Texas court: State can take sect children to foster homes

The Daily Iowan ^ | 4/25/08 | N/A

[MizSterious]

Texas court: State can take sect children to foster homes

By: Associated Press

Posted: 4/25/08

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) - Dozens of mothers from a polygamist retreat were bused away from their children Thursday, their legal efforts to stay united rejected as Texas officials sort out their massive custody case.

Two buses took the women from the San Angelo Coliseum, where they had been temporarily housed with their children. Texas officials were preparing to move the last of more than 400 children to group homes, shelters and residences, some hundreds of miles away, over the next few days.

One woman held a handwritten sign out the bus window that read: "SOS. Mothers separated. Help."

"There are no words to describe how it was," said Velvet, a mother who was forced to leave her 13-month old. She and other sect women have refused to give their last names, fearing it will affect their custody cases.

"We've been staying up nights to watch over the children because we didn't know what would happen," she said in a news conference outside the ranch gates Thursday.

In Austin, the state's 3rd Court of Appeals rejected the mothers' pleas to immediately stop authorities from busing the children taken from the ranch to foster homes.

The court agreed to hear arguments Tuesday, but attorney Robert Doggett, who represents 48 mothers, said that "having a hearing after the fact" was pointless.

[Choose Ye This Day]

You said you’re a member of a nondenominational Christian church. Didn’t pretty much all Christian churches split off from the Catholic church at some point in their history? Or at least, they can trace their history back to the Catholic church. So Pope Peter must have been the original founder of your church, making you of the same sect as the Catholics.

[Judith Anne]

I’ve noticed that on every thread, every possible argument against the state of Texas is thrown up multiple times. Ie,

The “illegal” search warrant argument
The inner city underage pregancies argument
The ripping the babies away from their mothers argument
The “all religions are in danger” argument
The “you are tarring all Mormons with the FLDS brush” argument
The “file charges if you think there’s rape” argument
The “remove the fathers instead of the children” argument
The “hundred years ago, everyone got married at 14” argument
The “All over the world, polygamy is legal” argument

And on and on.

It gets tiresome. When all of these issues have been addressed multiple times, in multiple ways, still the same old stuff crops up.

I wonder if some posters think that if they “win” a point on FR, then Texas will automatically cave on this case, and make everything go back the way it was, plus grant the FLDS millions in “reparations.”

Warren Jeffs has been successfully prosecuted. He is in prison. His request for a new trial has been denied. He may get an appeal.

But he is not the only one being prosecuted, nor is this civil child custody case the only civil case against the FLDS.

Wasn’t it the case that Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped by one of these polygamist offshoot goofballs to be his second wife?

These people are sick.

Some of the things that are ignored by a lot of posters:

What about the parentage of the children in this case?
What about the lost boys?
What about the true ages of the mothers?
What about the mothers not identifying their own children?
What about the children not knowing who their fathers are?
What about the Dale Barlow case? Is it possible there’s more than one perpetrator with the name, Dale Barlow?
What about the welfare fraud?
What about the crematory?
What about the child labor laws violations at other FLDS locations?

It seems that questions about the sect aren’t answered, just more of the usual complaints about the same old stuff.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I think the issue is also the women do not know who is the natural mother of which child.

Or perhaps more accurately (especially in the cases of the many children who were shipped here from other FLDS communities without their parents), the women are away from their male rulers and don't know which children the rulers would want them to identify as their own.

[greyfoxx39]

Nope

[Politicalmom]

I don’t understand why my one simple comment about something that inconvenienced me has been made into a federal case.

I didn’t report the spam, I made a request and pointed out that it wasn’t allowed. Just because some people do it anyway doesn’t mean it is acceptable.

[greyfoxx39]

JA, you know the old real estate truism..."location, location, location"? Just change that to read "agenda, agenda, agenda"

Facts don't matter. I'm not even sure the agenda is the same for all the cult defenders, but regardless, they are all joined together in the

CPS-TEXAS-LAW ENFORCEMENT = WRONG! mode.

SUGGEST-ALTERNATIVE-SOLUTION = HELL NO! NOT US!

[colorcountry]

TheDon,

This is a reply to a Mormon who accused former Mormons of being anti-Mormon, (or as you say, suffering from MDS). I doubt if you will read it, but there are others here who don't understand the dynamics of Mormonism or FLDSism at all, perhaps this will help them in their understanding.

I had once believed that the church would not and COULD NOT lie to me.

And one day, I woke up and realized that the only reason I thought that in the first place is because THEY taught me that. And, the only reason they taught me that is so that they could pass off one lie after another after another without me even stopping to think that something might be amiss.

I'll tell you, when I realized that, I was absolutely livid.

