jessop, who fled the community in 2003 with her eight children....
For several years now, children have been reassigned from one father to another and even one family to another ...
That helps explain why so many of the children are unable or unwilling to tell child protection officials who their parents are.
Children growing up communally instead of in the same house as their biological parents. The horror! The horror! How would the state of Texas react in this situation, I wonder?
What is life like for children living on a kibbutz?
* Following the underlying principle of coexisting as 'One Big Family', children living on a kibbutz experience a different kind of growing up. Since the ideology of the community is so greatly valued, children's schooling is conducted through forms of communal education. In addition, the young are raised in children's houses separate from their biological parents. The living arrangements consist of sleeping quarters as well as study and play rooms for the children. Generally the children form relationships with their parents by spending time with them after the day of work is done. This type of living arrangement lends itself to intense interaction between all its inhabitants.
How does living on a kibbutz effect the socialization of children?
* Living on a kibbutz has a major impact on the socialization of children. Children reared by their biological parents develop different social skills than those brought up in a collective living arrangement like a kibbutz. The two most influencial factors in any child's life are the caregiver and the peer group. In non-kibbutz society, parents fill the central socializing role in a child's life especially at the preschool age. Children growing up on a kibbutz are more dependent on their peer group than their biological parents. Those raised in collective establishments are generally more supportive of one another and convey a greater sense of community through their actions. Instilling a sense of appreciation for the the greater community and the common goal is evident through the socialization of children living on a kibbutz. Through the kibbutz experience, children learn to value the group over the individual.
Religious cult indoctrination; communal agricultural living; children not living with their bioparents -- clearly the state of Texas would shut these "kibbutzim" down ASAP.
actually I was talking about the size of the Government. Number of bureaucrats workin' for us.
I know you use the term "working" in a loose sense, and your point is well-taken.
Don't get me started on what happened to the GOP's commitment to limited government and fiscal responsibility. Both parties spend like drunken sailors. The only difference is how drunk and where they spend our loot.
When the FLDS community began in Texas, the legal age of consent for marriage was 14 years old. In 2005, legislators changed that age upward to 16 years old, specifically to target this particular group.
If true, under Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. the City of Hialeah, it is not a neutral law of general applicability, but targets the free exercise of religion and thus must meet strict scrutiny.
"Until this month, the youths inhabited a cloistered world where they couldn't swear, curse, date, dance, watch TV, go to malls or movies, play Nintendo, or surf the Web.
They instead ate fresh food, most of it home-grown; wore long dresses and long-sleeved, buttoned-down shirts;...."
That sounds like a typical story from Mother Earth News, not a story about abused children.
If CPS is concerned about underage women having sex with older men, why not start rounding up babies in the ghetto? The FLDSers at least feed, clothe and teach their children; a condition sometimes not present in the inner city young parent demographic.
Children growing up communally instead of in the same house as their biological parents. The horror! The horror!
14 year old girls being told to go have sex with a 50 year old man is what we are talking about, not a bunch of hippies sitting around singing Kumbayah. If you are OK with THAT then sidestep the real issue or cringe in horror about the right of old men to run a harem.
14 year old girls being told to go have sex with a 50 year old man
So why is the state not prosecuting the 50 year old men, and going in to "rescue" the 14 year old girls? Why kidnap all of the women and children? Further, however appalling such "marriages" may be, as I understand it the age of consent in Texas was 14 until 2005.
Just as the world would not be better if things happened as 5-year-old boys wished (lots of school bus crashes to start with; five year old boys may be spared the presumption of innocence), the world is not better if governed by the self-generating fears of soap opera narratives.
Someday the phenomenon will be analyzed for what it is, and some other delusion will run things, unless enough skeptics mocking it all drive down the growth rate of the madness of crowds.
So how come Dorothy Rabinowitz didn't kill it all off already? No traction against the soap tide.
The century of soap.
The FLDSers at least feed, clothe and teach their children
I do remember reading somewhere that the women collect food stamps and use WIC coupons, so they do receive some government assistance in feeding their children.
Hmm. And how has the size of the Federal Government changed in the past 7+ years of a Republican Presidency? How did it change from 2001-2007 when both the Executive and Legislative branches were solidly Republican?
I agree. Bush hasn't reduced the size of government in the same way the 1994 Congress and Clinton did. Today the federal government spends about 20.5% of GDP, still less than it did in 1994.
Bill Clinton said the era of big government is over, and technically came through on that promise. Unfortunately, Obama is not making that promise. Obama is promising the opposite.
Bush's comment a long time ago was that people didn't want a smaller government, or they'd vote that way.
He felt he was following the voters.
I wrote:
When the FLDS community began in Texas, the legal age of consent for marriage was 14 years old. In 2005, legislators changed that age upward to 16 years old, specifically to target this particular group.
former law student responded:
If true, under Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. the City of Hialeah, it is not a neutral law of general applicability, but targets the free exercise of religion and thus must meet strict scrutiny.
Yeah, It's true. Check out this post here.
Guy Murray
So why is the state not prosecuting the 50 year old men
That is an excellent question. I will guess that those prosecutions might occur in the future -- using the DNA test results.
He felt he was following the voters.
The voters didn't want him in office in 2000. Why didn't he follow them then? :)
The 50 year old men are going to have their day. And please, you can argue that 14 year old girls consenting to get married and/or have sex with 19 year old guys or 25 year old guys is not such an unimaginable idea but when its routine involving middle aged men who already have other "wives", it stretches the definition of consent into the absurd. This ain't Jerry Lee Lewis and his cousin.
Who says they aren't prosecuting the 50 year old men? The Texas legislature just eliminated the statute of limitation for sexual assault of children, plenty of time.
