Posted on 04/06/2008 5:27:22 AM PDT by SkyPilot
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.
“Things have been a little tense, a little volatile,” she said.
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.”
Maybe; but my bet is that if she REALLY knew the answer, she would try to answer it to the best of her ability.
YOU may not be; but I sure am!
Maybe it's like the two AND SO FORTH's that are found in the LDS creed.
With facts, writingas and sdaying of your Founder and leaders.
BTW, just what IS so UNTRUE about PRESBYTERIANISM???
I (and ANY thinking person) would call an ACCUSATION without SUBSTANCIATION a slam.
What do YOU think?
When can we send over a couple of our HIGHLY TRAINED missionaries to straighten you out on Bible reading?
--MormonDude(At your convience; of course)
dominion is when someone tries to rule over an area that is much greater than the state of UTAH!
Hold down the fort today Resty; the rest of us will be back to take your place tomorrow!
--MormonDude(She's capable of befuddling them Gentiles on her own...)
We won't!
Am I COERCING you by continually trying to get you to SHARE with us the UNTRUTHS of PRESBYTERIANISM??
How did you teach your cat how to 'translate' like Joseph Smith!!
That's WAY cool!
But you guys do NOT 'welcome investigation'!!!
YOU, and the rest of your Mormon buddies, are IGNORING the question - the INVESTIGATING question of "What was UNTRUE about PRESBYTERIANISM"!!
Jasher and 1 Enoch are part of Pseudographa. Depending which version of Jasher is being cited, it has a 800 - mediaeval origin. The common edition out there is edited by Jacob Ilive, and is considered to be a forgery. 1 Enoch is older, but was redacted late from five to six different components, writing for oldest late 200BC to youngest late first century AD to second century. Meaningful discussions can be found here:
http://www.irr.org/mit/lostbooks.html
http://answers.org/bible/jasher-book-of.html
But Resty: you have failed to turn it IN!!!
You need to do makeup work.
Re-submit your paper that described "What Joseph Smith found UNTRUE about PRESBYTERIANISM" for a grade.
Failure to do so will force you to repeat the semester.
My opinion is that you CANNOT answer the question.
I don’t get no kudos!
WHY do you HATE me?
writings and sayings...
False religions make much of using the OT and or NT, but they twist them into unrecognizable forms to confound and confuse the simple minded -or the willing to be misled ones- but they are shown to be false when the books mentioned are brought into the light, for comparison to the OT and NT; for they preceded all and leave no room for falsifying either the OT or the NT.
First, neither book was accepted into the canon. False religions also make much of extra-canonical documents and elevate them to an equal status as the Bible. 1 Enoch is by at least 5- 6 different authors, 'extant' Jasher a forgery. Therefore these writings do not bring anything to light. There is no need to supplement the scriptures with these because all false doctrines can be refuted easily with the scripture we already have in the bible.
For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad. Mark 4:22
Thanks for the ping, greyfoxx. I have been astounded to see the level at which polygamy has been defended since this story broke last week. What has happened in Eldorado, TX is evil, vile, disgusting, and perverted, and IMO, there is NO defense for it.
I don’t want to appear to “unrighteously dominate” (whatever THAT means); however, I DO have “righteous anger” when I see quotes from “another testament of Jesus Christ” as well as other non-Biblical sources, claiming to be additional revelation from God Himself. Someone said (WAY up-thread) that what we (Christians) have is not true, we are limited in what we have and are able to do for salvation. That is so wrong. What we HAVE is the TRUE and COMPLETE Word of God. It is NOT limited.
It’s sad to see such incredible blindness to the truth of God’s Word. I am reminded of 2 Cor. 4:1-6.
“Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
I pray God’s light will shine through the darkness.
“His” gospel?! It’s straight out of the Bible.
Don’t tell me the Mormons don’t use that. They sure whip it out fast enough when they come to my door.
Salvation through faith alone is the best news possible. It means that I can’t screw it up if it were left up to me to manage it, like I would about be guaranteed to do on my own.
This is why I thought to bring up the point to Jeru. They are entertaining and I tend to think they contain bits of truth, but they cannot be trusted as a whole. To do so would lead to the same trap Mormons fall into.
For example, if we believe that the Nephilim arose from divine mated (physically) with human, why not Jesus? (As Mormons blasphemously claim.)
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