hawkeye10 wrote:the state claims that bringing up children in a culture that promotes early marriage and childbearing is abuse....
Exactly! The State claims it has legal authority to take emergency custody of ALL children in a community based upon a generalized fear of future possible harm to the children if they are raised in the community. If governmental concern about possible future harm is sufficient to justify the removal of children from their parents, it is difficult to know where the line can be drawn. Perhaps large cities with high crime statistics could then, on the basis of "pervasive hopelessness," remove ALL children en masse from parents who live in the "hood" based on a generalized fear that these children, if raised in their neighborhood communities, may become violent gang members, drug dealers, pregnant teens addicted to crack, victims of violent crime, and the like.
I personally have no problem with polygamy or any gamy or androusness undertaken by fully informed consenting adults.
that has been my opinion all along
But, we have some reason to believe underage kids have been abused here. We also know how difficult it is to find out what is happening to kids in secretive and isolated sects (if that word makes you happy).
a woman who had escaped the cult some time ago pointed out that the children never have a free choice about how they want to live . they are told from an early age on that they MUST only listen to their leaders and not anyone else .
i know that there is no law against those teachings and probably NEVER will be .
perhaps letting in some "fresh air" will allow some of the young people see a different part of life - which is a good thing imo - even though some may claim that it collides with the civil liberties of the ADULT LEADERS .
a woman who had escaped the cult some time ago pointed out that the children never have a free choice about how they want to live . they are told from an early age on that they MUST only listen to their leaders and not anyone else .
i know that there is no law against those teachings and probably NEVER will be .
perhaps letting in some "fresh air" will allow some of the young people see a different part of life - which is a good thing imo - even though some may claim that it collides with the civil liberties of the ADULT LEADERS .
. I have yet to hear a logical explanation of why this particular decision is anything but an obvious blundering overreaction to public prejudice.
.
as an aside, the feminist drive to reorder masculine/feminine interaction goes far to explain the disastrous raid of the FDLS cult and the snatching of their children. Women are not free to consent to live a life of gender values as historically practiced, it is highly offensive to the women who are in the process of trying to reform society into new gender behaviour patterns (and the idiot men who conspire with them). The emotional recoiling of women at watching other women choose to ignore the cause, to choose to practice the old ways, makes normally sensible law abiding women do extremely stupid things. It is no accident that in state that allows its child protective workers huge latitude in deciding to take the kids that the one CPS employee who directed the disaster, and the one judge who allowed the CPS to follow through on her desire, where both women. If a man had been involved, or if the action would have required consensus of a group of experts which included men, this emotionally driven but unlawful assault on individuals would have almost certainly have been prevented. The FDLS raid is an illustration of what can happen when women are in charge, and it also illustrates the ignorance of many modern women, those who insist that human nature needs to be changed because they don't like how humans behave. Ya, that will happen. How many people will their fundamentalist zeal destroy before they wise up I wonder??
An enormous amount of pain has been inflicted on these kids, and they know it is at the hand of the state.
i bet that the cult leaders will try to point out to the children how wonderful and compasionate they (the leaders) are and how bad the outside world is .
having been a kid myself at one time - a long time ago - and having lived through WW II , i doubt that this "incident" will leave any lasting memories in the minds of the kids - UNLESS THE CULT LEADERS make a special effort of drilling it into them over and over again .
kids are pretty resilient and deal with those incidents differently than adults - at least that has been my experience .
i bet that the cult leaders will try to point out to the children how wonderful and compasionate they (the leaders) are and how bad the outside world is .
(i can only shake my head when i think under what conditions those children are growing up - but such is the world and i can't change it)
Senate panel suggests taking FLDS sect's assets to cover costs
By JOHN MORITZStar-Telegram Staff Writer
AUSTIN -- With the price tag of providing care for more than 400 children seized last month from a polygamist ranch in West Texas expected to reach the tens of millions of dollars, a legislative panel suggested Tuesday that the state explore garnisheeing the religious organization's assets to recoup the costs.
"That compound didn't grow out of fairy dust," Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, said after a Senate Finance Committee hearing in which he urged state health officials to determine whether members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or even the sect as a whole, should be held responsible for the cost of care. "Why should we be footing the bill when they've got assets?"
The remarks came after the panel heard testimony that providing foster care, Medicaid coverage and casework for the children from the YFZ (Yearning For Zion) Ranch will likely cost taxpayers more than $1.7 million a month for as long as they are in state custody. The figure does not include the $5.3 million for the first six weeks of the operation or the cost of providing the required legal representation for each of the children, which is likely to cost at least $2.2 million.