If the girls' mothers think there is nothing wrong with letting 50 year old men shag a girl, then aren't they in danger? This whole thing is a mess...
"He felt he was following the voters."
The voters didn't want him in office in 2000. Why didn't he follow them then? :)
Now that got a laugh out of me. You are on your game today!
I too, like Pogo, have some grave concerns with the government overstepping its bounds by seizing all of these children with little to no concrete evidence of abuse. If it were any other group than Mormons or Christians (who are acceptable targets of bigotry) the ACLU would be all over this.
A religion that advocates sexual abuse of young girls is also abhorrent to me and I do believe it is abusive to the young girls and the young men. I also think that when necessary the authorities should have the right to step in and stop abuse of children. HOWEVER>> The double standard is staggering. Why no mass government intervention in other religions that advocate the same and even worse practices(genital mutilation, honor killing)? Why no mass intervention to save truly at risk children, the crack addicted babies of crack addicted mothers who have no visible means of support other than to be on welfare?? I know why, but just thought I would ask.
There is another issue that hasn't even been touched upon by the MSM. Where is the money coming from to support all of these people? Are they using "welfare" and other subsidies as has been seen in the past in other smaller sects? If so, shouldn't we be looking at welfare fraud in addition to possible child abuse?
When the government has the ability to take your children away from you and the power is vested in petty beaurocrats, we are all in danger of losing the ability to instill our own values in our children. The State run schools are nothing more than an indoctrination factory turning out little like minded drones. This is one of the major reasons that home schooling is being attacked. It is a threat to the monoploy on our children's minds.
Edit: I'm not saying that Mormons are not Christians.
And I can't spell bureaucrat without spell check. :-(
"So why is the state not prosecuting the 50 year old men, and going in to "rescue" the 14 year old girls? Why kidnap all of the women and children?"
It's interesting that you object to the wholesale roundup of the children, but advocate the same treatment for the men of the compound when the state has yet to establish who committed the crimes alleged.
"And it is unclear what if any laws were broken"
From http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/ :
§ 22.011. SEXUAL ASSAULT. (a) A person commits an
offense if the person:
(2) intentionally or knowingly:
(A) causes the penetration of the anus or sexual
organ of a child by any means;
(c) In this section:
(1) "Child" means a person younger than 17 years of age
who is not the spouse of the actor.
(e) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under
Subsection (a)(2) that:
(1) the actor was not more than three years older than
the victim and at the time of the offense:
(2) the victim:
(A) was a child of 14 years of age or older; and
(B) was not a person whom the actor was
prohibited from marrying or purporting to marry or with whom the
actor was prohibited from living under the appearance of being
married under Section 25.01.
§ 2.009. ISSUANCE OF (marriage)LICENSE. (a) Except as provided
by Subsections (b) and (d), the county clerk may not issue a license
if either applicant:
(4) is 16 years of age or older but under 18 years of
age and has not presented at least one of the following:
(A) parental consent as provided by Section
2.102;
(B) documents establishing that a prior marriage
of the applicant has been dissolved; or
(C) a court order as provided by Section 2.103;
§ 2.102. PARENTAL CONSENT FOR UNDERAGE APPLICANT.
(a) If an applicant is 16 years of age or older but under 18 years
of age, the county clerk shall issue the license if parental consent
is given as provided by this section.
(b) Parental consent must be evidenced by a written
declaration on a form supplied by the county clerk in which the
person consents to the marriage and swears that the person is a
parent (if there is no person who has the court-ordered right to
consent to marriage for the applicant) or a person who has the
court-ordered right to consent to marriage for the applicant
(whether an individual, authorized agency, or court).
(c) Except as otherwise provided by this section, consent
must be acknowledged before a county clerk.
(h) A parent or a person who has the court-ordered right to
consent to marriage for the applicant commits an offense if the
parent or other person knowingly provides parental consent under
this section for an applicant who is younger than 16 years of age or
who is presently married to a person other than the person the
applicant desires to marry. An offense under this subsection is a
felony of the third degree.
"There was no child abuse."
There actually was plenty. 13 and 14 year old girls were given to 50 and 60 year old men as sexual partners. In Texas, children this age cannot marry, so this was statutory rape even when the girls consented, and as the father of a 13 year old, I bet not all of them consented.
This much is fact. Now it will be interesting and perhaps horrifying to see what else happened, as you do not get this kind of control and abuse happening with there being plenty more.
The government has no right to interfere with the free and legal exercise of religion. But these minor children were not free, they were raped. And not by the system.
Trey
Former Law student wrote: "So why is the state not prosecuting the 50 year old men, and going in to "rescue" the 14 year old girls?"
Because they saw the mothers as non-protective. They think that the mothers aided and abetted the rape, and would not, protect the children. As such they were non-protective parents and could be eliminated as a potential caregivers.
In the worlds of the child abusers, there is a subset in which both parents either participate in together or allow the abuse by the other parent. The active sexual abuser is typically but not always male.
It makes no sense to allow the non-protective parent to keep the child.
There are other interesting issues in this case, but thinking that the little girls were not abused is not worth serious consideration if you know and understand the patterns in this sort of filth.
Trey
In a world of lawyer jokes, I am aware of only one child protective services worker joke: "What is the difference between a pit bull and a child protective services worker? With a pit bull, you at least get part of your kid back!"
former law student - re: kibbutz kids.
You beat me to it.
In general, if the adults did something, prove it. While that process is happening, lock up the men, or keep them under supervision.
If they damage the kids by abruptly dragging them out of their environment - no CPS person will be procescuted.
