The Blind leading the Blind, if they’re smart they will investigate before Sentencing (unlike the USA)
They have already convicted before investigating, let’s just hope they can find time for the investigation before the sentence.
"Something must be done," he said.
Here is how it works, first we convict, then we Sentence, and if public outcry is too high we investigate. –USA handbook on minorities.

And the sickness of a patriarchal culture keeps on coming.

Check out the photos to the left of the artcle and look at No. 6. "employees preparing fence posts on Monday". One looks about 10, one maybe 12. Why these two aren't in school on a Monday they don't say. I find it very telling in contrast to the others showing kids playing games.

I would be surprised if Canada raids their compound just because of their religious beliefs. We're talking about a country where Sikhs (I think that's the group) can carry knives to public schools for religious reasons.

Even if they do, I'd be more surprised if there isn't a n evenbigger political price to pay than in Texas.

Leave the victims alone. The men are the perpetrators!

So much better not to have "little house on the prairie" anywhere. Just stamp it out. It is so much preferable and right to have our current culture. I just love my gang and drug infested neighborhood.

And if we are going to institutionalize underage sex, its so much better that it happens with the beat of HIP HOP in the background, while mommy is in her drug induced haze. Government knows just what to do to keep us happy. Yay for them! Down with those dirty animals in Texas, Colorado City, and Canada. They are wrecking the planet.

(Please see the absurd sarcasm before censoring my comments) Good grief. I just can not believe what a witch hunt this has become.

I agree that the victims should be left alone.
Save the children. The mom's need to have their heads examed, knowingly to let their daughters go thru birthing, when they should be playing w/ dolls, not tending to their babies. Babies having babies is sad !!

I know someone who managed to get away from that group in "Bountiful" with her children. She was abused and when she returned for a funeral of one of her parents or grandparents her "husband" raped her! She left because the "Elders" of the group were planning on sending a group of girls to Colorado City, AZ to be married and her daughter was one of them, so she took her kids and left. Last I heard she is doing good :)
It may take the BC government a while to do something, but they will do it! I just hope they do it right and take care of the kids and women, my friend said they are very much brainwashed and don't know it unless they get out.

Shut 'em down! Shut 'em ALL down!

There is no place in this world for brainwashing women into believing that God wants them to be sex slaves for lustful men!

Polygamy is not an issue of freedom, it is an issue of enslavement of women.

STOP IT ALL NOW!

"Polygamy is not an issue of freedom, it is an issue of enslavement of women."

Actually it IS an issue of freedom, where only consenting adults are involved.

The fact is that the government has no right to tell its citizens how they can live. That so many Canadians endorse other 'alternative lifestyles' but not that one speaks of bias.

Whoever has access to the captive kids web page webmaster please inform him/her that I can no longer view the time line with my safari browser, although it used to display just fine. When I try to view it I now get an error message "Error: Failed to derive URL prefix for Timeline API code files" I also get a similar error message for the other pages, but after refreshing the page I can eventually view the other pages.

Why do the women and children have to make their own clothes, while the men wear jeans, dress shirts and ties? (Pictures to the right) The girls are wearing sandels with socks a month ago in Canada, Isn't it cold in Canada in April? They can't even afford shoes for their children to wear to school. It's not just abuse, but also neglect. I hope they take them all down. Don't mess with TEXAS!

Yeah!! Lets get rid of anyone that isnt the same as us!! (Wheres the tar and feather when you need it??)

I wish to ask one question. Canada allows Muslims to
be married up to four women, as long as the marriage
was officiated in another country,where such types of marriages are legal. Canada then recognizes these
marriages as legal.This law was just changed within
past months. How would this affect the situation in
Bountiful? This is not intended as a trick question.

Religions not sending kids to school is accepted in both the United States and in Canada. I am speaking of the Huiterites. With the Huits. girls drop out of school at age 8 and boys at the age of 10. Girls are then taught homemaking, and boys are appentinced to a trade. THey marry in there early 20's and divorce is almost unheard among their sect.
The State of Montana lost its trial when it tried to force the kids to school. Courts ruled the reglious believes where fundimental. I see no difference with the FLDS kids helping out like this.

Hutterites, (check your spelling) among whom I've lived all my life, do not rape their children. Incest and polygamy are forbidden. People can freely leave the colony, and those that live there are always in town. Usually at the free internet place checking on hockey. They are not religious prison camps like the flds. And, they drink booze. A lot. Under the guise of religious freedom, no less. They are a patriarchal society, but if you think men run the colony, ask the men on a colony.
Hutterites are apart from the world, but they don't hide from it.
They do, however, think mormons are nuts.
Here in Canada, we think the religious prison camp at bountiful should be shut down.

