Posted on 04/21/2008 6:19:21 PM PDT by greyfoxx39
SAN ANGELO, Texas — A judge wants attorneys representing FLDS mothers and children to ask local LDS congregations if they would be willing to "provide a buffer" for FLDS members who wish to pray in groups at a temporary shelter. Judge Barbara Walther made the decision late Monday afternoon at a hearing to address three issues brought by attorneys representing mothers of children who remain in a state shelter. A total of 416 children were removed from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch earlier this month as part of a child-abuse investigation.
The group of mothers filed court papers earlier Monday demanding their rights to pray in private without having a Texas Department of Family and Protective Services worker overseeing them. They also filed a motion asking the judge to allow them to stay with their nursing children and asked for access to telephones to communicate with their attorneys.
Addressing the concerns about prayer, Walther said she was aware of a community of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in San Angelo. While acknowledging LDS Church members are not from the same group, she asked attorneys to see if the LDS faith would be willing to monitor the prayer services of the women and children who remain in the shelter.
"How would I stop someone from practicing their faith?" the judge asked. She acknowledged concerns from Texas child welfare authorities about improper communications between mothers and children that could occur in such private prayer times and have an affect on the pending investigations.
"If they cross the line or coach the child or make any kind of comment on litigation, all bets are off," Walther said.
The president of the LDS Abilene Texas Stake, which oversees San Angelo, was surprised by the judge's request.
"They think we're the same ones because we use the Book of Mormon," said Charles L. Webb. "I'm dumbfounded they would suggest that."
Webb plans to contact church headquarters in Salt Lake City for guidance.
The judge did say if that fails, she would look at other options.
Regarding breast-feeding, the judge said attorneys ad litem should be working with Texas child protective services workers in mediation to solve that problem, declining to consider the motion to order that nursing mothers remain in the shelter with their children.
Last week, mothers of children over 4 years old were separated from their children and sent back to their homes. Texas child welfare officials have said the mothers that remain with their young children in the temporary shelters will eventually be separated as foster families and foster homes are located.
On the issue of the FLDS women and children being allowed contact with attorneys, the judge ordered eight phone lines to be set up — six for the children and two for the mothers — with 24-hour access to their attorneys.
Lawyers for Department of Family and Protective Services said they had already set up the phone lines earlier Monday.
At the end of the hearing, an attorney asked the judge to consider her motion to stop the separation of mothers from their children. The judge said she hadn't seen the motion, noting that she had a large stack of motions to go over.
When the attorney pressed her to consider it immediately, Walther stood up and announced, "Ladies and gentleman, this hearing is concluded," and abruptly left the bench.
In the motion, attorney Andrea Sloan asked the judge to allow the women and children 30 minutes in the morning and again at night to pray in private. "Without exception, respondent mothers have reported that the department will not let them pray without being monitored by the department," Sloan wrote.
Attorneys were also pushing to keep a group of nursing mothers from being separated from their children, pending the results of DNA testing currently under way in San Angelo. "Some of respondent mothers are currently parenting children under the age of 2 years of age and are still breast-feeding," the motion stated.
The women's attorneys also filed motions arguing that when cell phones were taken from the women, they lost the ability to communicate effectively with their clients. The cell phones were taken the day after members of the FLDS Church inside the Fort Concho shelter spoke out to the Deseret News, complaining of cramped conditions.
The women provided the Deseret News with photographs taken by a cell phone to show the conditions. Shortly afterward, they were all moved to the San Angelo Coliseum, where some of the children have remained.
The motions were filed in 51st District Court today by attorneys for Charlotte Johnson, Suzanne Johnson, Sarah Johnson, Angela Harker and other mothers of children taken from the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado.
Authorities began collecting DNA samples Monday morning from children taken from the ranch, the Texas Attorney General's Office said.
The children were to be given a cheek swab, then photographed and fingerprinted. They have each been assigned a number to identify them and the sample they gave.
"We began the process this morning and anticipate working on this throughout the week," said Janece Rolfe, a spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general. "It will be about 30 days to receive results, maybe a little longer."
Judge Barbara Walther signed court papers this morning ordering the DNA samples.
"The Court finds that an unknown number of males of reproductive age reside, or have resided, at the ranch during the probable time of conception of one or more of the children the subject of this suit," her order says. "The court further finds that an unknown number of females of child bearing age reside, or have resided at the ranch and could be the mother of one or more children the subject of this suit."
The order lists the hundreds of names of parents and children that are known at the YFZ Ranch, including FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, who it lists as being in "prison."
The parents on the YFZ Ranch are expected to show up at the Schleicher County Memorial Building in Eldorado on Tuesday to give a DNA sample. At the makeshift shelter at the San Angelo Coliseum and the Cal Farley Boy's Ranch, where the FLDS children have been staying since they were taken into state custody, children were giving samples.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services said it is still having trouble identifying individual children and who their parents are.
"We're still not getting names," said child protective services spokesman Greg Cunningham. "We don't know who are siblings, mothers, fathers."
The raid on the YFZ Ranch was prompted by a phone call to a San Angelo family crisis center from a 16-year-old girl who claimed she was abused, pregnant and married to a 50-year-old man. Authorities have not been able to identify her, but said that when they went onto the ranch to investigate the complaint they found signs of other children being abused.
That led to the judge's order removing all 416 children from the ranch. Last week, Walther ordered that all children will remain in state custody.
Once the DNA samples are gathered, Cunningham said they will move forward with placing the children in foster care.
"We've got some of the placements lined up, but we're still waiting for some guidance from the court," he said.
Child protective services said the children will be kept in groups, including teenage mothers with their children and siblings grouped together. The children would likely not be going to a typical foster home, Cunningham said.