Cool, huh?
J. -- apparently all those laws were changed in 2005 because the FLDS group moved to Texas. From the Deseret News:
Texas targets polygamists with age-of-consent bill
Published: Friday, April 22, 2005 3:37 p.m. MDT
0 comments
E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + -
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Responding to a polygamous sect's move to West Texas, a state lawmaker has filed a bill that would raise the age of consent of marriage from 14 to 16, outlaw stepparents from marrying stepchildren and strengthen requirements to run for office.
There are other interesting issues in this case, but thinking that the little girls were not abused is not worth serious consideration if you know and understand the patterns in this sort of filth.
Today's filth is yesterday's norm and vice versa. My great great-grandmother married at 14 via an arranged marriage to a man in his 40s and had 5 children. After he died she remarried and had 5 more. At the time it was perfectly normal. Now if two men of any age had attempted to get married, they probably would both have been lynched.
It makes no sense to allow the non-protective parent to keep the child.
There are other interesting issues in this case, but thinking that the little girls were not abused is not worth serious consideration if you know and understand the patterns in this sort of filth.
Hmm, where did I read, it seems recently,
The greater the contamination by dark motives, the more the case worker seems to cling to his alleged objectivity. In such cases the discussion of the actions to be taken in a case becomes blatantly dogmatic, as if there could be only one correct solution to the problem
Did they ever assign Gugenbuhl-Craig to you? Or does education bypass it now.
Actually, Pogo and Dust Bunny Queen, your claims about inaction on the part of the ACLU are not true. The Texas ACLU has gotten involved in this case. They dispatched their Legal Director from Austin to observe the proceedings in San Angelo (not a short trip) and made public statements questioning the actions of the state in this matter. Given that the ACLU is not a party to this case and has not (as far as can be ascertained from public information) been engaged as counsel in this case, that's about all they can do at this stage of the proceedings.
You know, if you had spent about ten seconds on Google News, you could have found out all this for yourself. But, then again, I suppose spouting off uninformed comments in bad faith is a lot more fun than doing a little homework and seeing what the facts are.
But, then again, I suppose spouting off uninformed comments in bad faith is a lot more fun than doing a little homework and seeing what the facts are.
Bad faith takes such a beating these days.
windbag...
Remember Janet Reno's solution to this type of problem: burn them! Burn them all!
And who did Janet Reno work for? Why that charming southern fella and rock star, Ole Uncle Festus Clinton- his favorite line "for the children". Hmmm, I wonder, could that have been an example of Hillary's imput into the co-Presidency and part of her so called thrity five years of public service; FOR THE CHILDREN?!!!!!
"J. -- apparently all those laws were changed in 2005 because the FLDS group moved to Texas. From the Deseret News:"
I'm not sure what you're getting at. The AP quote is correct, and what I posted is the current text of the law (it was also amended in 2007).
My point in posting 2.009 and 2.102 was to clarify what the law is regarding minors getting married in Texas. If they're under 16, they can't, period. Thus, if a girl younger than 16 is pregnant, and got that way with the help of someone more than 3 years older - which by the statements of FLDS members themselves appears to be the case - under Texas law that girl has been raped. That's the law that was broken.
"What is the difference between a pit bull and a child protective services worker? With a pit bull, you at least get part of your kid back!"
Actually pit bulls are used as therapy dogs, owing to their combination of stable temperament and physical strength. I saw a YouTube the other day searching for some easy evidence of this, here
You can see that the besieged owners are trying to fight back against something, useless task!, for they cannot beat the narrative that beings in money. But that's actually what a pit bull is, in the video.
Anyway, as for the State Protective Agency in action, here's Vicki Hearne on the state rounding up pit bulls on TV,
The voice-over asks the audience, ``What are we going to do about this horror?'' The horror I saw was a child terrified and brutalized because the state - in the form, as I recall, of the ASPCA, which has a contract to handle animal control in New York - was impounding his best friend, but the horror the newscaster had in mind was the child himself, not the child's terror and grief. The child was the emblem and instance of the overwhelming specter of dogfighting and the dope trade.
remarkably similar to misgivings in this case.
That's the law that was broken.
When was the law broken? Was the law broken before it was enacted? Plus the law is likely unconstitutional if was enacted specifically to prohibit the FLDS's religious practices, under the Free Exercise clause.
OK, let me state that forced marriages regardless of the situation or religion are abhorent.
We do however need to provide some amount of "innocent till proven guilty here" and remember the travesty of jusice that occurred during the witch hunt that surrounded a number of "day care center" molestations.
When the State and the therapists and the repressed memory folks get done, these kids may really be hurt.
How the judge can take nursing babies away from mothers on the basis of an claim that under age girls were abused seems a big leap.
Punish the fathers if you can make a case. But don't punish the mothers and ruin kids lives in the intervening period.
I don't think the age of consent was 14 until 2005. The old law provided that a child of 14 could get married if the child had parental consent.
and to answer the Drill Sgt.'s question, "why a larger percentage of the 69% of black babies born to single mothers dont end up in state custody", I respectfully refer you to the last paragraph of my long-winded comment.
Here is the relevant portion of the law passed in 2005: The permission age for marriage was raised to 16 from 14.
"SECTION 4.16. Subsection (a), Section 6.102, Family Code,
is amended to read as follows:
(a) The court may grant an annulment of a licensed or
informal marriage of a person 16 [14] years of age or older but
under 18 years of age that occurred without parental consent or
without a court order as provided by Subchapters B and E, Chapter 2.
