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.
I will class any group that breaks the law as criminals. Otherwise, what you’re saying is that if someone wants to commit crimes and not be charged, call it a religion...
Golly, that’s what the FLDS is, a group that uses religion to commit crimes.
Polygamist are criminals.
It was difficult to explain to JimRob what I had posted, then it had been deleted. I have learned from that error and it will not be repeated.
Notice how I have not attack anyone personally, and have followed all of the Freeper rules for 10 years now?
If I say something that gets someone upset, I have tried my best to correct my statements or talk with them in private.
As always, I follow the Freeper rules and wanted to thank you for the warning.
One of your own posts got you suspended. Wasn’t another poster asking for such to happen.
CindyDawg: “Men and women who can’t imagine things like what we have heard happening, can’t imagine the adults in the group allowing abuse to occur.”
I must admit it’s difficult to imagine. I hope it isn’t as common as some people claim. I know it must occur, but I don’t understand the thought processes of the adults involved. I probably really don’t need or want to “understand” the abusive mind anyway.
I do think that people are...human. That involves a wide range of thought processes and behaviors. Everyone makes mistakes. I’m not making excuses for abusive behavior, but nearly every child has experienced at least a few abusive events in their lives. As parents, we need to keep our weaknesses in mind, repent when we fall short, and strive to do the best we can.
I really don’t know what’s going on in this fLDS cult. I do know the state’s power to seize children is a terrible but sometimes necessary thing. I can see there are no easy solutions here, but the burden of proof lies on government and rightly so. I hope the truth comes out and justice is served.
Most likely, but since it was deleted, even I have no idea exactly what I wrote. It was rather difficult to explain to JimRob about something that none of us could read.
Lesson learned...
And if they are not legally married and under 17, then the fathers of their babies are committing statutory rape.
The FLDS men have got themselves between a rock and a hard spot by spiritually marrying girls under 17. If they are not legally married to them, it’s statutory rape (parents can only give consent to a legal marriage, not a spiritual one). And if they legally marry them and have other legal, undissolved marriages, then they have broken the bigamy laws.
They could have exercised their belief in plural spiritual marriage AND obeyed the age of consent laws, but they chose not to.
Religious freedom does not give you the right to disobey the laws you don’t like or agree with. Warren Jeffs is a false prophet.
God does not contradict himself, ever. Revelations that contradict the Word of God are false.
I don’t know if this helps, but all an abused kid wants is to be believed and have their story heard. Especially if up until that point, all the adults around them have failed them. Then you go from being a nothing without worth to a whole human.
Except of course, to protect the child - if one cares about such things.
The protection these children need is protection from people who think they need protection.
Na,
more like freeing slaves.
Funny how archives can be used.
To this day, I still have Registered's sign in my garage, and it was featured by our local TV station in 2000.
That is why archives are so important.
Heck, Utah Rep Chris Cannon was on O'Reilly a couple of weeks ago basically saying just that. It was despicable.
I had heard that the state was doing all possible to keep siblings together and to keep the teen mothers and their babies together.
No it isn't. The government is responding belatedly to allegations by numerous people who claim they have been wronged, that children have been and are being hurt, and these people are crying out for justice.
Your position that the children should not be protected and the sexual abuse of children investigated is directed against each of these individuals as much as it is against the government.
You can not separate the two - either in reality or on this forum. You can henceforth expect to be called upon that each time you attempt to do so.
The worst allegations come from former members of the cult themselves. It’s not the government’s allegations about what went on; it’s former wive’s and nephew’s, kicked out men and boys.
The government isn’t making up the charges, it’s investigating what’s been reported to it, as it should. If the people can’t go to the government for help and protection against wrongdoing, what’s left?
We expect our government to protect us from foreign enemies and terrorists and praise them when they do. Why can’t and shouldn’t they be expected to protect us from domestic enemies and terrorists? Must we let the enemy within destroy us as the enemy without can’t do?
Another fun fact...Loretta Lynn’s husband didn’t claim multiple wives. He was only married to her at the time, and they raised their own children instead of making them children of multiple parents of the cult.
Buh-Bye.
“The worst allegations come from former members of the cult themselves. It’s not the government’s allegations about what went on; it’s former wive’s and nephew’s, kicked out men and boys.”
While some of what they say may be true, spurned people are not the greatest of witnesses. Holding grudges for being kicked out or forced to leave is a mighty powerful reason to want harm done to those who did it. I’m not saying that what they say is false, but it bears a lot of looking into before reactions are made.
“The government isn’t making up the charges, it’s investigating what’s been reported to it, as it should. If the people can’t go to the government for help and protection against wrongdoing, what’s left?”
If the government had enough evidence to begin with, then why go in on what is now a phony call from someone in Colorado? I’ve heard that the Sheriff knew beforehand that the man in question was not in Texas and hadn’t been for a number of years. Yet they still went in with a warrant that was patently false looking for a man who was not there and a girl who was a ficticious person. Again, not the steadiest of grounds to be standing upon.
Removing children from monogamous parents? “Deciding” that a girl was under 18 and making her child a ward of the state? Government power run amok. And it’s only going to get worse.
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