Texas used seized FLDS records against polygamous sect

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.

Regarding your #315 and that “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.”

The key is “being a member of the FLDS compound.”

For your imaginary family, it’s a doggone shame that they kept their children in that nest of pedophilia, surrounded by the men and women who taught *their* children to lie about their names, ages and family relationships, where they appear to be part of the same household.

Also, your scenario is more simplistic that reality. CPS went to the home to interview “Sarah.” The leaders of the cult denied that there was anyone named Sarah and offered to let the social workers interview other young girls. Those young girls said that there were several Sarah’s and that one had disappeared. They also confirmed that there was active sexual abuse going on.

Then, and only then, were the children removed from the cult compound.

I’m still waiting for the State to confirm that they either found “Sarah”, or that she did not exist. Until then, we can’t say that the cult members lied about Sarah not existing.

I’m also waiting for final confirmation that the calls from “Sarah” were a hoax from that woman, what was her name, swinton? Or conversely a final report that says they no longer suspect her.

Most on the state side on this have decided that location in the “compound” is sufficient to allow the state to treat everybody in that compound as if they were all involved, until they can prove they were not.

I also presume that most would NOT hold to the same standard if there were several families in a church, along with the pastor and leaders, who were abusing kids.

Nor would they hold the same standard if in a neighborhood, the head of the HOA, along with four of five families on one street, were found to be abusing kids.

In other words, in those two cases, one a religious tie, one a location tie, most here wouldn’t support CPS seizing children from families who were not directly suspected.

The wild card is that nobody in that church could NOT know the FLDS practiced Polygamy. But that raises another issue — is it Child Abuse if you attend a church, and make children attend a church, where something is taught that violates the law? Does religious freedom allow people to BELIEVE in things that they are not legally allowed to do?

Well, suppose we were talking about a Jewish-like faith, where the members believe in sacrificing animals. But knowing it to be illegal, they don’t practice it. But then it turns out that the leader and half the members ARE practicing it. Is that enough to make the other families suspect? Can you be punished for a belief, if you do not practice it?

You can answer yes or no, I’m just raising the issue. I’m not going to argue with someone who has a different opinion. I don’t feel like it. I would appreciate if people would acknowledge that I have FRAMED a VALID AREA OF DISCUSSION, but I’ve given up on that as well, it appears some things just can’t be discussed in a conservative forum.

I had hoped we wouldn’t ever get to say that. That’s what I think about liberal forums. I expect better out of Conservatives.

I understand it. And I’ve been down the road. I’ll point out that I’m talking about families who had nothing do with what you said, and you’ll come back with some other issue, and I’ll answer that and then you’ll say something else and eventually we’ll be back to how they had to raid the compound because of Sarah.

I’m not discussing the specifics of this anymore, because nobody wants to, they want to score points. Thus, my comment which said I was waiting for the actual facts to come out, rather than arguing the point.

Eventually there will be actual facts regarding the allegations you raised.

You are the one making up hypothetical families.

The facts are that the children were not removed from the cult compound because of Sarah. The investigation began that way.

However, the evidence that led to the removal of the children came from the children’s own stories about - and the frank evidence of - sexual abuse: underage girls who were pregnant or had been pregnant.

If you want to get hypothetical: What do you imagine would have happened if the adult men and women had been honest about names, ages, and relationships?

There are families who make the claims as I stated. They are not hypothetical.

You are the one who brought up Sarah. I was just noting that we hadn’t found out who she was yet.

You claimed that Sarah proved the men lied, but I was noting that so far as we know, the men were correct that there was no Sarah meeting the description they gave.

But I note we don’t have all the facts yet.

So in fact my reference to Sarah was in direct response to your inaccurate claim that “Sarah” showed the men were lying.

As I never said the kids were taken because of Sarah, your insistance on repeating that piece of information is a canard, and non-germaine to our conversation. Try refuting something I actually said.

No, what I said was that the women and children lied about their names, ages and family relationships - or at least changed the answers they gave at the compound, on the bus, and at the shelters.

What I said about the men was:

CPS went to the home to interview “Sarah.” The leaders of the cult denied that there was anyone named Sarah and offered to let the social workers interview other young girls. Those young girls said that there were several Sarah’s and that one had disappeared. They also confirmed that there was active sexual abuse going on.

We don't know yet whether the leaders or the girls lied about the existence of a Sarah.

We do know that there's a 14 year old pregnant girl, that there's at least one under 18 year old girl who denied being a mother until they started to separate her from her baby, that other girls were originally classified as adults and later as minors and that a majority of the under-age girls are mothers.

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