Posted on 04/06/2008 5:27:22 AM PDT by SkyPilot
Local and state officials entered the temple of a secretive polygamist sect late Saturday, said lawmen blockading the road to the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado.
The action comes hours after local prosecutors said officials were preparing for the worst because a group of FLDS members were resisting efforts to search the structure.
The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and Schleicher County sheriff’s deputy confirmed that officials have entered the temple but said they had no word on whether anything occurred in the effort.
The incursion into the temple caps the three-day saga of the state’s Child Protective Services agency removing at least 183 women and children from the YFZ Ranch since Friday afternoon. Eighteen girls have been placed in state custody since a 16-year-old told authorities she was married to a 50-year-old man and had given birth to his child.
Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered as part of the investigation inside the compound.
“In preparing for entry to the temple, law enforcement is preparing for the worst,” Palmer said Saturday evening. They want to have “medical personnel on hand in case this were to go in a way that no one wants.”
Apparently as a result of action Saturday night at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded another group of at least a dozen more women and children from the compound.
Although members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, have provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff’s deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said.
“There may be those who would oppose (entry) by placing themselves between law enforcement and the place of worship,” Palmer said Saturday afternoon. “If an agreement cannot be reached … law enforcement will have to — as gently and peaceably as possible — make entry into that place.”
Sect members consider the temple, dedicated by then-leader of the sect Warren Jeffs in January 2005 and finished many months later, off-limits to those who are not FLDS members, said Palmer, who prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County.
Palmer said she didn’t know the size or makeup of the group inside the temple.
The earlier refusal to provide access was even more disconcerting because CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens removed from the compound, Palmer said.
“Anytime someone says, ‘Don’t look here,’” she said, “it makes you concerned that’s exactly where you need to look.”
The girl told authorities in two separate phone calls a day apart that she was married to a 50-year-old man, Dale Barlow, who had fathered her child, Palmer said.
The joint raid included the Texas Rangers, CPS, Schleicher County and Tom Green County sheriff’s deputies and game wardens from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.
Although CPS and Department of Public Safety officials have described the compound’s residents as cooperative, Palmer disagreed.
“Things have been a little tense, a little volatile,” she said.
Authorities removed 52 children Friday afternoon and 131 women and children overnight Friday. About 40 of the children are boys, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.
No further children have been taken into state custody since Friday, when 18 girls were judged to have been abused or be at imminent risk for abuse. CPS has found foster homes for the girls, Meisner said, and will place them after concluding its investigation.
Meisner declined to comment on the fate of the 119 other children and said authorities were still searching the ranch for others Saturday evening.
“They’re in the process of looking,” she said. “They’re literally about halfway through.”
Ah. Well, I am not aware of anyone using it before, since I have only recently been drawn into discussions regarding mormonism. I do not usually get involved in such discussions, nor follow them. I have little doubt that everything I stated has been said before at some time or other.
Same cry I heard in Kirtland after the Lundgren murders! “that’s not MY church....we go to the REAL one”
LDS vs. RLDS
Not to be confused, of course; with those who do it in the open forum.
So let me get this straight, if I can...
God condemns polygamy....
The LDS leadership condemns polygamy....
The Book of Mormon condemns polygamy....
The Mormons on this board support polygamy and use examples of others sins to justify what God and their leaders and their Scripture have condemned.
Sorry, still can’t get it straight. Something is eluding me here. Aren’t they a bit out of touch with their beliefs?
Or perhaps they’re really members of the FLDS and it’s related sects?
The only difference is the ones who do it openly are more brazen, but at least they do not hide their poison and they allow everyone to see what they are.
The same standards should the same for judging all doctrine!
What source do YOU have for backing up what YOU say.
Plenty of people here have posted Scripture to back up their statements> I don't recall you ever doing that.
So if you want back up for the Bible, give me a few minutes to go and dig around my backyard. I do live in Central NY you know. Maybe I can find some more missing gold tablets to support myself.
“Or perhaps they’re really members of the FLDS and it’s related sects?”
I have wondered that, personally. I do not recall them declaring themselves one way or other, but I may have just missed it.
Does the official LDS Church sanction polygamy or forbid it? I would like a clear answer, since so many mormons on here seem to be defending the practice it is a bit confusing.
Which begs the question, why are so many Mormons defending FLDS?
Ouch. LOL.
Something new I had not heard about, and which strikes me as significant (though granted, not as significant as polygamy or marrying pre-pubescent little girls) is something I just learned about on the news last night.
They were saying how secondary wives, who have children, go to the welfare offices and sign up for food stamps as “single” mothers, then give the food to the church. Interesting that such devout, Godly people would be involved in what amounts to fraud and theft from the taxpayers.
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
True. But you summarized it so nicely. Very concise post.
If polygamy were God's design He would have created more women for Adam than just Eve (and please don't bring up mythological Lillith as some LDS apologists seek to do)....and He would not have pronounced the one-flesh concept were a plurality of spouses the design. This command of one wife was also handed down in Deut. 17:17 as the Law was given -17Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
Any man hereafter who did so sinned against the Lord and God dealt with them accordingly...David's entire household was destroyed just as one example.
Christ taught in further detail when He stated that if you get a divorce and re-marry then you are committing adultery. How much more so if you were to marry again without getting divorced? Seems this passage is clear proof that God does not recognize plural marriages as anything other than adultery.
This is expanded even more in Ephesians 5: -
31For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.....the word here is TWO SHALL BE ONE, not 3, or 4, or 34 or 44 but TWO. And the word wife is singular, again not plural wives. It does not say joined unto his wives. 32This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
The relationship between Christ and His Church (Singular, not plural) is the same as God's design for marriage. It doesn't say 'brides' of Christ does it???? (Rev. 21:9; Eph. 5:22-32)
And its further summarized in 1 Timothy 3:2 for the position of being a leader in the church - 2A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, - God established one wife to hold a position of leadership, not plural wives. That's a pretty cut and dried case for monogamy in God's viewpoint.
Oh the depths that men will go to excuse sin out of the depravity of their own hearts..............
Yes, they knew their nakedness, but like any other lie, they did not become Gods. Are you trying to say that the Bible does say that men can become Gods? If so, I find it interesting that you use the words of Satan, as quoted by the Bible, to justify that belief.
My understanding is that it is the official position of the LDS that polygamy is wrong. Some Mormons on this thread have held to that position. Many, who claim to not be FLDS, claim that polygamy is OK.
I believe it all comes down to this:
If the LDS crowd admits that Joseph Smith's sexual encounters with his 27 (some sources say it was as high as 60) "wives" was sinful, tragic , and immoral behavior - then his whole "prophet" halo is stripped away and they have to ask themselves some very hard questions.
Thank you, metmom. That was my understanding to, but I was unsure, considering how many of them seem to be defending polygamy.
Interesting point. Yes, I can see why that would lead so many of them to defend it even though they do not sanction it today. That had not occured to me.
Agreed. Now, if you leave a pile of dog doo in someone's mailbox accusing them of being a "gutless coward drunk!" - that is really an indepth and deeply personal conversation - don't cha know.
Because they don’t believe it’s wrong. It’s just ILLEGAL so they can’t openly practice their beliefs HERE ON EARTH.
Some take the risk. Others wait for the orgy in heaven.
Those that wait can’t condemn because they are all going to be participating at a LATTER DAY.
oy vey!
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