The committee, which plays a lead role in drafting and overseeing the state budget, is exploring ways to cover the near-term costs even though no money was appropriated last year for such an event.
Legislative leaders and Gov. Rick Perry's office expect an emergency appropriation will be necessary when lawmakers return to Austin in January to ensure that the state's bills for the operation are paid.
"We basically need to pay what it's going to cost to do the job right, and we need to know, to the best of your ability, what that cost is so we can factor that in when we're making decisions about other worthwhile costs and needs in this state," Sen. Steve Ogden, a Bryan Republican who heads the finance panel, told Albert Hawkins, the state's executive commissioner for health and human services.
Law enforcement officers and officials from Child Protective Services rounded up the children from the ranch near Eldorado after an anonymous caller claimed to be a pregnant and abused 16-year-old forced into a marriage with a 50-year-old.
Officials now believe that the call may have been a hoax.
But CPS workers have said that the children were in imminent danger of abuse. In court hearings that began Monday in San Angelo, many parents are seeking to regain custody.
Deuell said efforts should be made to determine whether any of the children placed in foster care are covered by the parents' private insurance. If so, he said, the state would not have to enroll them in the taxpayer-supported Medicaid program.
Hawkins said it is unclear whether sect members have private insurance. He also said that officials have found no evidence that anyone from the sect is receiving public assistance.
Even if the adults do have private insurance, the children would still likely require Medicaid coverage, Hawkins said, because DNA testing to determine parentage is expected to take up to two months to complete.
Rod Parker, a spokesman for the FLDS, said any effort to seize assets would be an overreach by the state.
"I think my response is to ask the state on what legal grounds it believes it would be entitled to take FLDS assets," Parker said in an e-mail to the Star-Telegram. "This is a country of laws; they cannot simply go after assets without legal basis."
JOHN MORITZ REPORTS FROM THE STAR-TELEGRAM'S AUSTIN BUREAU. 512-476-4294
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Texas Lawmakers Adding Up Costs Of Polygamy Case
AUSTIN (AP) ― State lawmakers started adding up Tuesday the "extraordinary" costs related to the raid on a polygamist sect's ranch last month and began trying to figure out where to find the expected $30 million the case will eventually cost over the next year.
"We basically need to pay what it's going to cost to do the job right and we need to know, to the best of your ability, what that cost is so we can factor that in when we're making decisions about other worthwhile costs and needs in this state," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden told Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins during a hearing Thursday.
Hawkins said it would cost about $1.7 million a month for the state to care for more than 460 children who were removed from the ranch last month and are now scattered in foster-care facilities around the state. Authorities believe members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who run the ranch, pushed underage girls into marriage and sex.
One lawmaker questioned whether the state could make the adults left behind on the 1,700-acre ranch -- valued at $20.5 million -- foot the state's bill.
"I would encourage you to aggressively pursue any of those assets to fund this," said Republican Sen. Bob Deuell of Greenville. State health and human services officials said they were still trying to figure out which ranch residents are the children's biological parents.
The initial raid cost an estimated $5.3 million, mostly in travel to the isolated Schleicher County ranch and employee overtime during the weeklong raid and search of the Yearning For Zion ranch last month. The state also paid for buses, building and equipment rental and fuel.
At least $2.2 million will be needed to help the local courts handle legal proceedings for each child.
Ben Woodward, a state district judge in Tom Green County, said the local courts in his county and Schleicher County, where the ranch is located, are ill-equipped to handle the unprecedented undertaking.
"It is a pretty desperate situation and a red flag for the judiciary," Woodward said. "We are funded on this case pretty much by the counties and they simply don't have it."
Woodward said the legal costs would exceed $2.2 million. Schleicher County's total budget was $3.9 million, he said.
Because the state did not anticipate the raid when they wrote the current budget last year, it will be tricky to find the money and make it available before the Legislature's next scheduled session in January.
There are mechanisms within the state's $168 billion budget to address unexpected costs.
Money set aside for County Essential Services Grants can be used at the discretion of Gov. Rick Perry. Perry has said the state would do whatever was necessary to cover the costs of the raid and its aftermath.
State emergency funds also could be used, but only if Perry declares the situation an emergency. Perry's office did not immediately return a call seeking comment on whether the situation constitutes a state emergency.
"I'm reasonably convinced that there's enough money in the state to do this if we want to," Ogden said.