Winston Blackmore, according to the article above, has 2 dozen wives and more than 100 children. Who is supporting these 125+ individuals? Think it might be you and me, maybe? And do the people in Bountiful pay taxes (they don/t in Utah/Arizona)? If they don't, who is paying for their police/fire/schools? Think it might be you and me, maybe? And when the communities in other places got lucrative contracts, they could "beat" the competition in bids because the labor is free (the people in the community). This seems like child labor laws being broken here. Persecute/prosecute them not on religious grounds but for the laws they are breaking!

The polygamist do not support their wives. The wives work for their room and board in between having babies. They are slaves. The polygamist wives spend time with the pervert and then make a baby and then have the baby, they home school and teach the kids, and have another baby, cook, clean, polish, have another baby, they do the washing for the first wife, and then have another baby, grow a garden, spend time with the pervert and have another baby, clean the house, and have even a another baby, spend time again with the pervert, and make another baby, make the beds, but first make another baby with the pervert and then make the bed, wash clothes, have another baby, spend time with the pervert, and make another baby and then they die. whewwwwwwwwwwww!!!!

Don't worry about them being too cold. They're forced to wear long underwear at all times. I'd be worried more about those in Texas when summer comes.

I live in St. George Utah. We see people from Hildale and Colorado City all the time. They are US citizens and deserve due process. I read the comments from the mental health workers this morning. They could not believe how good the kids were. They must have been brainwashed to act nicely. The mothers were kind and patient. Simpltons more brain washing. The men have a reputation for working hard. Brainwashing. We need to get them in front of TV and be part of the real world. I don't agree with everything they are doing there. It is when we follow men blindly we get in trouble; Warren Jeffs, the nightly news, radio show hosts.

So are you a plural wife, or did you get out before? I know that there are different levels of education among the group, I dealt with Rulon Jeff's once and he had a nurse with him, wondered if it was one of his wives, she was a very sharp cookie. I also know that there were Dr.s that were polygamists. I am reading a book right now about the early church, they went through much of the same thing, but for different reasons. The Mormon church today, evolved with society, they didn't lower their standards, but they stopped the practice. The FLDS group has in many ways stayed locked in time, and as we learn and grow in society, we learn that some social behaviors are not acceptable and we change. These people need to bathe more often, wash their hair, cut it and get rid of the cloned dresses, they don't have to wear mini skirts or low cut tops, they don't have to get tattos or multiple piercings, they don't have to wear tons of makeup, but they could be beautiful and alive woman with spirituality. They need to be what God created, not someones slave.

I am a feminist mother & I cannot believe Texas is getting by with this!It is the usual thing of punishing women and children. The damage they have done can never be repaired. Those kids will NEVER thank us!! I do not agree w/the culture (but maybe this is just a roundabout way to prepare for locking up another unpopular group who practises polygamy?). Please! There are several teens at our fine, upstanding little local high school - kids whose kids in this little town share the same father - maybe they never married the mothers - so of course they aren't "polygamists". But thats okay, right? So when are we going to head into say, the Satanists homes (I passed a car w/kids & bumper sticker indicating that family allegiance recently)what about THEIR kids? I hear they have some pretty wierd practises(dare I add long or dirty hair, or or maybe cloned black clothing w/ pentagrams)If this is about cultural ideology & what another judges to abusive - ever watch an infant get circumcised? Shouldn't we protect these babies and remove them from the flagrant physical and emotional torture their parents impose on THEM? Where does it end?

Great post. An honest one for a change.

If only the attorneys general of Utah and Arizona had the same attitude that British Columbia's counterpart, Wally Oppal, displays. Imagine if Mark Shurtleff said he "plans to arrest someone on a polygamy charge or ask the courts to weigh in on [Hildale's] legal standing within the month.

"Something must be done," he said. "I personally feel, and our government feels, that it would be inappropriate to do nothing."

This is what Utah, British Columbia and Arizona should do. Stamp out polygamy. Yes, they should protect the children from child abuse and underage marriages, especially to cousins, and they should prevent interbreeding, but that is dealing with a problem that started with polygamy. Eliminate polygamy now. If B.C. actually follows through and tries to prosecute based on polygamy, there's a chance the polygamists could prevail. And if that happened, there would be a mass migration of polygamists from Utah, Arizona and Texas to Canada.

To the anonymous Canadian who wrote that Hutterites think Mormons are nuts:

The term "Mormon" should be applied to members of the LDS Church, not to members of breakaway sects. Those who persist in calling FLDS members Mormons are careless or insensitive, or they delight in offending main-stream LDS. Though "Mormon" originally was pejorative, LDS members realize that the term now is just a simpler way of saying a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The AP/UPI Stylebook permits Mormon only when describing members of the main LDS Church.

