Rozita Swinton Doesn’t Like the FLDS (abuse call came from her phone)

when a man falls out of favor and leaves the FLDS group he will sometimes leave his wife/(family) behind and the women will be reallocated to other men.

Reality check: These men are ALWAYS forced to leave their wives and children behind, and their wives and children are ALWAYS "reassigned" to other men immediately. And the men needn't waste their time suing for custody, since the women and children will all follow orders to lie in court about him and about their lives in the FLDS community. It's way past time for those fathers' parental rights to get some attention. And then there are all the young boys who get tossed out and warned (under threat of severe beatings and being tossed out again) not to come back -- every single father in the FLDS community is guilty of either directly doing this, or allowing it to be done to some of his sons and not intervening.

And it's a little hard to get worked up about the parental rights of parents who refuse to identify themselves or their children, and whose children are unable and/or unwilling to identify their own parents.

First: OK, San Angelo is also two states away.

Second: WHAT?

Cell phones and area codes are a valid response but where I am, in So Cal, you can ID the prefix as cell or not cell. (For all I know, that's just happenstance but it works for me)

I don't know about the Colorado compound, interesting in itself but still leaves grounds for caution in a society that turns to litigation as quickly as ours does.

Lincoln was dead after the Civil War..

That wasn't my point.

Lincoln's attitude toward the LDS was pragmatic: one Civil War at a time.

Area code means little.

In the intervening 5 days, between the time the call was received at the shelter and the sheriff swept into the YFZ compound, the authorities had more than enough time to go to the phone companies and determine where the cell call originated. Your cell phone calls are tracked by which tower you are using. Thus, the sheriff could have easily found out that the call originated in Colorado, and not in the cult compound.

“LDS doctrine permits the abortion of deformed children.”

You Mormonhaters really don’t like to tell the truth, the WHOLE truth, and nothing but the truth, do you?

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/abortion

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes in the sanctity of human life. Therefore, the Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience, and counsels its members not to submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for such abortions.

The Church allows for possible exceptions for its members when:

• Pregnancy results from rape or incest, or

• A competent physician determines that the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy, or

• A competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth.

The Church teaches its members that even these rare exceptions do not justify abortion automatically. Abortion is a most serious matter and should be considered only after the persons involved have consulted with their local church leaders and feel through personal prayer that their decision is correct.

The Church has not favored or opposed legislative proposals or public demonstrations concerning abortion.

It’s really getting old. Really.

What church do you go to?

Swinton, 33, is now facing charges related to the April 3 raid on the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas

Yet the article here http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2005898/posts says this:
It's not yet clear whether authorities suspect Rozita Swinton of Colorado Springs made any of the calls that triggered this month's raid of the compound.

And another article linked on this site has this to say:
The arrest affadavit details how the investigation in Texas led authorities to Swinton. She has not been charged in connection with the Texas case.

Swinton was arrested April 16 at her Colorado Springs home on suspicion of false reporting to authorities in connection with similar claims made in February.

My statement:

LDS doctrine permits the abortion of deformed children.

Your statement:

The Church allows for possible exceptions for its members when: . . . a competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth

So, in fact, I told the truth.

What church do you go to?

I'm Catholic. We do not have such exceptions under Church law.

The second was in reference to the growing number of posters who fear the Gov to the edge of extreme paranoia.

How many people have actually been *set up* in this fashion?

Yes, it does happen on occasion but, in this circumstance and from my opinion as a Texan who doesn’t want these people here, it could turn out to be a blessing.

You told the truth, but NOT the whole truth.

If a child is going to be born deformed and will live past birth, abortion is NEVER an option.

I bet more young boys are raped by Catholic priests than babies are aborted by Mormons.

I do fear the government, I spent enough time carrying credentials to know that they can be and are often abused.

You are a Texan who does not want 'these people' in your neighborhood. Distrust of outsiders is natural, these are VERY outside.
Yes, I've been rousted and threatened (by police) merely for being an outsider so (also) at that small scale I know it can happen.

On the other hand - I wouldn't want them in my neighborhood either.

You and I are hopefully above taking extralegal action until there is no other alternative...
I'd rather see an objective review of the events, and some humane treatment to the wives and kids, before I jumped at conclusions that fit comfortably with my emotions...and the media's daily drive for higher ratings.

(PS: Don't mistake my comments, being a Texan is a good thing)

(PPS: It's a done deal in any event and, like them or not, the elders of the compound made sure it went over without bloodshed)

I bet more young boys are raped by Catholic priests than babies are aborted by Mormons.