Woman who left Mormon sect describes years of 'mind control'
David Perlmutt
The Charlotte Observer
April 30, 2008
CHARLOTTE, N.C.
She was raised by her father and his three wives, surrounded by 12 siblings.
There was no TV, no radio. At school, she was taught that man never landed on the moon. She and other girls in the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were required to "keep sweet," free of jealousy or anger, or risk beatings or humiliation.
And by the time Kathy Jo Nicholson turned 14, she was sewing her wedding dress, knowing that any day she could be thrown into marriage with a man three times her age.
Nicholson never finished that dress. Instead, she began to question her faith and, at 18, walked out on it.
All those memories flooded back after authorities removed more than 500 women and children -- she knows many -- from a Texas compound run by the men who once controlled her life.
"I am happy for the children, though I know they're terrified," said Nicholson, 37, who has lived in Charlotte with her husband and two sons since 2004. "But, now, they have a chance.
"Their mothers, too, have a chance if they'll just grab on to the hands that are reaching out. I know they're conflicted. I know the mind control."
Practicing 'the principle'
She was 3 when her father, John Nicholson, moved his four daughters, a son and two wives from California to Utah to live among other polygamists. They joined the FLDS, a breakaway sect of Mormons that practices "the principle" -- the idea that men must have three wives to reach heaven.
At the church, the leader, or prophet, placed young girls with husbands in nonbinding but sacred "spiritual marriages." If a wife served her husband faithfully, he would take her to heaven.
The Nicholsons didn't live in a compound like the followers in Texas, but in a middle-class neighborhood outside Salt Lake City. They were near the church run first by Leroy Johnson -- Uncle Roy -- then Rulon Jeffs and later his son, Warren.
Their neighbors were traditional Mormons, who had rejected polygamy long ago.
"I was always aware of being different, and I really hated it," Nicholson said. "When we were little, we had friends in the neighborhood. As we got older, they rejected us. They threw bricks through the window. They egged us. They called us names, four-letter words and 'polygs.' "
'Metallic music is the devil'
John Nicholson worked for church-run companies. Sundays were spent at the temple, where Uncle Roy told followers he would live forever. Kathy Jo believed him. He died when she was 15. She began to see her faith as "a big lie."
She grew rebellious at the church-run Alta Academy, where Warren Jeffs was headmaster. He forbade students from watching TV. "Hard-metallic music," he would preach, "is the devil."
Jeffs made girls wear "prairie dresses" of the same fabric -- "we looked like we were on a wagon train." If students disobeyed, they were beaten, physically or emotionally.
"We had to pray Warren's way," Nicholson said. "We got to sing songs that Warren approved. He just systematically ripped us of every individual thought, or action or unique trait you could possibly have."
Caught passing a note to a boy, Kathy Jo was expelled and sent to work at a church-run factory. There, she fell in love with a man named Matt. He was seven years her senior, worldly, but also questioning the church.
By then, she had met Brian. At first, she hid her past. But as they grew closer, bits of it came out. She was surprised that he didn't seem to mind.
The newlyweds lived in California, Maine, then suburban Charlotte. Along the way, Nicholson got years of counseling. She has also tried to keep up with family and her former church.
Rulon Jeffs died in 2002, and Warren Jeffs became its leader.
A year later, her mother and a brother left the church and came to live with her.
Now she watches the Texas scene unfold and grieves for her family. She and her mother have lost touch with relatives. She learned from a reporter that her father died in January. She doesn't know how many nieces and nephews she has but thinks some are in Texas.
"I've been e-mailing social workers, but I don't know what they look like," she said.
"I know the women feel everything is crumbling. But this could be a new beginning -- if they'll just let it."
Copyright © 2008, Orlando Sentinel
don't know if any of you have seen the interviews with some of the women who had left the sect some time ago .
i think they gave a pretty good desciption of what life on the "ranch" was like .
Nicholson never finished that dress. Instead, she began to question her faith and, at 18, walked out on it.
Rebecca Walsh: Feminists waffle in FLDS case
By Rebecca Walsh
Tribune Columnist
Article Last Updated: 05/25/2008 02:29:12 AM MDT
Click photo to enlargeRebecca Walsh«1»Don't wait for Gloria Allred to step into the mess in Texas.
She's watching Larry King, the news conferences. Over the years, she has been asked to represent some of the FLDS women. But she's waiting for the right case.
So far, this one doesn't seem to be it.
