I see you've picked this special time to humiliate yourself.
How cute.
Posted on 04/25/2008 6:36:20 AM PDT by MizSterious
SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) - Dozens of mothers from a polygamist retreat were bused away from their children Thursday, their legal efforts to stay united rejected as Texas officials sort out their massive custody case.
Two buses took the women from the San Angelo Coliseum, where they had been temporarily housed with their children. Texas officials were preparing to move the last of more than 400 children to group homes, shelters and residences, some hundreds of miles away, over the next few days.
One woman held a handwritten sign out the bus window that read: "SOS. Mothers separated. Help."
"There are no words to describe how it was," said Velvet, a mother who was forced to leave her 13-month old. She and other sect women have refused to give their last names, fearing it will affect their custody cases.
"We've been staying up nights to watch over the children because we didn't know what would happen," she said in a news conference outside the ranch gates Thursday.
In Austin, the state's 3rd Court of Appeals rejected the mothers' pleas to immediately stop authorities from busing the children taken from the ranch to foster homes.
The court agreed to hear arguments Tuesday, but attorney Robert Doggett, who represents 48 mothers, said that "having a hearing after the fact" was pointless.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyiowan.com ...
Seized polygamous sect kids face tough adjustment, articles on how and where the children were placed, Carolyn Jessup on Canadian children possibly at the ranch, legal aid group challenges judge, interview with Benjamin Bistline, 40 women choose to go to safe house instead of back to cult, 25 girls claimed to be adults, now found to be minors.
Currently collecting informative links to include with the daily threads--should appear this weekend.
As always, for the sake of orderliness (and to prevent the pulling of threads and/or messages), let's do try to stay on topic and polite. You can't have a flame war if you don't take the bait.
Now they can watch TV shows with gay protaganists and play “Grand Theft Auto” while dining on supersized McDonald’s Bic Mac combos.
And just exactly how old were the children of these mothers, hmmmmmmm? Any children over the age of one-year-old means the "mothers" were impregnated when they were under the age of 17!
Ping
What’s worse—watching McDonalds commercials, or being forced into sex as early as (according to some sources) 10?
Howdie, Miz. Thanks for the daily threads!
I see you've picked this special time to humiliate yourself.
How cute.
GOD BLESS TEXAS~
I’m missing something here. Exactly why are the babies and toddlers being removed?
I can understand removing those in dangerous situations but not the little ones. Wouldn’t it be better to leave them with their mothers until the case has been tried?
Can someone enlighten me?
I hope it turns out well and that any child abuse is properly punished. Yet, this thing has left me with an uneasy feeling. A hoax call sets off the rounding up of hundreds on the assumption that all are guilty of something.
Those poor kids probably don’t know which end is up. I hope they all can deal with what lies ahead of them.
One thing I’ve thought though- why are we not prosecuting people in our own society who impregnate 15, 16, 17 yr old girls? It happens every day, all the time and the guys go free.
We haven't had a really good "flame war" around here for a while.........
In a sweeping indictment of the raid on a secretive polygamist compound in Texas, Aspen attorney Gerry Goldstein is accusing law enforcement there of reckless disregard and unlawful taking of DNA, and he is demanding a review of their actions.
At the crux of the 39-page motion Goldstein filed Thursday in the Texas 51st Judicial District Court on behalf of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a revelation that the man authorities were looking for, Dale Evans Barlow, was in Arizona at the time of the April 3 raid. Texas Rangers searched the polygamist sect’s Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Texas, for a week after receiving reports from a woman claiming to be a 16-year-old named Sarah Jessop, who alleged that Barlow was sexually abusing her. However, police now suspect the reports were a prank engineered by a woman in Colorado Springs with a history of false reporting.
“Those officers could have and should have exercised greater diligence in verifying and determining the true whereabouts of a known convicted felon serving a probated sentence in another state. At the very least, alleging that Dale Barlow was located on the YFZ Ranch — without checking with the Arizona Probation Office these officers knew to be supervising him — constituted a reckless disregard for either standard law enforcement protocol or common sense,” reads Goldstein’s request for a hearing to investigate the issuance of the search-and-arrest warrants.
“Moreover, prior to executing the initial warrant, (Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran) was advised that Dale Barlow was in Arizona and not on the premises sought to be searched. In fact, prior to entering the premises Sheriff Doran actually spoke to Dale Barlow in Arizona by cell phone, confirming his driver license number and the fact that he was in Arizona.”