You would lose that bet.

Of course, Catholic canon law forbids clergy to engage in sexual violence, but LDS Church law permits abortion.

Ping

So far there have been found more than twenty girls who are pregnant and underage for marriage ... like 13 or 14 years old. The’older’ mothers would not tell the court which children were theirs and which women were their mothers. Run along now ...

It doesn't legally matter if the raid was started by a hoax or not apparently. If they acted upon the call in good faith with a warrant and discovered other evidence of a crime or criminal behavior during that investigation, then it will stand up in court.

Read this astounding reply on the linked to Blog:

comment 6 by
Boise Leon
Apr 20, 2008 at 9:52 pm -
The FLDS is collateral damage to a political dirty tricks conspiracy. I have been watching this for two years and discovered that every event had a political relationship to the 2008 election. Every event is connected to the FBI starting with Jeff's introduction to the mainstream media by making the FBI 10 most wanted list. He does not fit the profile of Osama bin Laden or mass murderers on the list. There were NO federal charges to justify that. The wanted posters came out in three waves, each one increasing the reward by $50,000. Who authorized the rewards?
In June 2006 AGs Mark Shurtleff and Terry Goddard issue the 56 page "Primer' to draw the line where they intended to selectively enforce the law and so the FBI intrusion seemed to be the uncontrolled element.
Reports of the Swinton arrest shows she had research papers on the FLDS that detailed family relationships and addresses designed to be a cheat sheet while going through her script of abuse. Do you know that someone made $20,000 bail for Swinton and she is now missing? The sealed court records will implicate whoever is pulling the strings for this entire conspiracy. Swinton was not the prime mover, she had a sponsor. Swinton is a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, pledged to Barack Obama. Could this have been her reward for creating yet another event to discredit Mitt Romney for his LDS affiliation.
This is not about polygamy, child abuse or religion. It is all about national politics. The raid was timed to reinforce negative PR for the selection of McCain's VP and "NO MITT' advertising campaign against Mitt Romney.
Far fetched? This whole fiasco is far fetched.

I'm not one to appreciate tinfoil hat conspiracy theory but this sounds actually plausible.

At one level you are right, it matters not how abuse is uncovered. At another level, it is only within the past hundred years or so that arranged marriage and younger girls paired with older men began to lose prominence in Western Culture. Remember young Alice Munro and Major Duncan Heyward in "The Last of the Mohicans." A man was expected to establish himself and prosper before selecting a spouse from among the young women in the area.

It is still another thing entirely to hear that the Socialists Democrats may have manipulated the news events in a manner as loathsome as anything since the October Revolution or,(you already thought it) the Third Reich.

Rozita Swinton Doesn't Like the FLDS (abuse call came from her phone)

Well,somebody invite her to join this forum. She'll find a ton of supporters here! Saint Rozita.

Bump MLF for sanity in a tempestuous teacup of media controversy

Here is a little collection of how this flds fight has accelerated since 2003 when Arizona and Utah met to come up with plans on how to deal with the increasing abuses. This has nothing to do with Romney.

This cult was raided in 1935, 1944, 1953, Utah claims to have planned a raid in 2006 or 7, they had 80 warrants, but well, you know Utah. Canada investigated the branch in British Columbia, where some of the Texas kids were shipped from, and put the fear of God in that leader, although they have not acted yet, he now publicly claims that his branch has ended the use of under aged children.

“””Alarmed that the sect’s members were building a compound, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff urged Texas lawmakers in 2005 to strengthen its laws. He described the sect in stark terms.
“Imagine a community run as a theocracy, where women are considered nothing but property,” Shurtleff told the Legislature, “where women have two purposes — to please their man sexually and have children.”
Texas lawmakers heeded the advice and made sweeping changes to Texas law against polygamy and underage marriage”””

“””In 2001, Utah authorities began a crackdown on underage marriages and arranged marriages of teenagers, targeting members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon splinter group that had lived in two towns on the Utah-Arizona border.”””

