Posted on 05/06/2008 5:16:55 AM PDT by MrEdd
Census sheets found in a safe at a polygamous sect's ranch in west Texas both support and contradict the state's claim of a widespread culture of underage marriage.
Texas authorities used the sheets to convince a judge that there was a "pervasive pattern" among the FLDS of marrying underage girls to older men.
A review of the "Father's Family Information" sheets shows a handful of 16-year-old wives, 13 young monogamous couples and 24 men with multiple wives - including one man with 21 wives and 36 children.
A Texas Ranger testified about the census sheets during an April 17-18 court hearing before 51st District Judge Barbara Walther, who accepted the records as evidence despite objections from attorneys representing FLDS parents and children. The pages were recently released by the court. Sgt. Danny Crawford said the sheets were found April 5 in an office at the ranch, home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Texas authorities raided the ranch on April 3 after receiving reports of an abused 16-year-old, calls now being investigated as a possible hoax.
Authorities have said, however, they found evidence of a polygamous lifestyle and underage marriage practices at the ranch that supported removing 464 children.
The bishop's record sheets helped them make that case.
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
The State has a minimum age of consent, in order to protect minors from sexual predators.
The State has also defined marriage as between one man, one woman. We passed a Constitutional amendment by over 70% in 2005 to protect long-standing law from judicial fiat.
There is at least one 14 year old girl who was removed from the cult compound and who is currently pregnant and in a shelter. Other minors have one or more children. On the day that they were removed, several girls - interviewed with permission of the cult leaders - independently told the same story about arranged marriages, polygamy, and under age sexual assault.
The hearings for the individual children begin in a little over a week, I believe. As the parentage is sorted out in spite of the lies on the day the children were removed from the cult compound, and since, about names, ages, and family relationships, you should have your arrests.
If the “marriages” are legal and there is no child sexual assault, there was no need for the deceit about names, ages, and parentage. Instead, the adults lied. They are the ones responsible for creating this mess.
1. You’re basing your fears on a whiney drunkard with DUIs.
Someone has to protect his wife and child from him.
2. If the adults lied, they did so because they had much to fear from a tyrannical state gone mad.
3. You’re taking the CPS workers word they lied. How would the CPS worker know they lied unless the CPS worker already knew the facts? In that case, what was the need to ask?
yes, you are exactly right. CPS was so limited by the department higher ups by what they couldn’t do for MY four precious children (fully biological siblings) that they removed them 3x and sent them BACK to the worst case of neglect by birthparents that county had ever seen. Each time it got worse — birthparents forcing the children to lie to social workers — birthdad sex offender raped little girls more each time they were sent back — house got filthier, and children got hungrier — because the parents were infuriated that the “government” was messing in their business.
And all the while my four precious little ones watched the domestic violence worsen, were left alone more often, were beaten with belts more frequently, and lost hope that anyone would ever rescue them again. Finally — it got bad enough that the children were removed, along with 7 animals, because it wasn’t fit for animals OR children to live in that disgusting house. They ultimately lost their parental rights, and I have since adopted all four, keeping them together. (We homeschool too! They think they’ve died and gone to heaven, because of how much food we have to eat.)
It happens this way in our story more than what most people realize. I hope these children in Texas aren’t being too traumatized by what is going on, but the state had to do SOMETHING.
How much do you receive as a proxy parent?
You’re asking me about how much $$$ I get for adopting the children? Are you kidding me?
As soon as you tell me what method of birth control you use with your spouse, and what sexual positions you engage in with them, then I will be happy to disclose to you my private financial situation.
Oh, and you can also produce a copy of your last six pay stubs.
Those who read these threads know that the adults lied and somehow led the children to lie because the same women and children gave different names, ages and relationships at the cult compound, then on the bus, then at the shelters.
I know that they lied because of the complaints about the doctors, when the TMA helped arrange for women doctors - and it turned out that San Angelo docs stepped up to take care of the women and children.
We know that there is a 14 year old that is pregnant and that the majority of the under-18 girls have been or are pregnant.
Why is it okay to prevent the “whiney drunkard” from knowing where his family is? Someone needed to protect these girls at least as much as his wife and child.
Why such vehemence in defense of a nest of pedophiles and polygamists?
and you think I’m a “proxy parent”????
You are a sad little man, my friend. Only a pathetic LITTLE man would ask that kind of question.
Do you always go on message boards to insult people for adopting children? Wow! FreeRepublic has REALLY gone down the drain for sure!
Jim Robinson would be so proud of you.
Thanks for admitting you get paid as a proxy parent.
“Why such vehemence in defense of a nest of pedophiles and polygamists?”
1.The mothers and children are not pedophiles.
2.The basis of your fears regarding their future are unfounded. Since you have nothing more than some drunkard’s alcoholic psychosis to believe they might disappear if they return home.
Who are you? And what is your problem?
You’re WAY out of your league here, my friend. Move along.
Well...
1). My pediatrician has seen us with them since they were one day old or younger.
2). My doctor delivered them & made there foot prints.
3). Pictures dating back more than 2 decades in some cases.
4). Birth certificates, which I signed the days they were born.
5). All of our family members on both sides, all of which are upstanding members of society and none of which have been accused of also abusing underage girls or boys would attest to our being parents.
6). Neighbors who are similarly unaffected by felony abuse accusations would be able to tell you that they are ours.
7). Medical records, insurance records, school records, financial records, college records, library cards, birthday cards, book inscriptions, etc.
8). We don't try to hide our identities from the authorities to be able to engage in the abuse of underage children. Like, for example, the leader of the FLDS, Warren Jeffs did, prior to being convicted of felony crimes against children.