Like Hutterites, LDS "do not rape their children. Incest and polygamy are forbidden." Mormons can live anywhere they like and can even leave the church anytime they please. Most Mormons are educated in public schools and watch TV, use the internet, read newspapers and magazines and are among the most educated people on earth. Utah Mormons tend to follow basketball and college football. Active LDS don't drink booze. Mormons are apart from the world in their abstinence from tobacco, alchohol, Sunday recreation and sex outside marriage, so they are, as Christ commanded, in the world but not of the world.

Canada, which respects the right of SOME religious groups to practice polygamy, and supports gay marriage, will open a can of worms if they move against this group because their religion allows polygamy.
Interesting that Canada just raised their age of consent. It was acceptable at 14, like Texas, until the FLDS were targeted in both places.
I certainly wouldn't want my kids married or active sexually at 14 or even 16 (not that it doesn't happen all over America), but I don't see that how people dress or wear their hair is my business. As to communal lifestyles, what was the United Order? It didn't last, but it certainly was practiced. I lived among the Amish and Mennonites for years, and they have an almost communal lifestyle--kids only go to Amish schools from 8-16. Dissent is certainly discouraged strongly. Shunning is practiced. They all work hard, even the kids. Abuse does happen among them as, unfortunately, it does elsewhere.
We are mixing up too many issues here--sexual abuse is wrong! Forced marriages are wrong! But targeting the sincere beliefs of people with the weight of government behind us--just because we don't agree with them is wrong, too.

to "feminist mother": Welcome to the club. I'm thrilled that you identify yourself that way. Many many of those children taken into custody will thank us. While a feminist activist working to change our society for women I raised five boys in Texas,and homeschooled the youngest two, with no religious beliefs. I was rescued as a child of two from my cultist abusive parents. People on the outside of our family made all the difference in the world to my retaining my personhood. The citizens of my small hometown in Ohio made sure I knew there were choices I could make for myself when I attained adulthood. This whole situation is about making a difference in 463 childrens lives. A good difference. I know.

Terrorizing Mormons is just a distraction for corrupt public figures who don't want to be responsible. While all the Mormons are being tarred and feathered greedy people are looting the National treasury and this country is bankrupt. Mormons are not the problem they are being used as a distraction from the REAL problems.

OK, for those of your posting that Texas CPS is going to pay a price. I'm still waiting. Texas FLDS is paying the price for their persistence in behavior that smacks of mind control and worse.

To G:
Age 16 is the age of consent here. Amazing how many young women claiming to be 18 weren't.

This will be a problem no matter what country they go to.

Just a correction about the hutterites and their schooling. All Hutterite children attend school until they are 14 years of age - male and female.

Wally Oppal from B.C. also stated in the news that the legal minds he had consulted told him that if polygamy cases went to court it was likely it would be declared legal in Canada. That is one of the reasons they have not prosecuted.

To Bigger fish to fry,
Maybe you think polygamy is alright , but many of us would disagree, because slavery is very evil and wrong! And, it is the women and children who are terrorized by some old man every night, and forced into marriage, forced to have children with some old stinker they DO NOT LOVE! So please, tell me, BIG FISH, how bad is that? It's not ever the men who suffers in these polygamy relationships, it is the women only. So if you are a man I would completely understand your narrow minded point of view.

I am a feminist with a Master's degree. A true feminist allows for freedom of choice even if it doesn't coincide with what you personally believe. As a female, I would be miserably depressed in the FLDS community but I will defend a woman's right to choose such a lifestyle. Enough women return* to suggest that decision is made, despite my personal rejection and repulsion to this lifestyle.
A real feminist allows for abortion as well as having many children. It's a matter of choice and then support even in personal opposition.

* See Betty Jessop, daughter of Caroline Jessop. She returned after living on the outside from age 13 - 18 and two days.
Fawn Holms, former talk show circuit guest opposing FLDS and now returned to the group.

I find it very sad that only a few comments on here actually sound like a sane, rational, intelligent person posted them. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. Those children taken in the Texas raid will never thank the state for what they did. Not all polygamist women are "slaves." And FLDS members aren't Mormons. If they'd raided any neighborhood in this country, they'd have found just as many, if not more, children being abused. We have a lot of screwed up people having children in this country and all over the world. It's not exclusive to any religion, sect, race, etc. Until people open their eyes, listen, and stop pointing the finger and passing outrageous blanket judgements, we will continue, as a nation, to victimize those already being hurt by preditors, even more.

Isn't Senator Hatch the chairman of the Justice Committee of the House. I guess it is a token position and no real authority to do anything. If it did he could enforce the constitution. He is a different man when he is running for office but useless otherwise.
Check the IV ammendment.

Oh for heaven's sake, FLDS ARE NOT MORMONS! There is a DIFFERENCE!!!