Barlow advised the sheriff that he did not know Sarah Jessop, that he had not been to Texas in more than 20 years, and that he had never been to Yearning For Zion Ranch, according to the filing. Thus, Goldstein argues, law enforcement had been advised and had verified that the only person suspected of posing an immediate risk to children was not located at the polygamist compound.
Excerpt--the rest at source: Aspen Daily News Online
I feel for these children. They are all in my prayers. This case is a mess and the children end up bearing the brunt of everything. It’s a terrible situation all around.
I remember the outrage when children were seperated from their mothers when ICE raided a sweatshop in MA. If these people were Illegal Aliens this would not have happened.
Women gather with their children at temporary housing in San Angelo, Texas, soon after being removed from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' compound in Eldorado. The children are playing with bubble water.
The roots and beliefs of the Texas sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, go back to the founding of mainstream Mormonism in the 19th century.
In the 1840s, Mormon prophet Joseph Smith taught that "plural marriage" was given to him in a divine revelation and was ordained by God as sacred. As Mormons migrated west, they took polygamy with them.
But in 1890, after Smith's death, the mainstream church disavowed polygamy, partly as a means of gaining statehood for Utah. By 1904, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pledged to excommunicate anyone in plural marriage -- a policy that continues today. Modern Mormons in good standing with the church eschew polygamy as an earthly practice, but they recognize it as a "divine principle" that may apply in heaven.
But some Mormons continued the practice. "These people believe God doesn't change his mind," said Jan Shipps, a prominent historian of Mormonism.
"They felt the main church went astray," Shipps said.
In the early 1900s, polygamous Mormons clustered in the remote southern Utah region called Short Creek in hopes they could avoid church and government oversight. They could not, and all Short Creek polygamists were excommunicated by the church in the 1930s.
Soon, schisms led to multiple polygamous sects, including the sect at the center of the Eldorado raid. Members of that church believe in:
The group is led by a single man known as "the Prophet" who is believed to receive divine revelations from God. The mainstream Mormon church also is lead by a male prophet (currently Thomas S. Monson) who receives divine revelations. But unlike the mainstream church, nothing is done without the permission or direction of the sect's prophet, who arranges all marriages.
Scholars are not certain of the identity of the current prophet. Until his arrest and conviction as an accomplice to rape in 2007, Warren Jeffs was the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Some experts think he continues to guide the group from prison.
Excerpt. The rest at source: The Columbus Dispatch.
‘Gummit... now y’all got me itchin’ for a trout.
“But to suggest all of them be painted with this broad brush because they belong to a particular religion is a very dangerous thing, and that’s why we have courts.”
My premise from the get go!
| Protesters hold Rally for Texas Children |
|
SALT LAKE CITY -- About 100 people rallied outside the Utah Jazz playoff game Thursday, chanting for Texas to release the children taken into state custody from a polygamist sect.
Signs read "Free the Children" and "Got Constitution?" and people attending the rally chanted "Shame on Texas ... Free those kids!" as fans walked by on their way to the Jazz game against the Houston Rockets. |
|
Excerpt. More at MyFoxUtah. |
I'd read that it wasn't just one call that prompted this - this situation has been under investigation for a while. The 16 year old that called was working with the investigators, and now she's missing. I hope more info comes out.
What an idiot you’ve shown yourself to be. These “ranches” have been ignored for far too long.
AUSTIN - An appeals court rejected pleas from the mothers of more than 400 children seized from a polygamist sect to immediately stop authorities from busing their kids to far-flung foster homes, but it agreed to hear arguments in the case next week.
The children, who had been staying in shelters in San Angelo since officials removed them from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado starting on April 3, were boarding buses today.
The state won temporary custody of the children through a ruling by state District Judge Barbara Walther late last week. Child welfare officials removed the children on suspicion of physical and sexual abuse after a family violence center received a call from a female saying she was a 16-year-old girl inside the compound whose 50-year-old husband beat and raped her.
Authorities now suspect that the call may have come from a woman in Colorado who has a history of making fake calls to authorities. The 16-year-old caller has not been identified among the 437 sect children in Texas custody.
Attorney Robert Doggett appealed the lower court's ruling on Wednesday and sought emergency action to halt the removal of the children to foster group homes as far away as Houston - 500 miles away - and elsewhere around the state.
The Third Court of Appeals did not address the request to allow the youths to remain nearby, but set a hearing for Tuesday.
"Obviously, we're disappointed with the Court of Appeals' failure to act timely," said Doggett, an attorney representing 48 mothers in the case. He said "having a hearing after the fact" is pointless.
Excerpt. The rest at GOSanangelo.