And the more I came to understand what had really happened, the more livid I became. Simply taking advantage of someone is bad enough, but the church literally alters people's perceptions of reality itself so that it can continuously take advantage of those people throughout their entire lives.

This is a fact that is so completely overwhelming that we often do whatever we can to avoid accepting it. Denial, as the psychologists call it. Again, "They have good intentions." No, they most certainly do not. But we don't want to see that. We don't want to feel taken advantage of. We don't want to feel used, and we don't want to feel as though our loved ones are continuing to be used, so we make excuses.

And, one day, those excuses collapse. They just don't work anymore. And, what's more is that as those excuses collapse, even MORE patterns of behavior and thought that were instilled by the Mormon church come to light. We were afraid to express our anger and outrage because we don't want to come across as being bigoted "anti-Mormons," but as it turns out, the church itself reinforces the idea that it's an oppressed minority, specifically by tossing out the term "religious persecution" like candy. I felt like a bigot because Mormonism taught me to feel like a bigot.

But the truth is that they are, in fact, using people like crazy, and being anti-user is hardly a form of bigotry. Are you a bigot for being anti-thief or anti-murderer?

It's just another lie to think that "anti-Mormon" is a form of bigotry because, given the behavior of the church, the anger is justified. I mean, would you call a woman who divorces an abusive husband "anti-marriage?" To me, it's the same thing. I'm angry as hell at the church for doing what it did, and yet for years I continued to believe that I shouldn't be angry, and that my anger made me a bigot. Like I said, one lie after another after another.

Again, at first I was stunned, then I was livid. And then, I just felt so completely foolish. I mean, I once honestly believed that a man dug up a book carved in metal in upstate New York and translated it into bad middle-age English by staring at rocks in a hat. I honestly believed that! And, I honestly believed that my happiness hinged on that book--and not just my happiness for the rest of my life, but for the rest of time itself! Never mind the fact that the Joseph Smith story and the Book of Mormon itself have plot holes you could drive a truck through, my eternal salvation was at stake.

So completely foolish.

[TheDon]

I’m sure there are scads of such posts from former christians. I doubt you take them seriously either.

[killermedic]

i know waht was going on because I have read the reports from those victims, however it doesn’t mean that a blanket policy should apply to EVERY person on the compound! Your lack of logic is staggering.

[colorcountry]

Sure I do. I take everything with skepticism. Once bitten twice shy.

If I hear stories of abuse within a system, you'd better be darned sure I avoid anything at all to do with the system.

Mormonism is based upon lies. It is evident. We can look back to 1829 and see where it began with a lie, we see the metamorphosis through polygamy, the effort to become mainstream. You can't make silk out of a sows ear.

Now, you might want to say all religious claims are based upon faith and have no concrete evidence. To that I'll simply say you are misinformed and mistaken.

I am not suffering from MDS, but it makes me damned mad when Mormons accuse others of lying. It is they who cannot or will not look at their own lies, distortions, history, abuses, and smears. You have a right to believe whatever fool thing you wish, but if you think I have to sit back and let the lies, distortion and fraud continue, well then, you're talking to the wrong conservative.

[UCANSEE2]

“however it doesn’t mean that a blanket policy should apply to EVERY person on the compound! “

What would you have done differently?

[Choose Ye This Day]

Nope, as to what?

[Choose Ye This Day]

It’s not a federal case. I’m right there with you: Spam should NOT be allowed. It’s annoying, it’s repetitive, and it usually has NOTHING to do with the thread at hand.

So I will join you in denouncing thread spam whereever it rears its ugly, oleaginous head.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Mormonism is based upon lies.

it makes me damned mad when Mormons accuse others of lying.

So, you can call US liars, but we can't call you liars. Got it.

[colorcountry]

You can call me a liar. In fact that is precisely what I was responding to.

Call me a liar, I WILL respond.

[Choose Ye This Day]

So will we.

Although, I guess we’re not supposed to around here.

[MizSterious]

The Daily Threads have (so far) been civil. Let’s not change that.

[MizSterious]

It ruins your formatting? You should see what it does to my browser. It just goes nuts. I’ve had to set it to NOT display graphics.

[MizSterious]

Spam, no spam, it has nothing to do with this thread or the topic we’re trying to discuss. However, graphics that repeatedly give my browser fits DOES have something to do with it, at least as far as trying to read it, and I wish people would stop it. I don’t care what the content is, it’s the format of the graphic. (And yes, some things do get repeated on these threads—often you have to if you’re going to answer the same questions over and over.)

[TheDon]

I am not suffering from MDS

Coco, you know the first step to a cure is admitting your problem. How long will you continue in denial? :-)