Polygamists: Authorities Prepare For the Worst in Texas

The law may have erred in the way they seized the children, but, attempting to protect children from abuse is sill the right thing to do.

I don't know. I've never tried to ban gay marriage. I also know the difference between consentual sex between adults and forced sex with children.

edgarblythe wrote:

I don't know. I've never tried to ban gay marriage. I also know the difference between consentual sex between adults and forced sex with children.

Isn't this the same argument they use to ban gay marriage?

ebrown_p wrote:

edgarblythe wrote:

I don't know. I've never tried to ban gay marriage. I also know the difference between consentual sex between adults and forced sex with children.

Isn't this the same argument they use to ban gay marriage?

Do you genuinely see no difference in laws against adult sex with minors, and consensual marriage between two homosexual adults?

No, and you know it isn't. They say gays will have sex with children, because it's their nature to do so, a fabrication to influence the emotions. When you have actual pregnant underage children, it just isn't the same.

dlowan wrote:

ebrown_p wrote:

edgarblythe wrote:

I don't know. I've never tried to ban gay marriage. I also know the difference between consentual sex between adults and forced sex with children.

Isn't this the same argument they use to ban gay marriage?

Do you genuinely see no difference in laws against adult sex with minors, and consensual marriage between two homosexual adults?

You are missing my point Dlowan.

I am saying that hysterical fear of an unpopular group makes it more likely that people believe unfounded charges against them.

The law may have erred in the way they seized the children, but, attempting to protect children from abuse is sill the right thing to do.

edgarblythe wrote:

No, and you know it isn't. They say gays will have sex with children, because it's their nature to do so, a fabrication to influence the emotions. When you have actual pregnant underage children, it just isn't the same.

So far the reports of actual pregnant underage children have apparently been greatly exagerrated.

ebrown_p wrote:

edgarblythe wrote:

No, and you know it isn't. They say gays will have sex with children, because it's their nature to do so, a fabrication to influence the emotions. When you have actual pregnant underage children, it just isn't the same.

So far the reports of actual pregnant underage children have apparently been greatly exagerrated.

Maybe exaggerated, but they have not yet proclaimed that none had forced sex.

ebrown_p wrote:

edgarblythe wrote:

No, and you know it isn't. They say gays will have sex with children, because it's their nature to do so, a fabrication to influence the emotions. When you have actual pregnant underage children, it just isn't the same.

So far the reports of actual pregnant underage children have apparently been greatly exagerrated.

Maybe exaggerated, but they have not yet proclaimed that none had forced sex.

ebrown_p wrote:

You are missing my point Dlowan.

I am saying that hysterical fear of an unpopular group makes it more likely that people believe unfounded charges against them.

That may have been your point, and it is likely a very valid one, but it is not what you said.

edgarblythe wrote:

ebrown_p wrote:

edgarblythe wrote:

No, and you know it isn't. They say gays will have sex with children, because it's their nature to do so, a fabrication to influence the emotions. When you have actual pregnant underage children, it just isn't the same.

So far the reports of actual pregnant underage children have apparently been greatly exagerrated.

Maybe exaggerated, but they have not yet proclaimed that none had forced sex.

I am not willing to accept with out examination the state's claim that religious beliefs can equal coercion which can equal force. To me the state's logic borders on a violation of the separation between church and state. The state is claiming powers over cultural practices that if allowed gives the state the power to regulate religion. This is not a road we should want to go down.

Court: Texas Had No Right to Seize Children at Polygamist Ranch

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 22, 2008; 5:00 PM

A Texas appeals court ruled today that state child welfare authorities had no right to seize dozens of children living at the ranch of a polygamist religious sect, saying they were in no immediate danger of abuse.

The 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin ruled in favor of 48 mothers seeking the return of more than 130 children who had been living at a ranch near Eldorado, Tex., associated with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

An attorney for the women said the ruling is likely to become a precedent for other mothers seeking the return of the 468 children in all who were taken from the ranch last month by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

Texas authorities launched a week-long raid on the 1,700-acre Yearning for Zion ranch starting April 3 after receiving an anonymous tip that underage girls were being forced to marry older men and bear children. Under Texas law, girls younger than 16 are not allowed to marry, even with their parents' permission.

In its ruling, the appeals court directed a district court to vacate its temporary orders granting custody of the children to the Department of Family and Protective Services. The department can appeal the decision, however, and attorneys for the mothers said it was not immediately clear when they might be reunited with their children.

