Did Texas go too far in polygamy case?

AMERICAN-STATESMAN ^ | 04 27 08 | Chuck Lindell, Corrie MacLaggan

[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

[Aragon]

Bahhhh,

Go away you English pigdogs.

Time for din din!!!

But it is weird. Howdy there just disappeared.

Probably one of you psycho militant feminazi moms raided the dudes house.

[metmom]

Dear paranoid,

You’re coming through loud and clear and still here.

Signed, “Abby”

[humblegunner]

Howdy there

Since Mar 30, 2007

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Deuteronomy 33:29
Happy art thou, O polygamists:
who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Joe Smith,
the shield of geezers who wish to shag,
and who is the provider of young girlies!
and thine enemies shall have their daughters shagged;
and thou shalt have nubile wimmins all the time.

[metmom]

Dressing it up is the only way to try to make it palatable.

[DugwayDuke]

Good picture.

And, for those not familiar with this beer. It is an actual porter sold in Utah and maybe elsewhere but Utah is where I’ve seen it.