For a feminist attorney who has made a career out of representing some of the most maligned, powerless women in America - Rob Lowe's nanny, Scott Peterson's mistress, Orem water scofflaw Betty Perry - polygamous wives are not easy victims.
"We're so used to thinking of the individual rights of each woman. Here, it's all turned on its head. In polygamy, all women must be subordinated," Allred says. "Women are obviously treated like property. They're prizes for men who obey the rules."
On its face, polygamy treats women as a commodity - good only for breeding and child-rearing. No matter how progressive some polygamists claim to be, the notion that one man should have several women is inherently sexist.
And Warren Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints interpretation of polygamy is particularly controlling - women are uneducated, financially dependent and impregnated at a young age to keep them that way. They look and sound like Stepford Wives on the Prairie.
They're not much different from domestic violence victims who
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never leave their abusers.
But while feminists will defend battered women every time, they have been strangely silent since Texas child welfare agents first yanked 460 children from their mothers.
I don't expect feminists to defend prostitution, pornography or the latest round of YouTube junior high catfights. So I'm not really surprised advocates for women's rights are reluctant to defend polygamy - certainly not the patriarchs and their complicitous wives, who teach their daughters to sweetly obey.
In my mind, a feminist defends every other woman's right to choose, no matter how repugnant the choice - posing for Playboy, sleeping with New York's governor for money or joining the WWF. At the very least, I hoped feminists would defend the FLDS women's right to keep their children while the state investigated.
But polygamy leaves feminists conflicted.
During Utah's fight for statehood, the feminists of the day were split. Mormon women were among the first in the nation to vote, but the federal government yanked the right, condescendingly assuming polygamous wives were casting their ballots as proxies for their husbands. Some suffragists defended the women's right to vote; others supported the government.
University of Maryland law professor Martha Ertman says there are as many feminist reactions to polygamy as there are women. Right now, with this particular sect, many feminists are resorting to stereotype.
Most follow Allred's lead, outraged about Jeff's reported abuse of women and children.
But others flip theory on its head. They point out that some polygamous wives find the lifestyle empowering. Polygamy may in fact be the perfect relationship for a heterosexual feminist.
"I see how some women can access ironic ascendancy in their polygynous lifestyle. Mormon fundamentalist women have an informal power that many of us do not see or understand," says Janet Bennion, a Lyndon State College anthropology professor who studied Utah's Apostolic United Brethren.
"They manipulate their husbands to make decisions that work to their advantage," Bennion adds. "They manage the budget and rotation schedule. They form a strong female networking bond to acquire resources and take care of their children."
They sound a lot like the three wives of Bill Paxton's character in "Big Love."
"We should be suspicious of knee-jerk responses that assume monogamous marriage is so perfect and polygamous marriage is so terrible," says Ertman, who interviewed polygamous wives as a University of Utah law professor. "There's a lot of hierarchy within monogamous marriage as well."
In the end, the job of defending the rights of Yearning For Zion's mothers was left to two workaday Legal Aid attorneys - Julie Balovich and Amanda Chisholm. The appeals court justices ruled that Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) had "simply no evidence" of imminent abuse, certainly not enough to remove all the children at once.
"I just pulled over on the road to Eldorado and started crying," Balovich said.
Predictably, CPS has appealed to the state Supreme Court, trying to keep the children from their mothers indefinitely.
Feminists, now is your chance to speak up.
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You seem to be unable (or unwilling) to accept the idea that there may be more than one side of the story.
Do you accept without question the interviews with "ex-homosexuals" explaining from experience how bad the "homosexual lifestyle" is? (I have heard similar stories from ex-catholics-- and even similar testimonies from recent converts to Christianity about their ex-sinful life.)
A little skepticism is a good thing... especially for those of you who want to see things in such unquestioning, right-and-wrong terms.
Are FLDS sect's beliefs sufficient grounds for taking the kids?
(By Faye Bowers, The Christian Science Monitor, May 27, 2008)
Are the beliefs of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), the polygamous sect that the state of Texas has also accused of child abuse, sufficient grounds for removing all the children from the group's compound in Eldorado, Texas?
The answer now lies in the hands of the Texas Supreme Court, and how it rules will help resolve a major church-state clash that began when Texas officials last month took some 460 minors from the sect's Yearning for Zion ranch after receiving phone calls from an alleged underage spouse complaining of physical abuse. That complaint, it turns out, was almost certainly a hoax - the first in a series of bad news for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS).