SECTION 4.17. Subchapter C, Chapter 6, Family Code, is
amended by adding Sections 6.205 and 6.206 to read as follows:
Sec. 6.205. MARRIAGE TO MINOR. A marriage is void if either
party to the marriage is younger than 16 years of age."
Since it appears the obvious is not so obvious, the threshold for action (in this case removing the children) is lower than for taking the men into custody since under suspicion of child abuse, a case can be made that all the children are at risk either for rape (or for the general failure of parental supervision. Arrest these men now and they are released in short order. Good evidence? We'll see. Bad Law? Take it to court. Failure to act IAW the law in the face of suspicion of child abuse and you risk becoming the criminal. Ask a teacher or child care provider.
all the children are at risk either for rape
All of them are going to be "married"? Even the two-year-olds?
or for the general failure of parental supervision.
Huh? The kids are out breaking curfew, smoking dope, and shoplifting?
Let's start with a couple of realities. First, there are exceptions to the statutory rape laws for marriage. Thus, if the older male was not legally married to a girl that he impregnated, it is rape, and thus child abuse. Secondly, that a marriage is not legitimate if one party is already married. Third, biological parentage is somewhat hazy with a lot of these kids.
Yes, this all comes from trying to stick their polygamous culture into our monogamous society and its laws. Nevertheless, society has declared that one man can only be married to one woman at a time and that a man cannot marry a girl who is too young.
So, what is going on? My guess is that first biological parentage will be determined for each of the children. That is likely to result in evidence that at least some of the men had sex with girls too young to marry.
But then, with all that information, the marriages and subsequent divorces can be verified. Remember, regardless of common law marriages (in the few states that allow such), divorces are only through the court system, and if a divorce is not legally complete, then all subsequent marriages are null. In that case, the "husband" is committing adultery, and if the "wife" is younger than, say, 18, statutory rape.
Yes, this seems to be a fishing expedition, but there was apparently sufficient probable cause in evidence in the form of several girls who were found to be pregnant who could not have been legally married when impregnated. Of course, if they got that way with boys their age, then no statutory rape or child abuse. But there is reason to believe that was not the case.
"When was the law broken? Was the law broken before it was enacted?"
If the law was enacted in 2005 and the girl is pregnant now, it seems...unlikely the law was broken before it was enacted. They cover this in fifth or sixth grade health class if you'e interested in the details...
"the law is likely unconstitutional if was enacted specifically to prohibit the FLDS's religious practices, under the Free Exercise clause"
That's why I posted the law - I'm interested in what lawyers here think, because I don't see why it even needed to be changed - a polygamist still couldn't get a legally valid marriage, which is the only defense against the sexual assault charge. I think they might be in trouble with the pregnant 17 year olds too.
"But don't punish the mothers and ruin kids lives in the intervening period"
If the mothers abetted the sexual assault, I don't see how you get around prosecuting them too. And there's no way CPS could let the kids go back into an environment where that was going on. I'd generally be the last to defend CPS, but I don't think they had a lot of options here, and none of the options they had was good.
I think you guys are missing something here about the girls prior to 2005. These marriages aren't state-sponsored if they're second or third. So I doubt marriage will be a defense even in the pre-2005 cases, just as marriages under 16 (even first marriages) won't be a defense in the post-2005 cases.
Also, it does seem like kids under 8-10 aren't in much danger here. Hard to see why the State didn't wait on them. They have plenty to do with the older kids as it is.
Guggenbuhl-Craig: Power in the Helping Professions
Awesome find, RH.
When I first saw the photos of this travesty, I was reminded of those WWII photographs of well-armed Nazis marching women and their children out of the Warsaw ghetto.
As for probable cause, it now turns out that the initial phone call that set off the raid (complete with a tank, troopers armed with automatic weapons and large number of sniper teams) was a hoax.
The conclusion drawn by child protection investigators, upon merely seeing a pregnant girl, that a) she is under age, b) that she is married to an adult male, and c)that she was impregnated by that adult male is a non-sequitur. In any event, such an observation hardly justifies the forced removal the all infants, all boys and all non-pregnant girls and the subsequent separation of these children from their mothers.
It's just a matter of time before an appellate court brings the hammer down on those individuals responsible for these decisions. And when this happens, the question will become whether the commissioner of the Texas Department of Child Protection and her agents will be held personally liable for part of the damages suffered by the children and their mothers.
FLS- you're either stupid or acting stupid. We're talking about laws being applied by bureaucrats. Act like you know your ass from a hole in the ground.
1. DBQ - The Cult members are not Mormons. They were excommunicated for polygamy, kiddie rape, and not following other matters of mandatory Mormon religious doctrine.
2. Many people are confusing "consent" with marriage and statutory rape. An exception to statutory rape existed in many Southern States since colonial times IF the young man DID the right, honorable thing and married his 13-15 year old girlfriend WITH parental consent to maintain all party's "reputation and good name".
The 14-16 year old "marriage waiver" in Texas never applicable when we are talking sham marriages, Muslim temporary marriages,black "yo my bitch ho' bride fo' the night", or "spiritual" marriages. Nor does Texas law recognize coerced marriages based on authoritian dictates, selling brides for money or labor...All marriages recognized as legitimate by the State must follow "free will under oath" assertions of bride and family, must be done by a recognized minister or secular official, must be properly registered with affidavits, proof of birth, etc.
The Cult apparantly did few if any of these things, so they appear very unlikely to stand on "poking the kids was all legal and such!!, grounds".
Yes, the State of Texas changed the law when the Cult moved in - because Texas saw them moving in in the 1st place because they thought their middle-aged Elders could poke young trim in Texas that they couldn't in Arizona.