"It's a home-type setting. A majority of them would go to a residential facility," he said. "There are several different options out there."
Authorities refused to discuss how the children would be transitioned from the San Angelo Coliseum to foster care because of security reasons.
Outside the coliseum today, the police presence has been heavy. Texas state troopers, Tom Green County sheriff's deputies, San Angelo police and unmarked patrol cars have all been seen circling the large parking lot surrounding the building.
“Are you trying to tell me that their location determines if they have rights?”
Nope. Their RELIGION.
And others are so ashamed of the history of their own church that they will do anything, say anything to deny the embarrassing fact that they have a close affiliation with another sect of the same religion.
Then they will outright lie to others who have no idea the history....all the while accusing those who DO know and who are honest about it of ulterior motives other than simply truth telling.
Of course, that is not at the FLDS ranch. That was within the Texas Foster Care system in 2004.
“In 2004, noted Strayhorn, 38 foster children were killed; 48 were killed the following year. In addition, “about 100 children received treatment for poisoning from medications; 63 foster children received medical treatment for rape that occurred while in the foster care system; and 142 children gave birth while in the state foster care system.”
hat tip:William N. Grigg http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2008/04/collectivist-child-abuse.html
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Right now, those kids are in bad shape.
If they go back, more of the same.
If they go forward, it is into a system that has already shown that it does not work.
Anybody have a better idea?
A workable one.
LOL
crap! We even have an assigned number on FR. We’re DOOMED, I tell ya!
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Just because the name “polygamy” is used to describe what the Flds are doing and what God instructed through Joseph Smith, they are not the same.
Some people will try to tell you it is, but it is not even close.
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This is hard.
The children need to be protected.
If we try to correct the misconceptions about the LDS, we are called “rape lovers”.
If we do not try to correct them, people will go away believing the mistruths about the LDS Church.
Please remember, We are LDS, not Flds.
These type of women live in my neighborhood and attend our local LDS ward. At least there in my neighborhood.
Wilde and just about all other practitioners of plural marriage in the West consider themselves followers of the true Mormon faith. But the mainstream Mormon church renounced polygamy more than a century ago and strongly disavows any connection to them.
Many of Utah’s polygamists draw a sharp distinction between themselves and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the polygamous sect raided by Texas authorities earlier this month because of allegations of abuse. By Wilde’s estimate, about 15,000 of Utah’s polygamists belong to no group at all.
According to law enforcement authorities in Utah and Arizona, many other polygamists are divided among about 11 communities, societies or orders.
Most Utah women in polygamous marriages are indistinguishable from other women. They take jobs or work from home. They don’t wear prairie dresses or put their hair in braids or a bun, the style consistent among FLDS women.
In the cities, the polygamist husbands are usually nomads, said Irwin Altman, a psychology professor at the University of Utah.
“Typically, the guy doesn’t have his own place,” said Altman, co-author of Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society. Altman found the men earnestly cling to early Mormon beliefs that polygamy is key to eternal salvation.
How many might be members of YOUR Ward, fred?
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/415806
“If we try to correct the misconceptions about the LDS, we are called “rape lovers”.”
Nah, that’s what we call the Libertarians
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Known to be polygamists; none.
To the LDS Church, polygamy is the same as having unmarried sex. Both will get you kicked out, if the people do not repented of it.
Of course, you were a member long enough to have learned that for yourself. You could have chosen not to use misinformation, even in the form of a question.
The article palinly states that these people involved in polygamy are unknown.
And so you twist what I said in effort to indict me, while leaving the question unanswered. Many who appear to be LDS are living an incognito polygamous lifestyle among the LDS.
Still can’t admit it?
Attention everyone!!!
I just read an unsubstantiated post on the internet. It might be from the Onion, or even from a posting on a lying, apostate website!
SAN ANGELO, Texas—In a new twist in the unfolding child-custody drama, FLDS spokesman Wilford Orsen Barlow read a ‘revelation’ from jailed leader Warren Jeffs, commanding his followers to end the “earthly” practice of plural marriage and ordering temple officials to cease “temporal” sealings of men to more than one wife. Following the announcement, Barlow plead to the assembled state officials and press,
“There. Now we’re just like the other Mormons. Can we please have our kids back?”
Attempts to contact LDS president Thomas S. Monsen were unsuccessful. However, another official, who identified himself as an Apostle of the Lord, issued the following statement:
“This so-called manifesto makes absolutely no difference. We have nothing in common with these strange people who unfortunately chose to call themselves Mormons. Just look—they wear funny dresses and they don’t even have two-piece garments. And look at their so-called temple. Who designed it, Fleetwood Homes? We have better architects.”
Sounds more like satire to me.
But then again, I’ve found it awfully difficult, sometimes, to tell the difference; which is a really sad commentary on the shape of our world.
You are such a disappointment....so shallow in your thinking processes. But there is hope for you! You have come to the right place to sharpen your mental skills! Now read the following very, very slowly.... "number and mass incarceration"... one more time... "number and mass incarceration". I'm not sure if that will help you make the connection, but, as a FReeper, I pledge to do my best to help you! :-)
If Jim decides to round us all up an incarcerate us, we may not be doomed, but I, for one, will be a bit nervous! :-)
Ditto
sounds oniony, but who knows?
susie
Yeah it is satire.
I thought it was funny. Maybe because I’ve spent too much time reading posts that say the fLDS and the LDS are not connected.
Wo, if Warren Jeffs really did issue a “Manifesto” would everything be all right for them in the world. Would these people be welcomed into the Mormon fold?
Still trying to help the MDS sufferers? :-)
Saying the fLDS and the LDS are not connected is like saying Orthodox Judaism and Reformed Judaism are not connected.
Yes, it would be like saying there is no connection between Southern Baptists and American Baptists.
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