They ARE guility of grooming young girls to become the 5th, 10th, 20th wives of older men....while disguising it as a “religious right”..........It’s about time the States strat to act on it.
this entire thing is a tragedy, all around
from the polygamy to the heavy handed state
neither side can claim to be totally “right”
so much concerning the daughters is talked about
while the plight of the sons is ignored, in the media
if your father’s generation can, and does, take as many wives as they want, including down into your generation, then how many eligible females will there be for you and your brothers and others males in your generation
in the states wherein this polygamous sect resides, the social services of the states have foster-group homes for the coming-of-age boys who leave the sect all the time, because the polygamy of their father’s generation has vastly increased their likelihood of remaining single, particularly the further away from the “leadership” they are - they are “lost boys” when they leave and have a hard time adjusting to life outside their large extended families
still, I pray for solutions that would reduce the thinking that the state has the right, and must, intervene and squash any “lifestyle” that 51 out of 100 hundred citizens oppose
all our Constitutional freedoms are supposed to be above EVEN THE VOTES OF OUR FELLOW CITIZENS, unless, that is, a vote to change the Constitution itself
Probably because (a) the girls went with these guys by choice (as opposed to having them forced onto them by parents and church elders), and (b) none of the girls complained to authorities.
LOL—well, you haven’t seen some of the FLDS threads, then. A few of them are riddled with missing posts, you can guess why.
Wuli, I don’t consider child rape a “lifestyle.” Sorry. It’s a crime. Crimes, especially those as serious as this, should be prosecuted.
It is a very dangerous place the state of texas is going with these children.
A word on the minors becoming mothers. Many thousands of inner city teens give birth each day in America, and you dont see the state taking their children.
I think the real question here is when a person becomes an adult. And that really depends upon culture and how the child was raised. It used to be that if a woman was not married by twenty she was an old maid.
The Jewish religion, and to a lesser extent the Christian one, taught that a person could be married when they reach their teens, more of a biological definition. Biology says that the moment that a person is capable of reproduction they are an adult.
Of course I agree with laws that set the age of consent to a higher age such as 16 17 or even 18. Those laws were meant to protect from abuse. But fact is many other nations take Germany for example set the age to 14. It is based on a realization that person becomes aware of what they are doing at a younger age.
Teens that are having sex with consent in my opinion are not really being abused. Just being stupid.
Of course if they are actually being forced then its rape. but I think all they have is an anonymous phone call right?
I can understand removing those in dangerous situations but not the little ones. Wouldn’t it be better to leave them with their mothers until the case has been tried?”
When the state comes in and removes a child due to possible neglect or abuse, they take ALL the children in the household, not just the possibly abused ones. That is standard operating procedure for any case, not just this one. It's just the scale of this is larger than seen before, and since the kids don't know their biological parents, and the adults won't tell, it gets even harder.
Since they believe that the girls are groomed to be plural wives and have babies at a very young age, and that they abandon their boys, it is very important to take the young children BEFORE they are groomed and abused.
These kind of compounds and cults are well known in that area of the country. I lived their for years. I am glad Texas is finally doing something about it.
Please note, it doesn’t matter “when” someone married in the past or when someone marries in some other culture around the world. We ARE talking about the U.S., and specifically TEXAS law, as it is currently written.
That said, some little girls reach puberty at age 10. These girls are “spiritually married” as soon as they show signs of puberty. Forcing them to marry drooling dirty old men at 10 or even as old as 15 is just plain wrong, morally AND legally.
The girls pregnant and mothers in the sect never had any choice in who they married or who had sex with them. Boys were cast out as soon as they started having pubic hair....removal of competition for the old men.
I repeat, the women are raped breeding stock, nothing more, nothing less.
The Fourth Amendment, probable cause, due process, individual hearings - who needs them? They're just outmoded relics of the past. We have CPS laws now.
Cordially,
“Of course if they are actually being forced then its rape. but I think all they have is an anonymous phone call right?”
Maybe you should ask Carolyn Jessop. Or the Judge who has seen the evidence, the affidavits, and heard testimony.
“A hoax call sets off the rounding up of hundreds on the assumption that all are guilty of something.”
There is much more to it than just one hoax call.
IIRC, the hoax call came after the CPS had already decided to obtain a search warrant.
The ‘rounding up of hundreds’ was done to protect them from further potential abuse, not because the children were guilty of anything.
Just a suggestion if you are going to run a daily thread.
The title should include some identification method such as the date so that if one is looking for a specific thread it could be identified. Otherwise it would require searching all the threads....
If child rape isn’t probable cause, I can’t imagine what might be.