"It's a great day for families in Texas," said Julie Balovich, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which represents the 48 mothers in the case. "It's a great day for justice in Texas."

She told reporters that the appeals court decision gives the trial court 10 days to comply. The decision "covers only the mothers we represent," Balovich said. Ultimately, however, "I believe that it's going to apply to all the children and all the mothers," she said.

"The fact that the court would rule this way provides a lot of hope for all the other mothers as well," said Cynthia Martinez, a spokeswoman for the legal aid group. "There's a legal argument they can work with."

In its nine-page ruling, the 3rd Court of Appeals said the Department of Family and Protective Services had failed to prove that there was any danger to the physical health and safety of the children of 38 mothers, that there was any urgent or immediate need to take custody of the children or that it made any reasonable efforts to avoid the removal. Ten other mothers and their children were covered by a second opinion from the court today, Martinez said.

The ruling harshly criticized the department's rationale for acting in the case and refuted the evidence it presented. It said the only danger identified by the department to the prepubescent children was a "pervasive belief system" at the ranch that the department said groomed boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse later in life and taught the girls to submit to sexual abuse after reaching puberty

ELDORADO

Caseworkers return to polygamist sect's ranch
But Child Protective Services workers, seeking more children, are barred from entering property.
By Corrie MacLaggan

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


Thursday, May 22, 2008

ELDORADO ?- Child welfare workers were turned away twice Wednesday as they attempted to investigate reports that there are still children living at a ranch owned by a polygamist sect. But even as they refused to allow Child Protective Services access to the property, sect members invited members of the media to tour the ranch.

Guy Jessop, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said two CPS workers accompanied by law enforcement arrived at the Yearning for Zion Ranch's front gate between 11 and 11:30 a.m. The officials didn't have a warrant, and Jessop didn't let them in.

CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said the agency returned to the ranch because officials "received new information about children who may be living at the ranch." He declined to say how the agency got the information. Officials previously thought they had removed all the children from the ranch.

Crimmins said no warrant should have been needed to enter the ranch, because the inquiry is not a criminal investigation.

Early Wednesday evening, two CPS workers returned with two Schleicher County sheriff's department officials. CPS came back a second time because sect members had indicated they would let caseworkers inside, but they were again denied access, Crimmins said.

"CPS is still reviewing its options," he said.

Sect member Willie Jessop said all of the children who were at the ranch were taken in last month's raid, which was conducted with a search warrant. But he didn't deny there are children at the ranch now.

"For me to say that there's no children here, I can't," he said.

Willie Jessop said CPS officials named about five children they believe are at the ranch. He said those children either don't exist or were removed from the ranch last month.

"If that's not good enough for them, they're going to have to bring in their search warrant and their military tanks and their snipers and all of the firepower that they feel like they have to do, to do a rerun of the mistakes they've already made," he said.

CPS officials say their investigation last month at the ranch showed a pattern of older men marrying underage girls. They said they consider the ranch a single home and that all children there were at risk of abuse, and they removed more than 460 children from the ranch.

Word of CPS's return to the ranch Wednesday morning prompted Willie Jessop to abruptly leave the Tom Green County Courthouse in San Angelo, where court hearings are under way to decide what parents need to do to get their children back. Willie Jessop drove about 40 miles south to the Eldorado ranch owned by the sect.

Willie Jessop opened the ranch to the media Wednesday afternoon, showing off log cabin homes with green roofs, a dairy, fruit orchards, a white limestone temple and a school where photos of jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs hung in classrooms.

"This is what the state is saying is so bad," he said.

Warren Jeffs was convicted in Utah last year in connection with an arranged marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin. He is awaiting trial in Arizona on charges of being an accomplice to incest and sex with minors.

There were no children in sight at the school or anywhere else on the ranch Wednesday afternoon. Other than a woman in a long dress tending a garden and a few men working at the dairy and waiting at the front gate, there didn't seem to be many adults outside. Willie Jessop said several dozen people still live at the ranch.

Also on Wednesday, sect members requested 500 to 600 voter registration cards from Schleicher County, something they had not done in the five years since the 1,700-acre ranch was transformed from a small game ranch to a $20.5 million self-contained community.

"As residents of the state, we have to take responsibility for part of this," Willie Jessop said. "We were naive enough to believe there was good people in government to protect our rights."

Schleicher County has an estimated 2,800 residents, and the sect's property is the third-biggest taxpayer, accounting for roughly 18 percent of its tax base. But county officials had no role in the raid, aside from deputies assisting state law enforcement.

Additional material from The Associated Press.

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