The FLDS women seem to have a very valid complaint about the Walther court not meeting the criterion for removing children. Obviously no attempt was made to keep children in the home. No alternative was offered to total removal, and no evidence of danger to "physical health or safety" was shown. The idea that religious belief should be the crux of the DFPS argument for removal is especially repulsive/outrageous. CPS would appear to have assumed the role of dictating what is acceptable or unacceptable as regards religious belief; on penalty of mass child removal if they don't think a particular brand of religion fits their standard. Since when did religious beliefs become the standard for removal?

If religious beliefs are to be the standard for removal, then maybe the authorities should be looking more closely at other "dangerous" religions. What about the church of Satan - don't they have children - surely they need protecting? And what about Catholic children ... surely any parent that brings a child to Catholic church/school is putting that child in danger of being physically molested ... so why not use the CPS "bad religion" logic to put all Catholic children into State custody? Have heard the Muslims are more polygamous than the FLDS; so maybe CPS should focus on rounding up all Muslim children found in a polygamous family? I would think any religion can be attacked on their belief, especially by persons belonging to a different religion.

What happens to all these allegations of plural (a/k/a spiritual) marriages, and the allegations of sexual abuse of underage ladies by gentlemen of a somewhat older age, if it comes out in testimony at any trials that any or all of the pregnancies were the result of artificial insemination?

Gee, if your's or my child was removed for what ever reason then visitation was and is out of the question. These mothers and fathers brought this on themselves, being tight lipped about last names and such only escalated the problem to where it is today. I am sure if you want to survey every parent who has had their child removed for any reason if they have been given visitation rights or even know where there child is you will find they have no clue, and rely on the State to tell them what to do, when to do it if they want custody and visitation rights restored. Texas has the courage to do what Mark Shurtleff does not have the backbone to do.

If, in fact, children's welfare is the question, shouldn't the state of Texas look at all the children they have placed in foster-care? Isn't abuse considered common-place in that community?

"If religious beliefs are to be the standard for removal, then maybe the authorities should be looking more closely at other "dangerous" religions."

Nice attempt at setting up a strawman, but when religious beliefs include raping underage girls, those beliefs are no longer protected beliefs and people practicing those beliefs deserve to have their children taken away.

I would bet you believe in flying saucers also!!!!
I've been reading comments on this ever since it happened, the Deseret News and most of the people who comment need to get some morality to them and quit standing behind "religious beliefs" for the purpose of excusing immorality, perversion, physical, mental, spiritual (of the soul of an individual) abuse. You want to stand behind wrong under the guise of right! One day the Lord will explain to you whats right! But then again it may be too late for you to learn that.

God bless Texas and "right"

I just don’t understand the state of Texas they painted every person that lived on the ranch with one big brush, all the men are abusers, all the women are liars, and all the children are abused. The state had no right to just go in and take every child out of every household just because they prescribed to a particular belief system. About the underage girls, how many girls under the age of 18 do you know about that have or have had children. The numbers might surprise you.

This is the part where we find out that this entire thing really is about their religion. If CPS is worried about sexual abuse, that won't happen with the men gone. They're really afraid of "indoctrination". First Amendment, anyone?

These FLDS wouldn't have this problem if they didn't present insurmountable roadblocks to the CPS that was responding to what they believed at the time to be a legitimate concern. Even if that concern is not valid, the fact that they've unearthed other information is reason enough to sustain an investigation.

This is not about religious rights or the infringement thereof; this about the possible human rights abused existing under the guise of religious practice. Religious rights don't include protection again possible abuse.

The state of Texas seems to be full of the stupid gene with a very high concentration in the Government.

I do not see where the State had provided any significant evidence of "immorality, perversion, physical, mental, spiritual" abuse. One all those points, the FLDS people would seem to be better than the Texas and US population as a whole.

In crying "outrage" at the CPS and government action in this case, most of us in no way intend to defend abuse of any kind committed by FLDS parents. Nor do we intend to deny that any abuse was perpetrated. The problem is that the entire community of children were taken away from their homes, even their mothers, without any good proof for individual cases. Even the CPS admitted almost immediately that the majority of the children did NOT show signs of abuse. And 41 children with previous broken bones and fractures? But they won't even comment about it? Give me a break. That's not even 10%, and that's not bad for kids who don't watch TV all day. In my family there were five kids and 2 of us had had broken bones--falling out of a tree, football. That's more than 10%. And what about those children who were in the 11 homes mentioned where polygamy and child bridehood was not practiced? The point is that an entire community of children was stolen away with NO PROOF. You HAVE to judge individual cases. It's wrong to take kids, THEN try to find a case for doing it. THAT'S wrong.