No offense, dude, but you obviously have not been keeping up with what has been going on in this compound or what the real moral and legal issues are with regard to this polygamist sect.
““But to suggest all of them be painted with this broad brush because they belong to a particular religion is a very dangerous thing, and that’s why we have courts.””
But to suggest all of them be painted with this broad brush because all of them belong to a sect that promotes, and enforces sex with minors by a limited circle of men, and whose leader practiced sex with a MALE MINOR, is why they are all going to court.
Plus, you can’t really take them to court until you’ve investigated the matter, and you can’t investigate the matter until you’ve separated the possible victims from the possible perpetrators and/or witnesses. That’s what CPS has done, and then the court can do its part.
It may not be the best solution in all cases. It may not be the best solution in this case, though I don't know if there might also be allegations of abuse to infants and toddlers in this case as well.
I suspect the policy stems from some past bad experiences with removing an abused child, and then having other children become the new target of abuse. I suspect that children's services would get sued by non-custodial parents if they left other children in an environment that they had already ruled was unsafe in many cases.
It might make for a reasonable argument by the parents lawyers that those children aren't at risk from the alleged abuse, but the way family court works, if the judge rules that foster care poses less risk to the infants and toddlers than being with their parents, they don't have much legal recourse.
In some cases, that might be a good thing, in others it's a bad thing. It puts an incredible amount of power in the hands of family court judges, and if that power is abused can have serious implications for some of our most vulnerable citizens. However, there really is no good way to deal with these kinds of issues, so for lack of a better solution to dealing with the reality of abusive parents, this is what we've got.
“Wuli, I don’t consider child rape a “lifestyle.” Sorry. It’s a crime. Crimes, especially those as serious as this, should be prosecuted.”
i don’t disagree, in the general sense or any specific cases that are resident in this religious group
but, i do not believe that those acts are at the heart of the desire to intervene by the state - they had no such evidence - and their real desire includes an arrogant presumption that the state is always right if the state chooses to act, just because a majority has given them that right
as i said, i think it is a tragedy all around
and, i believe the children are predominately the real victims here
“and whose leader practiced sex with a MALE MINOR”
Wow, based on your logic with this statement all Catholics deserve the same. you got some splainin to do.
“because ALL of them belong to a sect that promotes, and enforces sex with minors”
So EVERY person on this ranch was activly engaged in sex with minors or was it a few perverted, sick old men? How do you know that all the pregnancies were a product of intercourse with these old pedophiles and not by teenage boys......not all of the boys are expelled.
Some delight in setting the bait for a flame war on this issue-
Accusing a poster of being a child rapist.
Accusing a poster of supporting child rape.
Accusing a poster of being a polymigist.
Accusing a poster of supporting polygamy.
Accusing a poster of being FLDS member.
Accusing a poster of not caring about the children.
Accusing a poster of being an idiot.
Accusing a poster of being a liar.
Wholesale bashing of the mainstream LDS church.
Posting posts of others over and over as facts of the case.
Attacking anyone that asks a question.
Just a handy cheat sheet to refer to for those of you that do want to have a flame war on this thread. Those of you that want reasoned discussion of this issue are very likely out of luck.
Wuli, after they entered the ranch, they found numerous under-aged mothers. That’s pretty good evidence.
But I do agree, there’s a lot of tragedy here.
“Plus, you can’t really take them to court until you’ve investigated the matter...”
Do civil/family courts count or are those just part of CPS?
“you can’t investigate the matter until you’ve separated the possible victims from the possible perpetrators and/or witnesses”
You mean you can’t force the mothers talk until they have been forcibly separated from their children.
" Accusing a poster of being a child rapist.
Accusing a poster of supporting child rape.
Accusing a poster of being a polymigist.
And as for this--
Accusing a poster of supporting polygamy.
Accusing a poster of being FLDS member.
Accusing a poster of not caring about the children.
Accusing a poster of being an idiot.
Accusing a poster of being a liar.
If you are against rescuing these children from people who are enslaving them and often raping them, then one way or another, you are helping their victimizers. Period.
As for calling someone and idiot or a liar, well, I don't know which specific incidence of these you have in mind, but on these boards I have from time to time found that both types of posters are indeed present. These are not words that should be used lightly, and they are not words that should be used just because an argument is being lost. But sometimes people ARE idiots, and sometimes people DO lie. Sad but true.
And finally, I do notice that some people mistake criticism for a twisted offshoot of Mormonism to be criticism for ALL of Mormonism. Speaking for myself, that is not the case. I hope it isn't for anyone else either.
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