3. While abuses of CPS are legion and people are right to detest their anti-Christian, anti-male bias and (worst case) employees and lawyers with links to agencies with financial motive to get desirable kids for adoption.....Remember they exist for a reason. Worst case situations of molestation, abuse, battering, neglect that are truly horrific and any rational human would find leaving kids with dangerous parents intolerable.
CPS has grown into it's own too powerful, too overreaching and meddlesome menace from good intentions. Just as many public health, school administrations, tax agencies, police organizations, Congress, have. That is a problem. But the need for cops, CPS, Congress, public health officials continues - and the blame is a public either failing to be vigilant or powerless against America's Ruling Elites to check such abuses.
4. People who claim that criminal arrests must be made before civil actions occur put the cart before the horse. Public safety actions have a different legal path than people who indignantly claim that "there must be criminal arrests and hopefully convictions with due process" -before the state is ever allowed to impose a quarantine, a destruction of infected livestock, removal of kids from a dangerous situation.
Public safety actions that impose on certain citizens can happen straight from regulatory power (property owner barred from his own property while a crime or fire scene is processed, curfews) or court order based on credible evidence (quarantine restriction on man with infectuous TB, child custody, etc)....
THEN, with the horse before the cart, investigation of the safety risk to the public may or may not happen, while affected parties pursue their due process right for relief from public safety actions, THEN if evidence warrants indictments are prepared, THEN arrest and criminal processing.
Basic ignorance exists in much of the American public that TV shows informs them civil actions must 1st have a criminal conviction to compel them.
5. Yes, people asking "what about the whole dysfunctional black underclass, why aren't they all arrested???", have a rhetorical point. But not a practical one.
6. rdkraus said...
Until this month, the youths inhabited a cloistered world where they couldn't swear, curse, date, dance, watch TV, go to malls or movies, play Nintendo, or surf the Web.
They instead ate fresh food, most of it home-grown; wore long dresses and long-sleeved, buttoned-down shirts; and seldom strayed far from a secluded Eldorado ranch....
How is any of this child abuse?
Sounds like they lived as well and in happy harmony wearing 19th century costumes and lining up their 13-year olds to be expelled if male, poked if fine young pussy! Sounds as laudatory as the happy, well-adjusted Cult members of the Jim Jones Temple.
7. It was time the country began cracking down on Cults that formed harems funded on welfare fraud, that insisted US secular laws they opposed didn't apply to them - that religious law reigns supreme over the Republic.
To fail to act on the Cult would, by precedent, greatly enhance the odds that Muslims could site the door the FLDS opened as warranting Muslim harems, taxpayers subsidizing the pack of wives a man of high Islamic prestige claimed but could not support, dealing with the crime, dysfunction, and violence of "surplus" Muslim males without mates or employment, and imposition of Sharia Law in neighborhoods and owner-controlled Islamic training camps and havens in the US. Not to mention if it is "All About Consent!!! Freedom!! 1st Amendment!!" then there is little difference between parents and female child raised and eager to have the girl fucked at 13 by a Bigshot Elder, and the same family and girl eager and willing by indoctrination to have her clitoris cut off in a radical Muslim religious compound in Texas.
As of 1999, this was the size of the federal government:
Federal full-time equivalent civilian employees: 1.9 million
Federal uniformed military personnel: 1.5 million
U.S. postal workers: 0.85 million
Federal grant-created jobs: 2.4 million
State and local mandate-created jobs: 4.7 million
Federal contract-created jobs: 5.6 million
You can add around 100K, post-9/11 to the number of direct-hire, full-time equivalent employees.
This 1999 number, BTW, is smaller than the number of federal employees when JFK was president.
In seeking a 'peace dividend' in the early 90s, personnel cuts went deep. Not trimming fat, but excising muscle, then bone, particularly in the foreign affairs agencies.
On arguing the points here, Cedarford has the best argument so far.
"Plus the law is likely unconstitutional if was enacted specifically to prohibit the FLDS's religious practices, under the Free Exercise clause."
Maybe not. Suppose the people in the state were against 14 year old girls getting married, but it really wasn't much of a issue as it just rarely if ever, happened. So no one bothered to pass a law prohibiting it. Now you have a large number of people move into the state and one of the things they enjoy doing is marrying off their 14 year old girls. So you pass a law. You are not passing a law because you don't want just that group to marry 14 year old girls, you don't want anyone doing it. It's just that this particular group is the main offender.
On the other hand, if this sort of behavior was common and just winked at until these folks moved it and THEN made illegal, then you have a good point.
The Cult members are not Mormons.
They're Mormons, they're just not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
The LDS Church considers the two to be synonymous, but the various sects that have broken away from them over the past hundred-plus years disagree, much like the Protestant churches disagree with the Vatican's position that Catholicism is the one true church.
cedarford -- you haven't explained why the underaged "marriages" of a few teenagers justifies taking all the children away from all of the parents. Why not just wait till the ladies start sewing a junior-size wedding dress?
Actually I think this action by the state of Texas quailfies as a violation of the laws against genocide. I think that those rules cover any attempt to exterminate a religious group via
Article II
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
I'm honestly shocked that so many people seem to think forced polygamy is just fine and dandy.
Seriously, do you people think that 14 year old girls who have never been outside their compound should marry 50 year old guys? What kind of life is that for them? Better a half-assed life in a foster home, than sharing some old geezer with half a dozen other young girls.
And yes, I know Hugh Hefner basically does the same thing, but he at least waits until they are legal and he doesn't keep them in his mansion
It's amazing to me to see all of the comments about fifty-year old men having sex with fourteen year old girls. Have any FLDS members been charged and convicted like that? Well, no. Where do these stories come from? Disabused former members who have (mostly) written books and have a cottage industry of TV appearances for money, and whose testimony in court would be all hearsay and thus not admissable.
