Posted on 04/26/2008 9:19:01 PM PDT by Howdy there
Sunday, April 27, 2008
After a long night interviewing children inside a polygamist ranch near Eldorado, Child Protective Services caseworkers made a crucial decision as the police-backed raid entered its second day.
They took 18 girls, from 6 months to 17 years old, into emergency custody on April 4, a Friday, because they felt their living conditions were unsafe — initiating a sequence of events that led to the removal of all 462 children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch and headlines around the globe.
Did Texas go too far? That question will probably be debated for decades, and not only because of its implications for religious freedom and the limits of government power.
Families were ripped apart. Children, including some who had to be pried from a parent's leg, were scattered into foster care across Texas — though state District Judge Barbara Walther relented last week and allowed children younger than 1 year to remain with their mothers in shelters.
The law allows Texas to take emergency custody when a child's health or safety is in immediate danger — but to balance that power, CPS must seek approval from a district judge by the next business day. In the Eldorado case, that was Monday, April 7.
That day, CPS investigators reported to Walther that they had found several pregnant and apparently underage girls at the isolated West Texas ranch where girls are groomed to become "wives" to older men. The underage marriages were condoned by the girls' parents, CPS officials said.In Texas, sex with someone younger than 17, when the partner is more than three years older than the victim, is considered sexual abuse.
Walther not only approved the emergency removal of the 18 girls, she also agreed that CPS needed to take custody of every child at the Eldorado ranch, which is run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a Mormon splinter group also known as the FLDS.
Robert Doggett of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which represents about four dozen of the mothers in the sect, questioned the wisdom of separating all the young children from their parents.
A 6-month-old boy, he said, is not in immediate danger of indoctrination into what CPS has characterized as a widespread practice of forcing underage girls to have sex with older men in "celestial," or spiritual, marriages.
For such children, "how in the world could the judge have found imminent risk of physical harm?" Doggett asked. "Courts are supposed to be a check on the government. That system has totally broken down."
SNIP
And that is the bottom line very apropos
Thanks for obliging, 2harddrive.
Maybe her ‘irrelevant’ remark was taken out of context, or maybe the complete thought/statement was not printed. Again, that is such an odd question to ask on the basis of a single photo...
Can you imagine the screaming around here if they had left the younger children in the compound and one was molested, or a bunch were kidnapped?
“The evil state didn’t protect the poor children. What’s the matter with them? Just lazy government workers.....”
These people MIGHT be jerks and criminals, YES. But so far, there has been NO admissable legal evidence presented against them. How can we judge them so quickly?
Great point, Mom. I don't think you could five out of 10 babies carried that way in society. All of them are in these pictures. Interesting.
I’d be DARN scared to be surrounded by strange men, with it getting dark, and them knowing I had the power to remove their slaves.
We can read.
Its ‘face forward.’ Meaning that instead of carrying the infant so it can gaze up at mom (or surrogate mom, or communal mom) the babies are routinely carried so that they fact ‘forward’ looking away from the human carrying them. Odd. Most ‘baby’ books, say that the human face is most fascinating to human babies.
Texas certainly did go to far. There is no excuse for ripping children away at gun point on the edicts of the State. This is Elian Gonzalez all over again times 1 000. The State must learn to mind its own business & follow the Constitution.
Well, but women in law enforcement are said to be disproportionately lesbian, anyway, though, remember..just like those in adult female softball teams.
I don’t know.
Maybe Ms. Voss is a working mom who just needs a quick, efficient hairstyle so she can out the door in the morning (as opposed to s highly complex three foot long, labor intensive braid.). Geesh...
Cults often attempt to minimize family relationships so as to fill the resulting void of familial ties with the ties and power of the cult "family." People without family ties and bonds are much easier to motivate, control, abuse and take advantage of. Jim Jones, the Shakers, and numerous other cults have done this time and again.
Nothing more required. Texas is at fault for letting it go unpunished for so long. If they had done thier job long ago THERE WOULDN'T BE 460 kids to deal with right now ! Everything they own should be confiscated under the RICO act and the kids never given back.
If you truly HAD that much power....you wouldn’t be scared of anything!
“Until VERY recently, the legal age for marriage in Texas was 14, with parental consent. Might not a defense here be that these were Common-Law marriages, with parental consent?”
IIRC, it was changed to 16, in 2005, in direct response to the JEFFS FLDS group moving into Texas.
Roflol,
I don't think you can marry a pervert that is already married no matter what the age. But does the post mean you endorse child molesters?
DANG. Well of course the state would be a better choice to raise these children. Sorry, not meant to be snarky, but how is this evidence of child abuse remedied by foster care and a breaking of the parental bond by force of law?
I never carried my babies face forward until they were near to walking. How do you talk to them, and kiss their little faces if all you can see are the backs of their heads?
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