FLDS are not Mormons!
FLDS are not Mormons!
FLDS are not Mormons!
FLDS are not Mormons!
FLDS are not Mormons!

Saying FLDS are Mormons is the equivalent of saying Protestants and Puritans are Catholics! They BROKE OFF from the Mormon church, they're NOT Mormons!!!

Please understand this!

Re RL 10:18 am. I appologise if we sound irrational but the thought of these children being draged by force from their homes sickens me and a lot of other people. The sadness of these poor soles who wonder where there mother is makes me cry.
I have thought that similar thoughts have been had by some of the Texas Rangers and I wish they could speak out without fear of repremand.
Oh I forgot, they break the law (2 year olds?) Wake up. So do speeders.

"Isn't Senator Hatch the chairman of the Justice Committee of the House."

No. How could a Senator be chairman of a House committee? And he couldn't be chairman right now anyway because the Dems are in control.

The issue here is not whether or not you agree or don't agree with their lifestyle choices. These people deserve due process in the legal system and the only reason that anything should happen is if underage girls have been sexually abused -- there is no proof of this, only speculation based on a phone call. The sad truth is that some of these kids probably have better lives and are treated better than many american children living in poverty and broken homes all across america. While I don't agree with the FLDS, I respect that in order to have freedom they must be allowed to continue their lifestyle as long as their marriages are with consenting adults -- not children. I think after all is said and done they should be given an option to go back or to stay in the real world not just erase their way of life and "shut it down" as some people have commented. If they want to go back, that is there choice.

As a member of the LDS church I think it is important to reiterate that this group is an apostate sect, but just the same, I would expect other LDS members to realize the persecution and criticisms our church has undergone and not inflict that unnecessarily on anyone elses 'religion'. Thats my two cents, anyway.

"This is what Utah, British Columbia and Arizona should do. Stamp out polygamy."

You may be able to stamp out polygamy but you sure can't stamp out multiple sex partnerings, which seems to be the issue people are upset about (stop with the child protection thing). Hollywood will see to that. It's in the genes.

Why are people so inflamed by the very mention of polygamy? In our present society, women marry women, and men marry men; this is not only accepted,but totally legal and we can't disagree with it without being labelled a "homophobic." I believe it is perversion. Polygamy sounds pretty tame compared with that.

The California Supreme Court just ruled that the ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. I wonder when the Supreme Court will rule on Polygamy as unconstitutional? I am a monogamist and a feminist and see writing on the wall.

While the practice of polygamy is not right, I would agree that those who posted about otheres who are married and cheat on their spouse is not right either. It's the same. There is no difference. It's just that some hide behind religion to inflict abuse and brainwashing on innocent children who grow up and repeat the horrible cycle of their parents.

And...while we watch this tragic historical event unfold in Texas...

We get to watch the CA courts tell us that now anyone can marry anyone.

Those who suppposedly are in positions of leadership in our country...don't know what is right or wrong.

I'm appalled with all of this.

There will never ever be anything good come from adultery polygamy. Wrong is wrong!

There is polygamy in Ohio, Indiana & Oklahoma too that I know of. Maybe elsewhere?

To Anonymous 4:20 5/14 - Do you realize that in the Bible it tells us that God set up the priesthood as a patriarchal order, and that Heaven is a patriarchal order?

As with anything ordained of God, it isn't the patriarchal order that is sick, it is how people choose to use/abuse it. There are examples throughout history, and even today's newscasts showing precisely this - people have been twisting religion, and using the phrase "God told me so" to do whatever they wanted.

Polygamy is in the Old Testament as being practiced righteously. Solomon was even commanded by God to take multiple wives. He fell out of favor with God by becoming lustful and taking wives he was NOT commanded to take.

It isn't polygamy that's bad, it's polygamy done without the direction and hand of God that is bad. By the way, it does not matter one whit to God what society thinks about what He has commanded.

The FLDS are wrong in practicing polygamy now, and in how they do it. Just find out more about how God says it's supposed to be done before condemning it or God.

wait... you are putting YOUR view of the world in your comments.

In some country's around the world polygamy is legal and moral.

You may not agree, but you also may not be correct.

@ traditional mum & A real Feminist

I absolutely love that the women are the voice of reson on this board. I think you are absolutely right.

It seems like most of the things people use to justify their opposition to these people is based on their own faulty logic rather than the cold hard facts.

Just because we can't understand why anyone would want to live this way doesn't necessarily mean that they are being forced into it or that they are in some way being abused.

"stop with the child protection thing?
________________________________________

"a real feminist allows for abortion"
________________________________________

The law protects children.
The law allows for abortion.
The voice of reason is why we have a system of law.
The state of Texas has decided that no one can choose polygamy in Texas. Marriage laws are for the states to decide. Texas has decided.