I know I'm a little naive when it comes to the law, but it seems to me that if the law was being followed here there would be specific charges against specific individuals. While I realize that CPS can and does remove children all the time without their parents being charged, I'm not going to pretend I don't think it's wrong. As far as I'm concerned, if there is a danger to a child that warrants the dissolution of parental custody there should be underlying criminal acts. I don't have a problem with the temporary removal of a children while the matter is before the court, the notion that hundreds of children can be removed without due due process is a travesty. For one thing, not all of the children removed are children of polygamists and not all were being raised communally -- but all were removed. There is talk about boys being ejected, but there are no examples. I can't speak for anyone else, but by the time I graduated from high school I was more than ready to leave home and did so. And I'm a child of the 50's. And yet, that seems to be some sort of "crime" in this case.
All in all, this isn't an example of justice as it should be. I can't help but think that after this the members of the FLDS aren't going to need to use welfare to provide for themselves -- the state of Texas will be handing them millions and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars.
I am not a fan of this sect and if the charges are true ( that pesky presumption of innocence ) then prosecutions should commence. However, the Bill of Rights applies to all persons in the United States. It appears probable cause may have been manufactured here. If so, some employees of the State of Texas should go to jail.
Does anyone seriously think this raid would have been carried out if:
1. The compound was of a Muslim sect?
2. The people were African-American?
3. The people were Native American?
4. The people spoke spanish?
5. The compound was called a commune?
As awful as the FLDS sect may be, far more children are being harmed and abused by CPS and their sister agencies than will ever have any contact with FLDS. If you ever fall into the clutches of these agencies, they will do everything possible to keep you as caseload, regardless of the truth of the initial complaint.
You are concerned about the sexual abuse of girls? The foster care system is the sex abuse capital of the world.
These youngsters are going to get preyed on by older and tougher and more street smart kids.
Screening goes out the window when an agency has over 400 children to place at the same time.
This was a tremendously misguided decision on the part of the State of Texas. There is no way they have the resources to deal with this, and it is the height of hubris for them to think that they can.
90% of these children were still better off at home, and there were any number of less drastic measures the state could have taken to ensure the safety of those children most at risk, while also ensuring due process for everyone.
Just shameful.
Brooke Adams, the polygamy blogger for the Salt Lake Tribune, noted that an ungodly percentage of the seized children are girls. So either these people are doing some sex selection that puts the Chinese to shame, or some of these kids are imports from other families. I think the latter more likely.
Where are the teenage boys ejected? Where are the 14 year old child brides that have been proven? Try Utah, people. That's where the FLDS came to Texas from. They came here because the AG started cracking down on underage marriages, welfare fraud, and other crimes.
You know, I've ready all 81 (so far) of the comments, and there's a few things that stick in my craw, Ann.
First ... you must be proud to be a card-carrying member of the legal profession today as you watch the Constitution be shredded.
The Texas court, to which all lawyers owe alliegiance as officers thereof, has completely dispensed with any sense of due process. I mean, what a fucking joke. Even laypeople are scratching their heads at this kangaroo proceeding.
I'm struck that the press and most of your commenters are making allegations of statutory rape. The court certainly is not. And neither are the police.
If there was rape occurring, then the county prosecutor would have empanelled a grand jury and, using the power of the subpoena, compelled testimony from members of the community.
Right?
Interestingly, that didn't happen. But what did happen is that a judge took the word of a sheriff who claims to have been spying on the church for four years.
You ask whether we've entered the totalitarian state? Sweetheart, you and your cohorts in the legal profession have birthed it. Why are you surprised at what you wrought?
These youths weren't free apparently to swear, curse, date, dance, watch TV or go to the malls or movies or play Nintendo or surf the Web. Jesus, they must be being abused!
I don't want my kid swearing, cursing, watching Desparate Housewives, playing one of the whores in Grand Theft Auto or surfing the website over at www.girlsgonewild.com either, not to mention having to be exposed to their television advertisements on the government-licensed airwaves.
Perhaps I'm unfit to be a parent. But I'd suggest to you that you warn your bretheren in the profession that they might want to be far better armed the day they come for me and my kid.
Some of your commenters have wondered why the state of Texas and the Justice Department are not prosecuting Muslims in places like Dearborn who clearly are engaging in polygamy. And I can tell you what the answer is:
The Muslims won't have that shit, that's why. Period. Just won't have it. They've made it plain they'll kill people who try to interfere with their religious practices.
It's an object lesson for the Christians, Jews and Mormons, even the fundamentalist ones. Defend your faith, or lose it and your children. Defend other people's faith, or yours will be the next outlawed.
The Muslims clearly understand that, and have made their retaliation real. The Christians are going to learn the hard way that once the government starts smashing religions it rarely stops at the outliers. We're just a few short years from Waco and Oklahoma City.
Have we learned nothing?
Ask yourself this, Ann. In this day and age how did a Sheriff testify to a judge that he received a phone call he couldn't trace? Because that's the representation this sheriff made to that judge. And he was lying through his teeth when he did it; and the judge went along to get along, knowing full well that sonofabitch was committing perjury.
Once the executive and the judiciary join forces to strip the populace of their rights, there's not much point in continuing this experiment in democracy. That's right ... it's the lawbreakers who need their rights protected the most. Because if the guilty have no rights, certainly the innocent have none either.
Pretty sure I heard a lawyer say that once. Back when you looked up to lawyers.
It's a sad day for your profession.
Shame.
Shame.
