Posted on 05/01/2008 6:01:31 AM PDT by MizSterious
FLDS doctor denies abuse at YFZ Ranch |
| By Heather May and Brooke Adams The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake Tribune |
| Article Last Updated:05/01/2008 01:20:20 AM MDT |
| The physician who cares for the polygamous community now in the national spotlight - and who has treated its prophet in a Utah jail - is described by his mentor as "very kind, very sensitive, very concerned." Lloyd H. Barlow, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, graduated from the University of Utah's School of Medicine in 1995. He completed a one-year internship in internal medicine in 1996, and then did a family medicine residency at the U. that ended in 1999. Barlow oversees a health clinic in Hildale, the sect's traditional home base, and its Texas clinic at its YFZ Ranch. Texas authorities allege there is a pattern of sexual abuse of underage girls at the ranch; and on Wednesday an official said at least 41 children there have had broken bones. He also said young boys may have been sexually abused. Barlow flatly denies that any child abuse occurred at the ranch. "There is not," Barlow said. "The parents are very loving and caring parents, as I believe [Texas child welfare officials] could attest given the stresses put on them over the past three weeks and observing them. The parents are very much interested in the care and well-being of their children." He added: "It is part of our belief system that the way to teach and train children is to deal with them and train them in kindness." Physicians are legally required to report cases of suspected child abuse - something Barlow said he would have done if he found such evidence. Texas authorities would not comment Wednesday on whether investigations include whether anyone failed to report abuse of children at the ranch. Barlow said children with serious illnesses or injuries were treated at health care facilities outside the ranch, and police found receipts for such care, court records show. There have been no public complaints against Barlow or discipline by licensors in Utah or Texas. Physician Marc E. Babitz was Barlow's faculty supervisor during his residency program and worked with him at a now-closed family practice clinic in Salt Lake City. "He was really a very fine student and a very fine resident. He put the welfare of his patients as his top priority," said Babitz, who once visited Barlow at the Hildale clinic. He said he was once introduced to one of Barlow's wives. Until Barlow completed his medical degree, Hildale and the adjoining FLDS town of Colorado City, Ariz., had a single nurse practitioner to rely on. "He made a huge difference to health care in this area," said Joanne Yarrish, a certified nurse midwife in nearby Centennial Park. Barlow repeatedly visited then-ailing sect leader Warren S. Jeffs in the Washington County jail in the spring of 2007. Jeffs was awaiting trial and was later convicted of two first-degree felony counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in a 2001 spiritual marriage between a 14-year-old follower and her 19-year-old cousin. --- * JULIA LYON contributed to this report. |
I think both you and your dad represent both dimensions of God's vantage point of cultists & world religionists. Your emotions and your dad's seem contradictory. I would say they are paradoxically one.
Your reaction over Jonestown represents Jesus' mercy & compassion: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! (Luke 13:34)
AND Luke again: As he [Jesus] approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes..." (Luke 19:41-42)
As for your dad's reaction, it represents a position of justice as well as pre-emptive salvation...that there are such things as gangrene (Jesus' words about cutting off the hand, for example, to keep the whole body from being thrown into the fire). And even Luke 19:41-42 doesn't stop there:
As he [Jesus] approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you." (Luke 19:41-44)
So, as Jesus says..."because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you," that eternal opportunity of being present with God is lost.
There is something to be said for both individuals and groups of people needing to be able to themselves recognize God's presence. Elsewise, they become like the Pharisees, who Jesus said would cross land & see to seek converts and make them "twice the son of hell" that they were. The Pharisees got caught up in the religious trappings and failed to see the very incarnational Presence of God in their midst.
[Sounds like a certain worldwide missionary presence of 60,000+ missionaries who proselytize their legalism, infecting others with the same thing that Paul accused the Galatians of doing--of "bewitching" others: O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? (Gal. 3:1)]
It gets worse
In antiquity, child sacrifice was used to control populations. Supposedly the gods needed the sacrifice but whatever.
The person that can control whether your children live or die has control of you.
We have seen evidence that the fathers “tortured” the children to keep them from crying. That ability to abuse the child kept the women in line. The men didn’t have to beat the women to keep them on the “right page”. They just had to beat the kids.
What’s your point? I answered.
From your definition, I think 2b would apply. :-)
Appy, that’s a scary thought, but you may be on to something. However, it’s very harmful to children not to be nurtured, i.e. hugged. Studies have been done that illustrate babies who aren’t held grow up with psychological problems.
First they should have investigated this sooner, then they waited too long.
Then they should have investigated this sooner and gathered more evidence. Now they're on fishing expeditions looking for charges.
If the children are removed from a abusive situation, they're being abused further and the state is guilty of adding to the abuse. If the kids aren't removed and are abused further, the state is guilty of contributing to the abuse because they did nothing.
Nothing's good enough for some people. The government is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't.
If it were the only reason for the warrant, and LE knew it was from someone with a history of such false reports prior to the raid, it has the possibility of letting the perps off the hook. Let's hope nothing like that will happen!