Do you have to turn your kids over to CPS for a few weeks while they run a DNA test?
So I? No. But I don't abuse children. If a person plans to live their life like the FLDS members tried to, it might not be a bad idea.
Should we all get pre-emptive DNA tests, through a 3rd-party independent source that the CPS trusts, so that if our neighbors don’t like where we park our car and decide to get us by reporting us as child abusers, we don’t have to lose our kids because we can’t prove they are ours?
The FLDS isn't being investigated for not parking cars correctly. They are being investigated for statutory rape. See the difference?
And why is it that we think that stamped documents from Utah are forged or suspect, but papers taken from some safe under FLDS control are trustworthy?
Because FLDS members, like.. the Leader of their church, for example, are known to have carried fake ID to attempt to elude law enforcement officers.
See: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,210959,00.html
John E. Lewis, special agent in charge of the FBI Phoenix division, said the trooper became suspicious when Jeffs identified himself as John Findley using a contact lens receipt from Florida as identification.
Hope this helps answer a few questions.
God bless you for being there for those children.
susie
Sacred to a bunch of pedophiles maybe.
...untimely ripped from the Sacred FLDS Tabernacle!
The sacred FLDS Shag-O-Drome for drooling old pervs.
Yeah, I'm outraged.
Your neighbor won’t report you for parking your car. He’s going to say he saw you abusing your children. So you will not be being investigated for parking your car wrong, you will be being investigated for whatever abuse your neighbor claimed you committed.
And of course, you did not. And you will say you did not.
The neighbor will have reported anonymously through a tip line, and the CPS will take your kids “because you can’t take chances, we have to get to the bottom of this”. They will only keep your child because “it’s the only way to ensure the child feels free to talk about the abuse”, and they will use questioning which is designed to “draw out any possible abuse your child has experienced”.
And you will have a hearing in 2 weeks, and at least you will get to personally testify at the hearing unlike in this case. But the question was, when you go to that hearing, how will you prove you are the parents, if the judge decides that your marriage license and birth certificate for the child is not sufficient proof.
Too many people think the truth is a defense against having your children removed by the CPS.
So when they hear of a case like this, they think “I never abuse my children, so I have nothing to fear”. And they look at the people being accused, and say “People who abuse kids should lose their kids”.
And when the CPS comes and takes your child away (not a personal “you” here), YOU will be the one that people say “I have no fear, because I don’t abuse kids. People who abuse kids like that SHOULD get them taken away”.
In this case, I will not be surprised at all if there is at least one family who, other than being a member of the FLDS compound, meets none of the criteria you mentioned as being a reason to be treated badly.
They will be a family who has other family members who know the kid and haven’t been convicted of abusing kids. They will have pictures of the kids. They will have signed birth certificates. They will have the report of the on-site doctor. They will have given their names and the names of the children.
As I said, because they live in the FLDS compound they won’t have neighbors unaffected by the accusations. But that’s just an argument for guilt by association,and the government judging people based on the company they keep.
Obviously, we aren’t talking about proving kids who went through college, we are talking about the 2-12 year-olds.
The fact is that the CPS has a policy which leads to taking non-abused children away. They do so because they THINK there is a chance of abuse, and want to take no chances. And because of the world view of many CPS workers, they tend to think abuse is rampant in the families of very religious people, and home-schoolers, and others who don’t live “normal” lives.
In this case, there was most certainly abuse, and very likely both forced and statutory rape, although I add that I have not seen proof yet of this so it’s just my opinion.
But I also think that there will be some who will be blameless, other than to have lived in the compound and professed a membership in the FLDS church.
Some of the mothers are enablers of pedophiles. Some of the children are victims.
Since there was so much deceit about the names, ages and family relationships, it was impossible to tell which were which at the time the children were removed from the cult compound. The DNA and Attorney General Abbott will help the court sort it out, since the adults from the cult didn’t seem willing.
The “bishop’s record” notes that some women and children are in a “house of hiding.” http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695275970,00.html
“”The March 2007 papers list the names of men, their wives, their children and the ages of each of them. A handful of young women, ages 16 and 17, are listed as wives of men in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Others are married to men closer in age. Some women, the records show, live in a “house of hiding.””
Sigh.
And this happens all the time, right?
See, the problem is, it doesn’t.
CPS doesn’t routinely take children with no evidence.
In this case, there is evidence (pregnant girls, missing teen boys). Hard to fake abused and pregnant underage girls, don’t you think?
Does CPS ever make a mistake? I’m sure they do. They are human, after all.
Are they gunning for the children of America, to take them away from their lawful parents? There is no evidence that they are. You have presented absolutely no evidence that they are, because there is none.
“What if” scenarios that don’t happen in real life weaken your case, not strengthen it. In real life, there is a penalty for false reporting. In real life, they don’t take children without some credible evidence. In real life, you can’t point to many if any cases where there was absolutely no evidence and CPS swooped in to take children.
Just how are YOU keeping me honest, my small little friend? You think you are the God and judge of everyone?
You think because the system has made a way for people like me who sacrifice their entire lives to provide a loving, stable home for abused and neglected children, that it diminishes the value of my contribution? How many children have YOU rescued? And how is what I have done for these amazing human beings any less valuable because of whether or not I get a financial stipend for caring for their special needs, when no one else stepped up to help at ALL?
My life is rich and full because of them, and I know my life matters in a significant way because of what I am honored to provide for them in raising them, and helping them heal from the atrocities they have endured.
I urge other FreeRepublic members to respond to “takenoprisoner” in the disrespectful way he is speaking to me about adopting four siblings out of foster care. Although he has the right to speak his mind, we have the right not to listen to what he has to say.
Back off.
Forgotten tag! /sarc/
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