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.”
Was Jesus not a descendant of David and Solomon?
Sorry I should have rephrased that
Do you strive to be morally clean?
meaning there is clean and there is clean
To some they keep abide by the commandments to always be faithful and no sex before marraige this is the walk for a Chirstian which many did strive to do in my day.
Than there are those who feel you can listen to raunchy jokes etc along as you did not do those things.
Also man is plagued with unwanted thoughts which if one is reading their criptures are able to push away those thoughts.
So there are degrees of which one is will to abide by it all depends on the desire or if one believes they can uphold?
Now that I think of it, what we are seeing is the difference between those who believe in just the “Letter of the law”, and those who believe in the “Spirit of the law”.
Some think that just because a certain act is not expressly forbidden, it must be ok. Others, myself and I think probably you too, believe that there are SOME things that are sins that are not necessarily spelled out.
A big difference between the two is that when we look at the spirit of the law, we are on safe ground, because by default we will also be following the letter of the law and then some. It is called “erring on the side of caution”. If we are wrong, we are still safe.
The Letter of the law types do not think so. Those types look for loopholes, thinking that since it is not expressly forbidden, it is ok to go ahead and do it. Unfortunately, if THEY are wrong, they will burn even if they followed the technical letter of the law. I do not think God is too fond of “religous lawyers” who seek loopholes to get around what he intends for us to do.
But I guess I could be mistaken.
Petronski also made a remark earlier in the thread distancing the fLDS from the LDS. While the affiliations are distinct, I think the fLDS might have a better case for Mormon orthodoxy in some regards than the LDS church. Why? Because Doctrine & Covenants 132 is framed as an "eternal covenant." If this was indeed the Word of God (which I don't believe it is), but if it was, then we could take a look at which Mormon body's practices are closest to this orthodox Mormon god's teaching.
And the answer to that is the fLDS are closer to Mormon orthodoxy in a vital tenant of how people supposedly become gods. Polygamy was revered as a revelation from Smith from 1843 on; was commanded by Brigham Young & his ensuing "prophets" from 1852 on; D&C was "sidelined" but never recanted by LDS "prophets." (D&C 132, which describes plural marriage as an eternal covenant, resides as LDS "Scripture" to this very day).
” And just because some people of their faith once practiced polygamy, just like some folks in the good old “Biblical” days did, “
They stopped doing it 13 years before Bob Hope was born.
Mormons claim that God told them to stop polygamy 13 years before Bob Hope was born, that is good that he did that.
Do you ever read you sciptures smart mouth?
No, not the fake Mormon ones.
Why?
You tend to forget a letter here and there, by the way.
Are you a native English speaker?
I strive to do the will of the Lord. However, I am imperfect, and shall sin... sometimes not even being aware that I am doing it. I am incapable of living free of sin, and this is the reason why I need the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are not “degrees” of sin. Sin is sin. There is no going to hell just a little ways because you did not sin so much as someone else. No matter how much we try to live righteously, we are sinners.
That being said, there may be some people who commit worse acts than I, but who are more worthy of forgiveness than I (or you), because only He understands the baggage that person bears. If I kill someone, and someone else kills someone... are we equal? We are both equal in that we are both sinners, but who is most WORTHY of mercy? If we both kill, but I did it for no reason other than selfish motives, like greed, then perhaps I am more damned than someone else who does the same, but does it for a different reason.. such as brain injuries which limit their thinking ability.
My belief in a Just God tells me that this must be true. So, while I myself must strive, to the BEST of my ability, others who do not do so well in following the law may yet be more deserving of a measure of mercy.
Because of the fact that only God can know the full measure of a soul, can balance the things we do with the burdens we bear... only HE can judge... not I.. and not YOU.
I said your scriptures!
why are you always being so hostile?
Reasons.
Prove.
I ask the question to see how you felt about this.
Many just feel it is impossible so why bother.
Yet it is a commandment not a suggestion the Lord gave us.
Do you really think he would give us commandments if we could not keep them?
If you could improve your ability in striving to keeping the commandments would that be of interest to you?
As long.
You have to realize that in a polygamist marriage they DO NOT go to the county clerk to make out application. These people do not recognize civil marriage, they think theirs in a heavenly marriage.
So I am dyslexic so what
You think you have to stoop to conquor sunny boy?
You really do need to read the scriptures so you can grow up!:)
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