I think the psychological problem may be the passivity of the girls. Plus the men breed the girls before they reach the age of rebellion. The boys are tossed out before they start showing signs of aggression.
The women who escaped the cult, interviewed on the WE Network documentary, both said that these kids grow up emotionally cold because of this kind of treatment. One of them even said they are taught that outsiders aren’t fully human.
Well, they’ve got Warren Jeffs on some charges and more are pending.
It takes time. They need to collect evidence and get everything lined up. If they rush and blow it and lose the case because of that, they’d be criticized for going too fast.
Now they’re being thoughtful and careful and they’re being criticized for not going fast enough.
What do you want?
Can they do anything right?
***What’s your point? I answered.***
I will ask again...”Is it safe?”..Lawrence Oliver in Marathon Man.
“Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran also said he had been working with a confidential informant for four years who was feeding him information about life inside the polygamist sect.
Doran declined to say whether the informant was in Texas or other sect compounds in Utah or Arizona. It wasn’t until after the search had begun that Doran learned about marriage beds in the temple and the forced marriages of underage girls to older men.
“It was instrumental in teaching me the group’s ways,” Doran said.”
I hope that my post accurately represented that information from CNN.
“I am not aware that there has been a four year “investigation”, and the last I heard about the informer was vague.
A couple of weeks ago it was thought of as only an informer that would pass some information to the sheriff, including word definitions.
At that time we didn’t know which state the sympathizer was in, and it sure didn’t sound like a professional type that was doing deep investigation work, instead it merely sounded like an individual that would offer up what they could do to help give the sheriff a sense of what went on behind the walls of the cults daily life.”
My family is all raised and I'm looking forward to enjoying my empty nest, but I am overcome by the desire to take in some of these kids, even a whole family of mother and children. [CC]
I like your answers to the question of what to do with these new foster kids better than this answer:
Question: Shouldn’t the [LDS] Church do more to help victims of polygamy? If it helps victims of Hurricane Katrina and an Asian tsunami, why not people in its own backyard?
Answer:
Before addressing the specifics, let’s discuss a broader context for these responses. The Church now has well over 12 million members and operates in more than 160 countries. Church leaders — specifically the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve, together with the Presiding Bishopric — deal with an enormous complexity of issues as they administer the Church around the world. Those issues involve everything from managing tens of thousands of missionaries to a massive building-construction program (nearly one a day) to handling relationships with governments and making sure members’ needs are met.
We mention this because people who have particular causes or agendas don’t always understand it. Nearly 40 years ago, then-president of the Church Spencer W. Kimball told a gathering of Church leaders that they should encourage members to get involved in community affairs. He said it was impossible for the institutional Church to become involved in the various and complex community issues without being diverted from its primary mission to preach the gospel to the world. In the past 40 years, the world has become more complex, not less, and the needs have become more acute.
Does this mean we do nothing to help victims of polygamy? No. We are always interested in the individual. It simply provides additional context for understanding why the causes some people embrace don’t always get the attention they wish.
Specifically in relation to helping others, the Lord places a heavy obligation on the Church and its people to look after the fatherless and comfort the widow in their affliction, and also to sustain the poor and needy. That charge has been repeated throughout scripture and is one that is taken very seriously. Church response to these human needs — both local and international — manifests itself through hundreds of humanitarian aid projects each year involving distribution of aid worth many millions of dollars.
In addition, bishops — leaders of congregations — are empowered to render aid according to their own judgment and discernment to individuals within their area. The bulk of their time is spent in rendering service to members of their flock, although they do have the latitude to extend service to others. This is usually done through the administering of fast offering funds and through additional resources such as the Church’s thrift stores. We are aware that individual bishops in the Salt Lake area have often used these kinds of resources to assist women and children who have formerly been involved in polygamous situations and who need temporary help. That judgment is an individual one in each case. The bishop has a great deal of autonomy in such matters. Under no circumstances would the Church breach its privacy rule to disclose the names or details of those helped. Neither is there any way to quantify this from Church reports.
It’s also very important to understand the complexity of this problem...
You don’t think that leaking information about the ongoing CPS investigation to the press, i.e. allegations of teen girls who have been or are pregnant, boys with broken boys, is pure politics? The CPS is obviously feeling the heat. Look for more such publicity from both sides. The legal proceedings will be the most definitive source for information about what has happened. And those haven’t really started yet. This is all in the investigative stage, or should I say the fishing stage.
If he knew he was being filmed, .....just sayin'
Translation: Analysis Paralysis
Whatever.
It’s irrelevant. The cat is already out of the bag. People are so outraged by these poly’s that they will demand justice.
Has there been a gag order on this case? If not, there aren’t any leaks. If they weren’t giving the public any information, then you folks would be whining about “secret investigations.”
Well, if they teach that they are ‘devine descendants’ then it would follow that outsiders aren’t ‘fully human.’
And, I think they boys are tossed before old enough to be aggressive but also old enough to question authority. The girls are possibly not able to conceive of questioning due to many factors, not the least of which I imagine to be the psychotrophic drugs the escapees have said they are given.
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