Regarding number 8 and 11: You haven’t learned much in the last few weeks, despite all the posts on the FLDS topics.
1. In Texas, it is legal to marry at 16 with parental consent, not 15. However, parents may not give consent for fornication, sexual assault by someone more than 3 years older than their child, or any other sort of sex outside of marriage.
2. The children were removed from the compound based on a warrant issued by a judge due to the statements given voluntarily to CPS workers and Texas Rangers.
3. Part of the reason that we changed our laws of consent in Texas in 2005 was to clarify prosecution and enforce our parental notification (now consent with a notarized affadavit) laws. There was, yes, an uproar among the parties that do not want any limits on teen sex, but we prevailed.
Thank you so much for enlightening me on the laws of the Great State of TX and how the Great State of TX was justified in going into the ranch to rescue all the children and adult women, rounding them up at gunpoint.
I also was thinking about the age of consent to marry with parental permission in the state of Texas. All the girls on the roster shown on 48 Hours were sixteen, and undoubtedly had at least one parent’s consent to marry.
But then I remembered—none of these are legal marriages. The husband in such a case is only protected from prosecution for having sex with a minor if he enters into a legal marriage with her. In the case of FLDS they are in a catch 22—they can’t legally marry because it is illegal if one spouse is already legally married, but they must legally marry in order to have sex between a minor and an adult.
They are hoisted on their own petard.