BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: Authorities enter Eldorado-area temple (Fundamentalist LDS cult)

Local and state officials entered the temple of a secretive polygamist sect late Saturday, said lawmen blockading the road to the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado.

The action comes hours after local prosecutors said officials were preparing for the worst because a group of FLDS members were resisting efforts to search the structure.

The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and Schleicher County sheriff’s deputy confirmed that officials have entered the temple but said they had no word on whether anything occurred in the effort.

The incursion into the temple caps the three-day saga of the state’s Child Protective Services agency removing at least 183 women and children from the YFZ Ranch since Friday afternoon. Eighteen girls have been placed in state custody since a 16-year-old told authorities she was married to a 50-year-old man and had given birth to his child.

Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered as part of the investigation inside the compound.

“In preparing for entry to the temple, law enforcement is preparing for the worst,” Palmer said Saturday evening. They want to have “medical personnel on hand in case this were to go in a way that no one wants.”

Apparently as a result of action Saturday night at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded another group of at least a dozen more women and children from the compound.

Although members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, have provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff’s deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said.

“There may be those who would oppose (entry) by placing themselves between law enforcement and the place of worship,” Palmer said Saturday afternoon. “If an agreement cannot be reached … law enforcement will have to — as gently and peaceably as possible — make entry into that place.”

Sect members consider the temple, dedicated by then-leader of the sect Warren Jeffs in January 2005 and finished many months later, off-limits to those who are not FLDS members, said Palmer, who prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County.

Palmer said she didn’t know the size or makeup of the group inside the temple.

The earlier refusal to provide access was even more disconcerting because CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens removed from the compound, Palmer said.

“Anytime someone says, ‘Don’t look here,’” she said, “it makes you concerned that’s exactly where you need to look.”

The girl told authorities in two separate phone calls a day apart that she was married to a 50-year-old man, Dale Barlow, who had fathered her child, Palmer said.

The joint raid included the Texas Rangers, CPS, Schleicher County and Tom Green County sheriff’s deputies and game wardens from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.

Although CPS and Department of Public Safety officials have described the compound’s residents as cooperative, Palmer disagreed.

Authorities removed 52 children Friday afternoon and 131 women and children overnight Friday. About 40 of the children are boys, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

No further children have been taken into state custody since Friday, when 18 girls were judged to have been abused or be at imminent risk for abuse. CPS has found foster homes for the girls, Meisner said, and will place them after concluding its investigation.

Meisner declined to comment on the fate of the 119 other children and said authorities were still searching the ranch for others Saturday evening.

“They’re in the process of looking,” she said. “They’re literally about halfway through.”

I Said: so Abraham was polygamous, God specifically approved of him and blessed him for his righteousness while he was polygamous, thus polygamy is not a sin or God could not have done that.
U Said: That is a complete distortion of the episode.
That is your opinion, not a fact.

Still haven’t gotten that context thing right yet huh DU. God specifically blessed Abraham before the whole hagar incident. And no where in the bible will you see hagar referred to as Abraham’s wife.

U Said: Clearly God did not approve of the relationship between Abram and Hagar.
Clearly you believe that, however, The scriptures disagree with you.

Show me the scripture from the bible where God recognizes hagar as Abraham’s wife.

(The story of Abraham's youth is in the Book of Abraham and in the Dead sea scrolls BTW)

LOL, DU pulls out his fraudulently translated piece of papyri, containing a pagan prayer for a priest named Hor and pronounces it describes Abraham’s youth, as well as psudographic (do you know the definition DU) work telling fictional accounts as well.

If you think God did not approve of Abraham's marriage to Hagar, then you don't understand Abraham, or the passage in the scriptures.

For emphasis – show me where God refers to hagar as Abraham’s wife in the bible.

Jesus never made polygamy a sin, so it's OK for an unmarried man to look upon a woman with lust? Wake up and smell what you are shoveling here.

The clearest verse comes from Jesus in His teaching on divorce:

Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery." (NIV Matt 19.8-9, pp. Mark 10.1-12)

The key thing to note here is that this argument fails if polygamy is acceptable! Jesus' point is that improper divorce does not nullify a marriage, and if the first marriage still stands, then a "second" marriage is adultery--and NOT simply polygamy! This is very clear. Jesus also eliminated the double standard; a man consorting with two women is as adulterous as a woman consorting with two men. (http://www.christian-thinktank.com/polygame.html). I guess joey agreed that it was ONE and not at least one.

