Posted on 04/19/2008 10:46:28 AM PDT by ricks_place
SAN ANGELO, Texas - In a swift end to a trying, emotional hearing, a Texas judge said Friday night that 416 children are better off in state custody than with their parents, who belong to a controversial polygamous sect.
If the parents are ever to get their children back, they will have to provide a safe environment, 51st District Judge Barbara Walther told about 75 mothers and fathers of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The Texas Child Protective Services used just four witnesses to persuade the judge that a polygamous community where underage girls sometimes marry is a threat to all children.
The ruling came two weeks after authorities raided the sect's ranch nearEldorado and five years after the FLDS, based on the Utah-Arizona border, expanded to western Texas.
CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said the department will move fast to place the children in foster homes or in customized arrangements as recommended by a psychiatrist who told the judge traditional foster care would be "destructive." She added that children will be placed with relatives only if appropriate.
FLDS women sat motionless inside Walther's courtroom as she issued her ruling. Afterward, they huddled with attorneys, listening as the decision was explained, somber but showing no anger.
Inside the City Hall auditorium one block away,
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
The polygamist father it both wrong and right. He’s wrong because he is a pedophile, he is right because the CPS would love to take the children of every Christian family.
Do you consider this “cult” Christian?
DNA Results: 410 children, 5 fathers.
No, the CPS considers Christians to be a cult.
So you believe that UN resolutions should have power over Texas law?
Well, I would think the least he could do is let the kids out on bail, until they can get lawyers and prepare for a hearing.
What do you consider a Christian? Because I can guarantee you that Texas CPS doesn’t consider 85% of the Texas population ‘cult members’.
A female co worker was all distraught the other day when the courts took the kids and couldnt believe the state had the power to do that and how she as a mother of a young girl was scared that they could come into her home and take her child away just like that......I told her she better be scared because if she was a pedophile selling her daughter off at 12 to marry a 50 year old man I would expect the state to do just that.....and while she was reeling from that I told her that if they didnt do it this way and NOW and they let the leader types get dug in and start getting stupid that the tanks would be rolling on their compound because all the options will have been removed from the situation.
She hasnt said too much to me in the last few days.
Just, wow. So, parents can decide to raise their children to be sexually abused? And, you go along with that?
There is this little, irritating piece of paper. Why, one should just burn it and have done with it. That US Constitution and that rubbish about due process, being able to know and cross-examine your accuser and that crap.
Now, those that participated in under-age marriages (which were common a mere 100 years ago) should be punished to the full extent of the law. No one is above the law.
However, taking armored personnel carriers onto private land and forcibly taking mothers from children is abhorrent. Especially when one finds that the call was likely a prank phone call. Hello, Dan Rather.
I find it highly incriminating on the State of Texas’s part that the buses used said “First Baptist Church” on them, and even more so unusual that the place these children were taken was to the “First Baptist Church”. The Baptist church as simply re-inforced the views that many have, we have the good folks that protest military funerals, we have the abortion clinic bombers, now we have these folks.
Now, I’ve lived in Texas for a while, and I know for a fact that Texas has not only school buses, but they also have tour busses, Greyhound and other buses available. Texas also has other shelters. It appears that the “First Baptist Church” has used Texas to declare war on religions that don’t hit back. Rather cowardly, in my opinion. I have yet to hear of such an attack on a Muslim community. IMHO, that would be because the Muslims would fight back, and it’s just not as much fun being a bully when your victim doesn’t lie down and whimper.
Are you hyper ventilating?
Yeah. Oh for the good ole’ days* when all women and children were considered chattel. I guess right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is just for men in some people’s minds.
*before polygamy was outlawed as Utah’s price to become a state. After that, it was winked and nodded into the 21st century.
Do you have any evidence of that, other than an accusation from what appears to be a prank phone call?
Can I make a prank phone call and have you and 400 of your friends rounded up just like this too? Wow, what ever happened to due process, gathering evidence and actually following the law? Now we are hearing that all 400 children were 'at risk'; and you support this. Why don't we just dig a hole and you can kill anyone you disagree with. I mean, I'm sure you wanted the Duke lacrosse team thrown into the pit - it must be really irritating when you find out that what the papers told you, and what the courts found turn out to be different from what you hoped.
This is why we have due process. We have a bogus accuser, a group of people who are living within the law (until proved otherwise) and are not creating problems. In most cases, the accused are not herded up and forcibly separated from their families until AFTER the trial. But, you appear to like this method better. Pity. I hope you are as understanding when the time comes to imprison your family, and let then depend upon the courts for the opportunity to prove your innocence.
Does your planet have an atmosphere which allows sustainable life?
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