It also now appears that evidence about the sect's belief system that the state collected during the raid - and presented to a district court to justify its temporary removal of the children - is probably flawed. In the DFPS's biggest setback so far, a Texas appeals court on May 22 overturned the district court's decision to keep the children in state custody temporarily.
"Existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the [DFPS] witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger," the ruling read. "It is the imposition of certain alleged tenets of that system on specific individuals that may put them in physical danger."
The state's Supreme Court is expected to rule this week on DFPS's petition for emergency relief from the appeals court decision, possibly as early as Tuesday. If the appeals court decision stands, most of the children will be returned to their parents at the sect's ranch.
"If I had been advising the [DFPS officials] in their suit, I would have said, 'Don't even think of asking about their beliefs,' " says Marci Hamilton, an expert on church-state issues at the Cardozo School of Law in New York. "Ask about their conduct and intent to act. They don't have to abuse a child to be guilty of a felony if they have the intent. There should have been more focus on conduct."
The appeals court decision, in fact, was a stiff rebuke to the DFPS and the district judge who allowed the state to take custody of the FLDS children. Not only did it say the "pervasive belief system" of the FLDS sect did not endanger all the children, it also found that the removal of the children and their subsequent placement in foster care were not warranted.
Even if the high court were to side with the appeals court, that would not end the state's investigation into child-abuse allegations based on specific evidence, such as the finding that at least five underage young women are "spiritually married" to older men and have either given birth or are pregnant. Nor will it hinder the state's criminal investigation, which is expected to result in felony charges against some of the men, and possibly women, in the sect.
DFPS officials insist they were legally compelled to remove all the children from the ranch, sparking the biggest child custody case in US history, because they found many underage women with babies or pregnant, because FLDS members they interviewed provided conflicting or erroneous information about family relationships, and because the "pervasive belief system" of the sect put all the children at the ranch in danger of either participating in or becoming victims of sexual abuse.
FLDS members, however, who split with the mainstream Mormon church in the late 1800s after it officially banned polygamy, deny those claims. They've said that if there are abuses in individual families, those should be dealt with separately - not communally.
"From the very beginning of this case, I thought [the DFPS] should look at individuals and not try to treat every participant in this community as though they're all the same," says Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney for the FLDS. "They're not all the same."
It's a typical practice in child-protection agencies to remove all children from a home where abuse is likely to have occurred, says Ellen Marrus, a family law expert at the University of Houston. (Her own view is that it makes more sense to remove the abuser and get help for the others.) "If this were a house in which several immigrant families were living and one of the children were being abused, would all of the children be removed? Absolutely."
Scott McCown, a retired district judge in Texas and director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, says he finds some aspects of the appeals court decision disturbing.
"There was no mention of what the standard of proof is," says Mr. McCown. "What the [district] court had to find was sufficient evidence to satisfy an ordinary person of prudence and caution that there was a danger to these children. The court of appeals treated this more like a final trial when this was a temporary order."
He is uneasy, too, over the appeals court's inattention to evidence of "spiritual marriages" and their effect on children, given that polygamy is illegal in Texas.
Also expected this week are results of DNA testing on the adults at the compound, which the state ordered to establish family ties. And criminal charges are expected soon.
"I anticipate ultimately there will be some criminal charges pursued," says Allison Palmer, an assistant district attorney. "But we will only pursue those after a full, thorough investigation."
Texas standoff: Battle over FLDS kids gets rough
Officials say Jeffs photos show abuse; critics decry state's 'sleazy' tactics
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/25/2008 10:25:55 AM MDT
SAN ANGELO, Texas - Saddle up, because it ain't over yet.
The largest child-welfare case in United States history bucked participants and spectators every which way last week - and the wild ride will continue.
The first jolt may come anytime from the Texas Supreme Court, which worked through Saturday without deciding whether to stay an appeals court decision that sends some, if not all, of about 450 children from a polygamous sect back to their parents.
The children, taken from the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas, have spent seven weeks in state custody and are scattered in shelters throughout the state. The ranch is home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The next jolt may come Tuesday. A court hearing that has already been jarring - state attorneys introduced photographs of sect leader Warren S. Jeffs giving a husbandly kiss to a 12-year-old girl he purportedly married in July 2006 - resumes.
By Thursday, the underpinnings of the state's case seemed to be buckling. Just eight mothers were left in a pool of 26 females the state believed to be 17 or younger. More were expected to be declared adults in coming status hearings. Not a single instance of physical abuse was introduced in the hearings, either. Still, five judges mechanically approved boilerplate service plans while rejecting any suggested modifications from parents' or children's attorneys.