Can't play a whore in Grand Theft Auto, only a carjacker.
I do sorta wonder when Christians are going to wise up and start training suicide bombers. It's the only way to get respect in modern society....
I don't know anything about the Texas child protective services people but if they resemble their counterparts in California they're nutter than a loon in a walnut tree. No one is in favor of grown men having sexual intercourse with 13 year olds, but it happens every day in the inner city and no one tries to take their children away.
As for men having multiple wives, Ray Charles had 12 kids by ten women. No one arrested him for that. The fact is all you have to do is say the magical words "Christian cult" and "child abuse" and the government sends in the tanks.
The government tried to justify its raid in part on the grounds that kids were being taught that polygamy is okay. Well shoot, our schools teach that homosexuality is okay. I don't see that one is any better (or much different) than the other. They are both unusual forms of sexuality. Why does the government condone one and freak out at the other. I figure what people choose to do in their bedrooms is no business of mine. Now if the power freaks in child protective services only felt the same way.
Jason wrote: "These youngsters are going to get preyed on by older and tougher and more street smart kids."
Do you have your Karnak hat on? I have seen and worked with lots of children who were in protective custody, most of them were there to protect them from heinous abuse, very few of them were abused while in custody. I think you are confusing Women In Chains type movies with the typical reality of foster care.
Having said that, this will be a HUGE mess and very difficult to get right. Taking every minor child is undoubtedly heavy handed and over-reaching.
My experience is that the job requirements of child protective services has outstripped the training and ability of the majority of the caseworkers. Given that and the career bureaucrats who run the show, the system is currently a mess. But there are certainly children that really do need protection, and I believe that the 10 to 17 year old girls in this cult, and their children, qualify.
And I hope that one poster does not follow this with yet another inane and out of context quote that has more to do with his tendency to serve as an appologist for sex with little girls than the point at hand.
Well, I can dream.
Trey
Have we entered the true totalitarian state, that marches into your home and you must comply with even the most insane decrees?
Actually, we entered that over a century ago, when SCOTUS upheld federal anti-polygamy laws that would have dissolved the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, deprived its members of the right to vote or serve on juries and confiscated all of its property, such as meetinghouses and temples.
The church abandoned the practice of plural marriage which was never widely practiced, but some members continued to preach it and were excommunicated, while others were unwilling to abandon the "plural wives" and children they had with them. That's a tough transition to make.
The spectacle of families being broken up is precisely why the prosecutions for polygamy died on the vine a hundred years ago. The public was wildly indignant about those who continued to cohabit with plural wives and support their families after the LDS church officially discontinued the practice, but when they saw photos of fathers being hauled off to jail and wives and children being thrown onto public welfare, attitudes changed.
These people are not a subsect of Mormonism. They are as alien to Mormons as they are to anyone else.
If they were brought to Utah the shock of reentering society would be as great as it would be in Texas, with the exception of church attendance and family prayers.
The first thing they could do is watch American Idol. Two of the top five contestants are said to be LDS. Call it shock therapy.
Mormons have never believed in hiding their light under a bushel or creating monasteries. They became isolated because they were physically driven out of the country, not because they wanted to give up their homes. This kind of "cloistered" life is not Mormonism. It's a twisted apostate vision that pretends to be Mormonism.
I'm LDS and from that checklist my kids rate as follows:
"cloistered" - nope - My older son is getting a PhD at Harvard in June. My younger son is in Med School in Illinois
"couldn't swear or curse" - true, not around me anyway, but they heard plenty at school - some Mormons home school, but not very many.
"date, dance, watch TV, go to malls or movies, play Nintendo, or surf the Web" -- my kids did all of the above, and still do for all I know.
Basically Mormon kids are taught to live the basic tenets of traditional morality and Christianity. We're a bunch of Boy Scouts.
I don't know how to help these poor people, but I know that letting them stay the way they were won't be good for them. They need to have a positive view on life and humanity, not fear it or hide from it.
Let's quit bashing Texas' CPS, 'K?
All such state agencies in this country (including here in Alaska) work under burdens that Mr. & Mrs. Normal cannot even imagine. We draw in our breath at hearing about 13-yr-olds being "married" to puffy old guys out there on the compound. Try investigating a 2-yr-old girl being sexually abused by Mom's live-in boyfriend. Go along with a social worker (and the police) as they take the kid; listen as they explain the move to an irate mother and a not-always-friendly judge; get the child treated and send the mother to rehab on the state's dime.
After six months or so, watch the social worker fight with the judge again when he orders the young daughter placed *back* with the sometimes-sober Mom, 'cause the judge, you know, firmly believes that according to all the latest studies, of course children should be placed with their biological mother.
Then, go with that same social worker in about a year or so following that, to the same unkempt home, to investigate the sexual abuse of the now four-yr-old daughter by Mom's newest boyfriend....
Children protective services, no matter what state, will *always* err on the side of removing the abused child.
Always.
I am a former foster parent in the state of Texas with 18 kids to my credit.
Mass statuatroy rape and the transportation of kids across state lines without parental consent are crimes in the state of Texas.
In past cases like this that I have been involved with where similar laws were broken, the parents and adults got 15 years to life.
In Texas we call this a Felony. The LOCAL county judge and DA seem to agree as well. While no one likes it when the state jumps in, in this case its called, hmm, upholding the law???
Imagine that.
I am disgusted by those who seem to think that a baby mill for producing teen girls for old men to bed while cheered on by other adults is somehow good.
Well, at least they weren't gay polygamists. Then I guess much of the concern about civil rights would go away.
No one here is defending cild abuse. What we are defending is Constitutional rights.
I am not criticizing what is being done; I am criticizing *how* it is being done.
