Posted on 04/16/2008 1:39:51 PM PDT by MissouriConservative
Several women from the polygamist retreat raided more than a week ago defended their lifestyle Wednesday in an exclusive interview with FOX News, calling it "a wonderful pure life," and saying government officials deceived them when they raided the ranch where they live.
***SNIP***
"I want the world to know that our children have been torn from us and that they need us," said Sally, a mother of nine.
"They told us that they were going to put us on a bus and take us to where it was a bigger, better place to be — where our family could be together," she added.
***SNIP***
On Monday, officials began separating women and some of their offspring without warning, members of the sect said.
***SNIP***
Texas Children's Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said officials decided that children are more truthful in interviews about possible abuse if their parents are not around.
"I can tell you we believe the children who are victims of abuse or neglect, and particularly victims at the hands of their own parents, certainly are going to feel safer to tell their story when they don't have a parent there that's coaching them with how to respond," Meisner said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Thank you so much for the clarification.
Setting aside the plural marriage thing (which wrecks it from the get go on it's own), even with the law being changed to 16, they can't give their daughters to be married if the marriage is not what the daughter wants.
My understanding, from reading the widely published experiences of women who have left, is that the leaders decide on the marriages, and they take place even if the child disagrees and has to be forced.
Forcing children into abuse at the hands of an outside party is never legal.
Ditto what you said.
I live in Portland, OR. I see it everyday on my way to work. But I don't see the police raiding every pregnant 14 year old house and taking other children out of the home.
And apparently it was not enough for law enforcement either because THAT WAS NOT the probable cause they used to invade the compound. They used an unknown tipster accusing a man that does not live there or anywhere else in TX.
If they believed crimes where being committed they should certainly investigate, but using the tactic they did the police may well lose the ability to present any evidence since it all stems from this “Phone call”. Fruits of the poisonous vine and all.
Folks should be concerned with the boys because not all of them are “run off” ~ nor are they selected into the inner circles. They just kind of disappear.
That’s why I keep saying these aren’t marriages. If one party is forced into it and does not wish to do it, all holy words muttered over it won’t make it any less rape.
Time to tap the brakes on hyperbole, acfan.
Just as I light into liberals who love to spout Bush = Hitler, I've got to point out that the above remark is beyond the pale.
It's obvious that, barring an incomplete undestanding of history, you've never actually visited a concentration camp.
I'm no fan of Texas CPS, but to equate them with Nazis is absurd.
Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
And would not apply in this cult case anyway.
I think that is a male on male pedophile.
Exactly. See my post 55.
In Texas a pregnant 13 year old is prima facie evidence of a crime having been commited.
Anyway, I could not help but take note of where you said you live and where I know of a particularly abusive division of the same sort of thing that FLDS is into.
It doesn't get any better towards the East in Idaho.
I have a simple Question. Where is the 16 year old? Could it be this is a Lesbian led attack on a Conservative religious group? Moslems are openly practicing Polygamy in Michigan. Why is that being ignored? Oh that’s right its the Religion of Peace and we are trying to get the Moslem World to support our War on Terror.
These children will not be into drugs, porn, scandal etc. They live a very conservative Religious life. What happened to the First Amendment? Yes they are different. Will we be raiding Lancaster PA and attacking the Amish? Or will we be going after the Mennonites?
I am a Nichiren Buddhist another minority in America. And this I find alarming. What happened to Freedom. They have had an informant in their for four years. And only now this is happening. Are we drinking the Feminist Media Kool Aid?
Since I'm not in a polygamist cult that marries off kids in their early teens, I'm not worried about it.
These women are law breakers, as are their husbands.
If I DID, I hope CPS would come get them. I would be a terribly abusive mother in that case.
BTTT, excellent!!
What about if mom or dad forces the girl to marry?
I feel terrible that all those kids have been taken from their mothers when there is no physical abuse, but you don't dare allow them near a kid of either sex close to puberty. They "marry" the girls to some geezer who rapes them and run off the boys. Sick, real sick.
The way they keep women under control is by getting them pregnant when they are very young, so they are bound to the child and also to the man. The woman who wrote about her escape told of how she was kept under control though threats to punish her children for her sins. She decided to make a break for it when the "church fathers" started grooming her daughter for the pleasure of one of them.
Otherwise, they risk the whole thing coming down around their heads...huge law suits where the sect/cult ends up getting hundreds of thosuands or maybe millions of tax payer dollars in settlements, and making it harder to go after and investigate and prosecute the fiends later on down the road.
Tough choices...but in todays legal world, that's the unfortunate reality.
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