Then came the decision of the Third Court of Appeals in Austin, Texas, which said 51st District Judge Barbara Walther abused her discretion in April by ordering hundreds of children to remain in custody without adequate evidence.
It was an uncommon reversal of a trial judge's decision. Scott Henson, who writes a blog on Texas criminal justice, said it came from a notably conservative court's "conservative wing."
A day later, the impact of the ruling played out in very different ways.
In San Antonio, a court hearing was canceled after the state agreed to return 12 children to three families temporarily while the legal gyrations take place.
In San Angelo, the state went to battle with the Jeffs photos.
The photos were entered as evidence in a 14-day custody hearing for an infant born May 12 to Louisa and Dan Jessop. The girl in the photo is Dan Jessop's sister. Attorneys for the state contend the photo is evidence that the couple lived in a household that supported underage marriage.
The photographs have left at least some attorneys for FLDS parents and children reeling. Lawyers interviewed by The Salt Lake Tribune on Saturday said they found the photos "disturbing."
But attorneys were unsettled, too, by the state's use of them now rather than at the original hearing in mid-April.
Where the photographs came from has not been explained. Nor is it clear how far the state will seek to extend their impact - a question of particular concern to attorneys for the multibranched Jeffs and Jessop families.
On Friday, state attorneys seemed to be making that connection by having Dan Jessop confirm names of about 45 siblings born to his father, Merrill Jessop.
But the photos caused legal experts such as Carl Tobias to raise the same question that has arisen with other prosecutorial moves in the case.
"Should one photo . . . serve as the basis for the state removing the 400-plus children?" said Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, and an expert in constitutional and court proceedings.
Which is the message from the Third Court of Appeals, said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform in Virginia.
The photos are as "relevant as using a compromising photo of the parish priest to take the children of all the parishioners," he said in an e-mail to The Tribune, and are a "sleazy" attempt to shape public opinion.
"If it was aimed at any real court at all, it would be the Texas Supreme Court which is preparing to hear [state's Child Protective Services] appeal of a decision ordering many of the children returned to their homes," Wexler said.
Willie Jessop, an FLDS member and spokesman, traveled to San Antonio on Friday and, until Saturday, had never seen the photographs.
He said he doesn't know the girl or anything about her situation.
He accused the state of making a calculated, unethical move by using and publicly releasing the photos.
"If that was your daughter, would you want the court to leak it to the media?" he asked. "The state put those photographs out to insinuate there were marital relations that involved sexual intercourse, and that is not true."
The girl, now 13, is in state custody and, like other children, has received a physical exam.
Whatever her situation, it does not "give the state the right to take children away when it does not have anything to do with them," Willie Jessop said.
That argument has been made repeatedly by attorneys representing FLDS parents and children.
"There may be abuse going on. I don't think anyone has argued that's not the case," said Julie Balovich, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, one of the firms that won the appeals court decision. "The question is, can you remove these children this way under Texas law?"
For now, the photographs of Jeffs are being used in just one case - that of Louisa and Dan Jessop's son. The state's challenge is unchanged: It must show their infant is in urgent danger and there is no option but to keep him in state custody, separated from his father and siblings, ages 3 1/2 and 1 1/2 .
Wexler said even if CPS' allegations are true, there are alternatives - requiring parents to live off the ranch, for instance - that protect the children "without amputating their mothers."
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ebrown wrote :
Quote:You seem to be unable (or unwilling) to accept the idea that there may be more than one side of the story.
Do you accept without question the interviews with "ex-homosexuals" explaining from experience how bad the "homosexual lifestyle" is? (I have heard similar stories from ex-catholics-- and even similar testimonies from recent converts to Christianity about their ex-sinful life.)
A little skepticism is a good thing... especially for those of you who want to see things in such unquestioning, right-and-wrong terms.
would you also be sceptical about what some of the young catholic boys said they experienced by priests of the boston diocese ?
(you probably know that those were not the only cases where children and teens were sexually abused by priests . we have - unfortunately - also had a share of those problems here in canada . perhaps those priests should also have been given the "benefit of the doubt" ) .
i have seen a number of interviews over the years with different former members of mormon splinter groups - both men and women by the way - from both the U.S. and canada .
even though these people were interviewed over a period of years , their stories were remarkably similar .
as dlowan already said , grown-ups having a free will can practice whatever living arrangements suit them .
i don't have a problem with that .
when it comes to children and teens , i am of a slightly different opinion .