The fact that the Sherrif used one anonymouse phone call and got a sympathetic judge to issue a warrant that allowed the wholesale round up of people, some of whom are not polygamous nor have children, should give everyone a serious pause. Such conduct by agents of the Government is dangerous to everyones liberty.
People tend to go kookoo anytime anyone says "Child Abuse". There are issues with the probable cause. If it is bad to break down someones door on an unsubstatiated tip about drugs being sold, it is equally bad to have a huge raid and round-up based on the same.
Slim, that sounds bad, but it less makes me want to leave Christian polygamists alone, than want to go into Dearborn, etc., and enforce the law on Muslim violators and blow the shit out of any who resist.
Nichevo,
I think the point I was trying to make is that the government sets a horrible standard when it is so obvious that it is setting upon one religion.
There is little difference between Mormon historical polygamy and Muslim historical polygamy. Today, there are few practitioners of it in either faith, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has removed the practice of it from their faith - due to the Supreme Court of the United States outlawing the practice.
That would be the same court that said black people were worth 3/5s of a human being, at one time in our history.
One can argue about whether one believes that plural marriages are good or bad; but when the government allows Muslims the practice at the same time they drive tanks onto the property of the LDS church in El Dorado ... the lesson is obvious:
If you blow people up, the government leaves you alone, but if you don't they government crushes your religion.
That's the message it's sending to both Christians and Muslims.
It's pretty clear that the court in Texas is corrupt; that the judge is not the administer of blind justice she makes herself out to be; that the sheriff and the judge are in cahoots to deprive a large part of their citizenry of their rights; and that the legislature is going to go along.
So those people are right fucked.
But I can tell you it doesn't sit well with ordinary law-abiding Americans watching this.
A commenter made the point earlier that nobody here believes that it's OK to rape a child. It is not the rape of children we are talking about here.
It is the way that the Executive branch of Texas, with the tacit approval of the US Justice Department and with the collusion of the Texas Judiciary, is perpetuating a fraud on us and systematically depriving the citizens of the State of Texas their God-given rights.
That is wrong. It was a mistake in Waco, and directly resulted in the deaths of a lot people in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
It is a mistake to repeat the episode in El Dorado.
I have read all the previous comments and feel the need to post my own. Being the grandmother of two children taken by the state of Texas and the battle I fought to get my grandchildren back from CPS, I am trully beat down. I fought the battle for just over two years even though the state of Texas says they have eighteen months to resolve issues or return the children, THEY LIE!!! Considering I already had their sister, the state said I was unfit or an endanderment for them to allow me to have the other two children, yet they allow me to continue to raise their sister, what hipocretes! This case was started in July 2004, was not closed till December 2006. I was allowed visits with my grandchildren when it was convenient for the state irregardless of their birthdays, holidays, the fact that they had been totally seperated from their sister and constantly asked me why they could not come home to me, the state did not take their sister. The CPS worker lied to them constantly, telling them they were coming to my home, always offering them bribes if they would make up lies! The state even made me move to a larger home to accommodate these children and to ensure a false sense of the return of them to the family. When I would get to see them they would be cut, bruised, black eyes, not bathed in days, lice in their hair, sick, without medical care! I had to makes threats to the caseworker to file assault charges, abuse and neglect against her and the gaurdiem ad litem and the state of Texas to get medical attention and remove them from the abussive foster home they were in before they were removed and placed in a safer place, oh, but yeah the state of Texas gives a damn! Gives a damn that they were white children place in a black home with two adults and twelve other children, how do you supervise fourteen kids effectively? I was able to get the name of the foster parents and ran criminal backgrounds and google their names, the horrible thing I learned about these people at least worked to have them put in another home but never returned to us under the grounds that I was a poor judge of charater and the judge stated he did not understand why I still had their sister but he still didn't recomend she be taken from me even though he declared the state failed her, what a bunch of bullshit. The woman that transported the children endangered their lives passing us on the highway smoking her cigarettes doing 85 mph in her unregistered, expired safety sticker, probablly no insurance but it is wrong for me to make that assumption and the things I found out about her when I ran her criminal background. THE STATE DOES NOT GIVE A DAMN!!! There is a court order for the children to see their sister twice a year, she has not seen them since OCTOBER 2006, which to me makes the state and the adoptive parents criminals, as they are in contempt of court. They are abusing the childrens rights! Oh, but they are Godlike creatures CPS, they are untouchable. We should send them to finish up the war in Irac, they are more powerful than the CIA. Every year in July I get a knock on my door from CPS claiming they have a report of abuse on me and my family to the point of harrassment and yet the workers that come to my home act like they know nothing about this case. It is insanity, I have lived under the dictatorship of CPS and the state of Texas for almost four years now. I don't fart or forget to brush my teeth that they don't know about. Last year they came to my home and swabbed everyones mouths saying we were all on drugs. We all passed, no drugs in this house, imagine that!!! Such a waste of the taxpayers monies and imagine the children that could be saved while they are wasting their time on false cases, like the children we see on TV that are killed in foster homes by some foster parent or the boyfriend of a foster parent. The only thing I have learned about CPS in the state of Texas is that they are in the business of bartering children, human lives, selling babies!!! Last I checked it was against the laws of this country to sell human lives, THATS IT!!!!!
Flora says they all need mental evaluations? LMFAO, Somebody needs to get that lady in facility ASAP, but no, she is so deranged and telling everybody what they want to hear, that they will go on and let her psychobabble continue, it really does help Tx case, until they find out like everybody else that has anything to do with Flora that they got taken for a ride. This one is going to be a pretty expensive one though.
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