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
Source?
You're big on words and short on backing.
Give up. I have. She is an eeeeeevil lesbian because she did her job.
Oh,
Well, we both know she just doesn’t like what you’re saying generally. Of course, I’ve only seen some of your more recent posts. Perhaps you were a real jerk before :). Or perhaps you are getting what I have gotten for questioning the actions of the State.
Anyway, interesting article and the stats cited to above in an earlier post of yours are alarming.
You’d think that someone who has been her for a year would be able to click on the little links under the posts to check what I was replying to, wouldn’t you?
lol
Sources? How do you know? Can you document that?
There were several single parent households.
Well, yeah duh, because they didn't issue marriage licenses for the additional wives so that technically they would be single parent households and qualify for welfare to engage in welfare fraud; *bleeding the beast* as it's called.
Big deal. Nobody's impressed, newb.
tThere were several divorced mothers that lived there in single family dwellings. One mother had her teen son taken by CPS. She testified at the original hearing and despite the fact that she was not married or living in polygamy, her child was not returned.
Compared to those of us who were here in 1998, YOU are the newbie. But that really does not matter to me. So please, do scurry off.
But that was because:
“But several child advocates and experts in family law are sympathetic to Walther, who determined that the environment at the ranch was not safe for anyone younger than 18 because children were groomed to become either potential victims or abusers.”
“because children were groomed to become either potential victims or abusers.”
Allow for a translation...... “because children were [raised] [to possibly become] victims or abusers”
You do well to fear the government when its standard for the taking of children is no more than their condemnation of the manner of your raising of the child coupled with the mere allegation that said raising may possibly sometime in the future cause the child to be a rapist or rapee.
Bingo. Also, these old women can't stand the fact that someone else can come along and not let them get away with their lies and personal attacks.
Anyway, interesting article and the stats cited to above in an earlier post of yours are alarming.
Thanks Kindly!
I am not a cult fan or supporter, but I am a fan of the rule of law. For all.
Compared to those of us who were here in 1998, YOU are the newbie
So you did have another name under which you used to post? correct?
The kids should have been taken when Jeffs was convicted.
It’s so sad that FReepers would leave kids in an abusive situation to save their own sorry skins, so they think.
Letting this situation go will not guarantee that the government is not *coming after you next*.
That’s just a hysterical overreaction used to hide behind to defend the cult and make appear not so.
Howdy,
MHGinTN is not interested in discussion at all. See my post to her on Friday when she was ranting:
Sect-raid target not in Texas [More problems with original FLDS warrant]
Friday, April 25, 2008 4:58:20 PM · 164 of 374
Aragon to MHGinTN
The following posts of yours are riddled with insulting accusations and inferences and approximate nothing identifiable as rational discourse. Perhaps by itemizing them here, for you, the obvious will be made know to you:
1. You spittled out, “You can’t even assert that any child abuse was taking place anywhere.” Well, you apparently don’t consider statutory rape on this scale of dozens in the compound to be criminal behavior. Congrats. Are you a Mormon? Post 51
2. Amazing ... the age of toddlers born to undergaed females isn’t proof to your ilk. Are you a Mormon? Post 55
3.To: Aragon
What would you consider ‘proof’? Or is there anything that would make the statutory rape of minor females a crime in your eyes? ... Are you a Mormon? Post 96
4. Are you Mormon or LDS or fLDS or RLDS? ... I’m an Episcopalian Christian. Post 104
5. Since we know you are LDS, should we now view such foolishness as you just posted as typical of Momrons/LDS/RLDS/fLDS? ... Is staitutory rape a crime in Mormons’ eyes? Post 108
6. Are you a Mormon/LDS/RLDS/fLDS?... Is that why you ‘feel’ insulted, because someone asked if you are a Mormon? Post 123
No, tell me how you know WHY she was smiling not THAT she was smiling.
I can see that she is.
Tell me how you know WHY.
Can you read her mind?
Did she tell you?
And keep in mind, I don't write the articles. I don't have any way at all of injecting any bias into any article that I have not written. So go on a different hunting expedition, because you are again firing blanks.
Better yet, please just stop with the false accusations and personal attacks.
Silly me. I should have guessed,..... like so many others here.
Even I figured that out in that amount of time.
But who wants to be confused with pesky little facts?
Oh my word, that is such a hateful post.
Why is she doing those things?
Ya know, I am not a Mormon. But I don’t hate Mormon’s enough to devalue those children.
It is a shame that some people do.
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