It all goes back to that little context thing I was trying to teach you about in an earlier post. Unless you have recently cut the nose off your face, it is pretty clear here.

I've looked and all the scriptures I can find or have even been quoted here, do not make polygamy a sin, but Divorce (which seems to be accepted here on FR) a sin.

See previous above, had to do your home work for you again.

U Said: The New Testament makes it clear that polygamy is not to be tolerated in the Church and no man who was married to more than one woman was allowed to hold any official office in the church.
The at least one interpreted as one, go look it up, it's a famous disagreement And it's been happening outside of the "preferences" sphere for a long time.

Well, you’ve only had one day to correct your concordance errors.

So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man. (Rom 7) Notice that a polyandrous relationship would also be adultery.

Those in Church government/leadership are to be monogamous (the 'husband of one wife' clause shows up in both statements of elder/deacon qualifications: 1 Tim 3.2 and Titus 1.6). Oh, and to clarify the little weasel wording – as far as correctly translated – goes, in the JST, 1 Tim 3:2 reads: 2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach; ( http://www.centerplace.org/hs/iv/iv-1ti.htm)

Or Tertullian

Yours is unreferenced, and out of context most likely. Try this:

Tertullian (c.207) was also explicit:
"Chapter II.-Marriage Lawful, But Not Polygamy. We do not indeed forbid the union of man and woman, blest by God as the seminary of the human race, and devised for the replenishment of the earth and the furnishing of the world, and therefore permitted, yet Singly. For Adam was the one husband of Eve, and Eve his one wife, one woman, one rib. (ANF: Tertullian, To His Wife)

OR Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr (c.160) rebukes the Jews for allowing polygamy:
"Your imprudent and blind masters [i.e., Jewish teachers] even until this time permit each man to have four or five wives. And if anyone sees a beautiful woman and desires to have her, they quote the doings of Jacob." [ANF, vol. 1, p. 266]

The principle of polygamy (discussed above)--like the statements of principle about divorce-- indicate the behavioral norm that we are to follow. The exceptions in history to those overarching statements of principle and life are just that--exceptions, called forth by either extreme situations or called forth by our own moral weakness (e.g. hardness of heart). Or in joey’s case, his inability to hear god correctly confusing the god edict condemning polygamy (D&C – 1935) with god edict – enforced by an angel w/ sword – to be polygamous. Can’t your committee of gods get their story straight?

And no where in the bible will you see hagar referred to as Abraham’s wife.

I don't think you can make that argument stick:

Gen 16:3

(ASV) And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife.

(CEV) and Sarai gave him Hagar to be his wife. This happened after Abram had lived in the land of Canaan for ten years.

(Darby) And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar, the Egyptian, her maidservant, at the end of ten years that Abram had dwelt in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram, as his wife.

(ESV) So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife.

(GB) Then Sarai Abrams wife tooke Hagar her maide the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelled ten yeere in the land of Canaan, and gaue her to her husband Abram for his wife.

(JPS) And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife.

(KJV) And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

(KJV+) And Sarai⁸²⁹⁷ Abram's⁸⁷ wife⁸⁰² took³⁹⁴⁷ ⁽⁸⁵³⁾ Hagar¹⁹⁰⁴ her maid⁸¹⁹⁸ the Egyptian,⁴⁷¹³ after^{4480, 7093} Abram⁸⁷ had dwelt³⁴²⁷ ten⁶²³⁵ years⁸¹⁴¹ in the land⁷⁷⁶ of Canaan,³⁶⁶⁷ and gave⁵⁴¹⁴ her to her husband³⁷⁶ Abram⁸⁷ to be his wife.⁸⁰²

(LITV) And Sarai, Abram's wife, took her slave-girl, Hagar, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan.

(MKJV) And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar her slave woman, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife (after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan).

(MSG) So Sarai, Abram's wife, took her Egyptian maid Hagar and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. Abram had been living ten years in Canaan when this took place.

(RSV) So, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, Sar'ai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife.

(WEB) Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife.

(Webster) And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

(YLT) And Sarai, Abram's wife, taketh Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, at the end of the tenth year of Abram's dwelling in the land of Canaan, and giveth her to Abram her husband, to him for a wife,

Carry on

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