“””After seeing high-profile FLDS Church critic Flora Jessop on the ABC television program Primetime Live on March 4, 2004, concerned Eldorado residents contacted Jessop. She investigated and on March 25, 2004, Jessop held a press conference in Eldorado confirming that the new neighbors were FLDS Church adherents. On May 18, 2004, Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran and his Chief Deputy visited Colorado City, and the FLDS Church officially acknowledged that the Schleicher County property would be a new base for the church. It has been reported in the media that the church is building a temple at the YFZ Ranch, which has been supported by evidence including aerial photographs of a large stone structure (approximately 88 feet wide) being built. Recent pictures now show the temple in a state of relative completion. A local newspaper, the Eldorado Success, reported that the temple foundation was dedicated January 1, 2005 by Warren Jeffs.[20]

On January 10, 2004, the church suffered major upheaval when Dan Barlow, the mayor of Colorado City, and about 20 men were excommunicated from the church and stripped of their wives and children (who would be reassigned to other men), and the right to live in the town. As a result, a few teenage women reportedly fled the towns with the aid of activists who advocate the escape of plural wives from polygamy. Two of the young women, Fawn Broadbent and Fawn Holm, soon found themselves in a broadly publicized dispute over their freedom and custody. They fled state custody together on February 15, and have been on the run in multiple states since.

In October 2004, disaffected members of the church reported that David Allred purchased a 60-acre (240,000 m²) parcel of land near Mancos, Colorado (midway between Cortez and Durango) about the same time he bought the Schleicher County property. Allred told authorities the parcel is to be used as a hunting retreat.

In July 2005 eight men of the church were indicted for sexual contact with minors. At least some of them surrendered to police in Kingman, Arizona.

On July 29, 2005, Brent Jeffs filed suit accusing three of his uncles, including Warren Jeffs, of sexually assaulting him when he was a child. The suit also named the FLDS Church as a defendant. On August 10, former FLDS Church member Shem Fischer, Dan Fischer’s brother, added the church and Warren Jeffs as defendants to a 2002 lawsuit claiming he was illegally fired because he no longer adhered to the faith. Fischer, who was a salesman for a wooden cabinetry business in Hildale, claims church officials interfered with his relationship with his employer and blacklisted him.

In July 2005, a half-dozen lost boys who say they were cast out of their homes on the Utah–Arizona border to reduce competition for wives filed suit against the FLDS Church. “The [boys] have been excommunicated pursuant to that policy and practice and have been cut off from family, friends, benefits, business and employment relationships, and purportedly condemned to eternal damnation,” their suit says. “They have become ‘lost boys’ in the world outside the FLDS community.”

On May 7, 2006, the FBI named Warren Jeffs to their Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on charges of sexual misconduct with minors.

The mayor of Colorado City, Terrill C. Johnson, was arrested on May 26, 2006 for eight fraudulent vehicle registration charges (providing false registration and title papers eight separate times)—a felony. He was booked in to Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane, Utah and was released after paying the $5,000 bail in cash.[21]

On August 28, 2006, Warren Jeffs was captured on Interstate 15 just north of Las Vegas, Nevada, after a routine traffic stop. He was captured with his brother, Isaac Steve Jeffs, and one of his wives, Naomi Jeffs, both 32. Isaac and Naomi were both released. Jeffs was tried in St. George, Utah and was found guilty by a jury of two counts of being an accomplice to rape.

November 2007
A judge sentenced polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs to five years to life Tuesday for his role in the arranged marriage between a 14-year-old follower and her 19-year-old cousin.

A jury in Utah convicted Jeffs, the so-called “prophet” of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, of two counts of accomplice to rape for “enticing” Elissa Wall to marry and have sex with her cousin, Allen Steed, despite her objections

Hard core tin foil hatted nuttiness. If Swinton’s stunt was part of some national political strategy orchestrated by powerful people, she wouldn’t have made previous hoax calls that had nothing to do with anything political and she would have been calling from an utterly untraceable cell phone. The Democratic Party operatives are able to recruit people a lot more stable than Swinton to make hoax phone calls.

The crackdown on the FLDS intensified a couple of years ago because Warren Jeffs was consolidating his power after becoming FLDS prophet in 2002, and was engaging in progressively more extreme law-breaking on a larger scale than had been done by this cult in the past. He was also expanding beyond the traditional two main communities on the Utah-Arizona border and in British Columbia. History had shown that the Utah and Arizona state authorities were unable to deal with the cult effectively, in part because of the cult leaders’ shrewd strategy of straddling state lines and also maintaining a community in another country. It became clear that it was a federal problem, with lots of interstate transportation of girls for illegal sexual activities, and so the FBI starting getting involved.

They also probably started getting tangled up in the increasing federal efforts to crack down in illegal immigrant workers, since the FLDS uses its boys and young men in many of the same construction trades, also illegally, paying below minimum wage and using boys who are underage and not legally allowed to operate some of the equipment they’re using, and evading payroll taxes. Employers of illegal aliens who were feeling the heat probably started pointing out the illegal activities of the competing FLDS construction companies a lot more readily and aggressively than they had in the past.