And by the way - the CPS didn't take over 400 children from multiple homes. They took over 400 children FROM ONE HOME. The entire compound was one large family unit, surrounded by 10 ft walls and a watchtower. These were not multple homes - it was one large group compound. Some of you think the CPS should have taken only some children that showed abuse, but they all lived in the same environment.

When the UK had a problem with systematic child marriage on Pitcairn Island among Fletcher Christian's descendants a few years ago, they imported judges, they didn't clear out the entire island. There was no circus.

Texas could have learned something from them.

To james:

*sigh* I don't know how many times the same debate has to be re-hashed and re-fought on these comment boards.

There is a DIFFERENCE between teenagers who CHOOSE to be sexually active, and those who are forced into 'spiritual' marriages and sexual relations, often with close male relatives, and given no choice of their own.

This is about sexual ABUSE, and incest, and rape, not sexual freedom of choice.

1. The FLDS leader, Warren Jeffs, convicted of rape by accomplice for performing the forced underage marriage of a 14 y/o girl to her 19 y/o cousin. Not the only case, Jeffs is facing trial for similar charges in Arizona. There have been numerous other convictions of other FLDS mens for similar offenses. All showing a pattern of this type of behavior within the FLDS community.

2. A plea from a teenaged girl within the compound asking for help to escape from a forced marriage. (now assumed to be a hoax - but, still probably cause to investigate)

3. Numerous teenagers (over 30) 14-17 year-olds who were pregnant or already had children.

All signs, to any reasonable person looking at the whole picture, that there was possible abuse happening at the YFZ Ranch.

Finally. The FLDS refusing to provide proper identification of the children and their parental relationships, making it impossible for CPS to separate out individuals who might be responsible for abuse.

The FLDS are solely responsible for creating a situation in which all of the children had to be taken into protective custody.

Utah Mother--

"
This is about sexual ABUSE, and incest, and rape, not sexual freedom of choice. "

What percentage of teenage pregnancies (12-14) in the US do NOT involve incest and/or rape (including statutory) and which 14 year olds are old enough to legally have "freedom of choice"?

Re: Signs of Abuse

There it is again. You claim along with the rest that every person in that compound was guilty by association. I'm not saying DON'T punish the guilty, but remember that in this country, you are considered innocent until PROVEN guilty. And that does not go for GROUPS or COMMUNITIES, mind you. American citizens have a right to be dealt with as individuals.

Re: realitycheck60

When it has been admitted that there were homes in that community that consisted of a man and his wife, both adults from before the time that they were married, with children born to the two of them, and no others living in the home, your argument is shown to be erroneous. These 464 children were NOT the occupants of ONE HOME, but only one community. Only a person with a very warped view of what a family is would argue beyond that point. I say it again: you CANNOT take children from their homes and their parents simply because they are "guilty by association."

The FLDS engage in polygamous marriages, so they won't cooperate with officials in identifying which fathers, mothers and children belong to each family.

They don't have marriage licenses, birth certificates, or other records to show relationships.

They won't identify which pregnant girls belong to which family.

Then they expect CPS to be clairvoyant enough to know that some families have only one father, one mother, a few kids, and no underaged pregnant girls.

Maybe if they'd been more cooperative, all of the kids wouldn't have had to be removed.

You're confusing punishment with protection. The children were taken into protective custody until Texas determines that it's safe to return them to their families.

No charges have been brought against anybody for child abuse. Yet!

Since the FLDS refused to identify the parents of each child, Texas was forced to determine parent-child relationships through DNA tests.

The FLDS created the confusion, so stop blaming CPS.

It's just sad that all of the children have to suffer because of the actions of their parents.

Maybe if the reason for the children's removal was their belief you would have a valid point. But the truth of the matter is that it's not about their religion, it's about ABUSE, SYSTEMATIC ABUSE!!! Based off of that the CPS is within their rights to take the children, relocate them, and do whatever else they need to do to PROTECT THE CHILDREN!

"You're confusing punishment with protection. The children were taken into protective custody until Texas determines that it's safe to return them to their families."

"Protective custody" sounds like Newspeak for punitive kidnapping. As in, "we'll teach you polyggers to move to Texas".

Would you care to explain why you don't think that forcing young girls into spiritual marriages isn't sexual abuse?

Don't try to change the subject or point to another group. Let's talk strictly about the FLDS practice of FORCING young girls to marry older men.

"Would you care to explain why you don't think that forcing young girls into spiritual marriages isn't sexual abuse?"

It is sexual abuse.

G:

I totally second the Newspeak comment!!! Hey, and while we're at it, let's walk into any of these High Schools with high teen pregnancy rates and take all of the children into "protective custody" for a few months until we can figure out who the bad parents are. And in the meantime.....the state is to be explicitly trusted with the safe handling of our children, right?

