Posted on 05/01/2008 4:44:54 PM PDT by Politicalmom
SAN ANTONIO — A judge ordered that the baby boy born to a girl taken from a polygamist sect's ranch in West Texas be placed in state custody, according to documents released Thursday.
Texas District Judge Barbara Walther signed the order Wednesday giving the state custody of the 1-day-old infant born to a teen believed to be 15 or 16 years old.
The girl has claimed to be 18, according to an affidavit signed by Ruby Gutierrez, a Child Protective Services caseworker, but officials believe she is younger and placed her in foster care with other children taken from the ranch.
The newborn is the teen's second child; the first is a 20-month-old boy. The father of both children was identified as Jackson Jessop, 22, but state officials say they don't know his whereabouts.
Child welfare officials now have 464 children in their custody, swept from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado because authorities believe underage girls were forced into marriages and sex with older men. Authorities are also now investigating possible sexual abuse of boys.
Church members have vehemently denied there was any abuse, and civil liberties groups have raised concerns at the sweeping nature of the removals.
Individual custody hearings are set to be completed by June 5.
CPS and law enforcement raided the ranch on April 3 after a girl who was purportedly 16 called a domestic abuse hotline to complain of abuse at the hands her much older husband. Authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax.
Regardless, child welfare authorities say 31 of the 53 girls aged 14-17 have children or are pregnant.
Under Texas law, children under the age of 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult. A girl can get married with parental permission at 16, but the girls who belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are not believed to have legal marriages.
FLDS is a breakaway sect of the mainline Mormon church, which disavowed polygamy a century ago.
You notice it’s on threads where hysteria and hyperbole can be easily manipulated because the wording of the article might be a little vague.
Political mom has been about screaming to make herself heard stating that the mother and child have not been separated that this is just a technicality that the child is a ward of the state but it’s been drown out by the cacophony.
People will believe what they want, no matter how many links and sources you post.
I assume that these are loving families, until proved otherwise.
Our government has a horrid history of charging parents for "sexual abuse" when nothing like that had ever happened.
I'm gonna need a citation for that that does not come from an FLDS site or FLDS lawyer.
But the gov't has gone in and seized 100% of the children from people who have only 1 thing in common, they go to the same church. By virtue of sharing a religion, they have all been deemed unfit parents.
No. The children were removed because of pervasive evidence of law-breaking of a particular variety which lended credence to the idea that this was an unsafe environment for the children.
If a crime has been committed, gather evidence, have a trial and a jury will determine guilt.
That's what they're doing. As I've said before, you do not find, try and convict the arsonist before you put out the fire.
It won’t stop if they send her or let her go back to that compound.
Exactly,
The way I understood it is that its paperwork and wording...the child and it’s mother are together in state protection.
And ya know something,
I in my RL see the state doing more good for at risk kids that bad, so this ‘The state is evil’ stuff is annoying.
That is intellectually dishonest. The children have been taken, without evidence, but merely suspicion. It is not CPS's job to take children on what 'could' happen, but this decision should be based on a case by case basis on what 'did' happen. Because Billy-Bob abused a child does not mean that you or I would do the same. The fact that 4 weeks into this fiasco, we have no arrest warrants, no evidence that every child was abused and a handful of pregnant teen age girls does not mean that every child has, or is going to be abused.
Find the people responsible for statutory rape, and give them their day in court. That's why we have a court system.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't these abandoned young men adults? It it illegal to abandon a young man who will not follow the rules of your group? If it's illegal, charge them. But, you sound like you want revenge, not justice.
WOW!
But perhaps you have explained why so many Freepers have been defending the government's actions in this case.
No such thing as one father and mother, bonded to their children.
Interesting...
I may had gotten bad grades in biology, but if I remember correctly, a child only has ONE father and ONE mother.
CindyDawg: “Those that have a hardened heart and choose to go back, probably are to far gone to help.”
People should have the right to live as they please. Those who are violating the law by having sex with underage girls should be charged and tried in a court of law. Those who are of legal age and choose to live that way, even if we think it’s weird, should have the right to do so.
Nothing scares me more than people who want to use government to “help” me. Not only does that justify all sorts of tyranny, it also means the helpers sleep well at night thinking they are doing good.
My first foster child’s 18 month old brother had a spiral compound fracture that went untreated for days.....
And 3 months after I got the 5 y/o girl, she started talking about having to look at Daddy’s pee pee....
Yes, bad people hurt their kids and you have to take them a away (Dad is a felon in jail now and mom is god knows where).
Yes, C.S. Lewis always got positively giddy when contemplating coerced sex with a minor.
I'll see you C.S. Lewis and raise you one Jesus Christ quotation.
But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
Well, it was a safe bet that the father’s last name was Jessop, Barlowe, or Jeffs. Hopefully, this fortunate child will be adopted by normal people and will grow up to be a fine man.
41 only of the few who have been examined. The report says that many have not yet been examined, and of the 41, many were “young”, and not only that, but many of the 41 had multiple fractures.
This is evil. Everythinig about this cult is evil. Anyone who cries foul or claims that there was no just cause for the State’s removal of these children is either totally, willfully, ignorant and spouting off just to hear themselves, or else is a plant of the flds sick and evil cult.
Are the 14 year old girls willing participants in said marriages, or just given to their husbands without their consent?
Freedom will is the issue here.
I can never approve of a ‘shoot first & ask questions later’ child safety policy.
The government’s fingers are to thick for the delicate task of sorting out the unfit parents from the rest.
Fun fact: Country singer Loretta Lynn had 4 kids by the time she was 17,
Last I looked 13 and 14 year old boys were not adults. Of course, lots of you think that young girls being raped is just peachy, so maybe you also think that dumping a thirteen year old boy out in the desert with no food, water, or money is peachy, too.
The baby is with it’s mother.....and stop insulting CPS.
Pregnant minors is pretty concrete. It's not like injuries that there's a reasonable explanation for. You know any other way of getting pregnant that the usual?
For example, less than 1/3 of the members in the FLDS faith practice polygamy - yet they are all grouped together.
How do you know? You got sources on that?
By virtue of sharing a religion, they have all been deemed unfit parents.
No, by virtue of abusing children and lying to authorities to hinder the investigation, they have been deemed unfit parents. Of course, there's the slight complication of determining which adults are the biological parents of which children.
Consider carefully,someone in your church may do something illegal and the gov't will have a precedent to go in to your church, find the membership records and take everyone's child. That is my fear. They take your kids, guilt is assumed.
Consider carefully that that is hysteria. I don't live in a closed, isolated compound with the rest of the members of my church, trading wives, children, lying to LEO's about who's who. The scenarios are not even close and your *fear* is totally unfounded and without precedent.
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