What this all comes down to is the fact that we have allowed the government to put itself supreme to the family. THEY can decide who they think are good parents and who aren't. Sure, there are cases when children are not safe with their parents. No arguments. But unless you have dang good proof for each individual case, the ABUSE is perpetrated by the government in taken children from innocent families. FAMILIES are the central unit of society, supreme to the government, and the government should NEVER overstep the family boundaries unless it is proven in specific cases to be absolutely necessary and unavoidable. PERIOD.

I'm going to second something I said earlier, if the moderator doesn't mind.

Look at what the U.K. did on Pitcairn Island. The British authorities made it abundantly clear that child marriage was illegal and a serious offense. A number of men, including the mayor, was found guilty and imprisoned. They did this while minimizing damage to Pitcairn's economy and culture and without creating a media circus. They even built a prison on the island specifically for those charged.

Not everybody there is happy with the result, the locals feel like faraway London has made impositions upon their culture. But they went about it the right way.

Texas could learn from that.

One owner-
One peice of property-
One warrant-

It matters not the number of buildings (indiviual homes) on this one peice of property. The families were not seperate according to the law.

If you have a weird uncle who lives in the attic over your garage and he (name an illegal activity involving children) if the children are at risk then ALL the children in your home can be taken into protective custody. This can happen even if he is not really your uncle. ALL the children living on that one peice of property in Texas were at risk because child abuser(s) OBVIOUSLY live there too.

FYI... If a child watches abuse of any other person that is child abuse. How many of the children knew the young girls were "married"? How many know all females must have sex with whomever they are assigned a sexual relationship?

Re: According to the law:

One owner - a city

One piece of property - a low income housing project

One warrant, allowing arrest / removal / detention of all residents under 18 -- No way! That logic doesn't fly, even in our new Homeland.

To Utah Mother:

Legally teenagers can not choose to be sexually active. All sexual activity by 14 year olds with 19 year olds is statutory rape.

There is not a legal difference between when it is done in spiritual marriage or in some other context. However, I am not sure why I am saying this, because it seems those who want to justify promiscuity and 12-year-olds being pregnant will do so no matter what.

The basis of consent laws is that children under a certain age are incapable of giving consent to sexual relations. There are studies that show that many of the 14-year-olds in the US who give birth are giving birth to babies whose fathers are over the age of 20.

The scary thing is that you are not up in arms about this situation. Fortunantly the Attorneys Generals in Kansas and Indiana are, and they have tried to force open Planned Parenthoods records to find these rapists. Unfortunantly the courts have ruled against the AGs and stopped these efforts.

I do not support polygamy or marrying underage girls. However, I think there are other problems that are as pressing.

If you do a search under statutory rape you will find that there are charges brought in many cases. Georgia seems to have brought many cases under this cover.

On the other hand there are organizations that seek to overturn the statutory rape laws.

However my main issue is no charges have yet been brought in Texas.

Hollow Arguments: "when religious beliefs include raping underage girls, those beliefs are no longer protected beliefs and people practicing those beliefs deserve to have their children taken away."

To quote you back at yourself, "Nice attempt at setting up a strawman" by conflating beliefs and acts.

Beliefs are protected. Period. America doesn't punish "thought crimes" (at least, not officially -- yet).

For example, the Bible says that, under certain circumstances, forcible rape is a marriage ceremony (Deuteronomy 22:27-29), yet there has never been an attempt to remove all children whose parents believe the Bible is the word of God. Belief that includes raping is a protected belief. However, practicing that belief in America today would result in serious consequences, probably including having one's children taken away.

Acts are what our laws attempt to regulate. Not beliefs.

The city legally divides the "housing project" into seperate single family dwellings. The property in Texas was not legally divided.
You can have a mother-in-law apartment in your home but you cannot rent it out as a seperate apartment UNLESS you legally divide the apartment from the house.
If the city you mention is sued, the "housing project" can be sold to pay the debt but they are counted as single family dwellings. The same cannot be said about the Texas compund. It would be sold as one property with several structures included.

This petition is (in my opinion), ridiculous. All parents, not just men, have a responsibility to protect their children from abuse. The women failed to do this and therefore should not have custody of their children. They should have supervised visitation, until they have demonstrated that they are able to protect their children.

The mothers allowed their underage girls to engage in sexual relationships with men, they abandoned their male children. They entered into polygamous relationships which perpetuate these two forms of abuse. The behavior of these women is criminal.

Certainly there are prevalent and obvious forms of abuse within the FLDS compound. That women are unable to protect their children from these kinds of abuse, opens up the children to more victimization in the form of other less common forms of abuse such as physical abuse. CPS has not completed its investigation. It is finding other forms of abuse such as an excessive number of broken bones, that most likely came from physical abuse.

The FLDS wants children returned to homes in which no abuse has yet occurred due to solely the ages of the children or the parents. That should not occur.

There's not a whisper of recent coverage of this suit on Google News.

Did DFPS respond?

What did they say?

What is the status of the suit?