Posted on 05/23/2008 1:24:53 PM PDT by Belasarius
SAN ANGELO, Texas - Tina Louise Steed had just one question for a judge who declared her an adult Thursday morning. "I'm wondering how come they wouldn't believe my ID in the first place?" she asked Judge Jay Weatherby. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services acknowledged that Tina Louise and three other "disputed minors" are actually adult women - admissions that came as the Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled it never had sufficient evidence to remove any children from a polygamous sect. At least three more women were to be declared adults Thursday afternoon or Friday, but those hearings were canceled after word of the decision reached the Tom Green County Courthouse. And more are on the docket next week. The admissions by the state left a rapidly diminishing count of women in a disputed age category that is central to its claim of underage mothers found at the YFZ Ranch. The state alleged that 31 women ages 14 to 17 were pregnant, mothers or both, a count that included 26 mothers whose ages were disputed. As of noon Thursday, just eight mothers remained in the disputed category. And an attorney for one 14-year-old said Wednesday her client also is wrongly being listed among the 31 pregnant or mothering teenagers.
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
This issue is drifting back into the "States case is in trouble again" zone. By the time all these people sue they'll be able to buy their own FLDS professional sports franchise.
I'm for the law. Do it right or don't do it.
Are you seriously claiming that as long as an incest perp or statutory rapist puts enough minors in his household and keeps the abuse level below par compared to our culture, that a government should base its active response or sit-on-its-hands response by such a stupid statistic?
(Hypothetical: So as long as Hugh Hefner were to put just enough minors in his mansion and leave just enough of them alone, that's the basis of your compound vs. culture comment?)
It sounds like you WANT to believe the worst about these people, rather than approaching the accusations with an open mind. Could you fairly sit on a jury trying them? BTW....Mr. Hefner only like adult ladies, as far as has ever been publicized.
Where is Janet Reno and Bubba Clinton when you need them to engage in appropriate military action? They would know how to handle this compound of evil cultists. sarc
Yeah well the problem here is that the polygamists have found loopholes to circumvent the law. And all the while getting government welfare.
Our courts "interpret" law everyday to do things like allow gays to marry. Why can't they interpret the law now and find that these people are "common law" married couples, thus closing the loopholes these guys are using to get away with being polygamists.
Gee, could it be because you were one of the many women who'd given different names to interviewers at different times?
You know, really, that is the issue that is being completely ignored. They apparently were untruthful, but the state was supposed to be able to amass evidence without doing anything but asking them questions and then believing whatever they said.
Strange.
susie
This case is slipping away from the state of Texas. As it should. They overreached their authority and stepped in it.
What else has been “reported” that was a lie? It will be interesting to see the rest of the lies fall flat.
Give it time. Every-time the magic words of "cult" and "compound" are used the odds are it's bullchips.
How long have you been Mr. Hefner’s FReeper defender?
Dr. Judith Reisman received a U.S. Department of Justice $800,000 grant to research images of sexuality and children applied to children in Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler magazines…this included cartoon images in these publications.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen references to this, but when the cartoon references alone are accumulated, it’s actually quite shocking that a mentality of pedophilia was so common in what became mainstream porn mags in the 1970s and 1980s:
Dr. Reisman is president of The Institute for Media Education, author of the U.S. Department of Justice, Juvenile Justice study, Images of Children, Crime and Violence in Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler, US Dep. Justice Grant No. 84-JN-AX-K007, 1986, 1989, 1990.…I brought eighty slides for my presentation as evidence supporting my findings of child pornography in Playboy and Penthouse…I was leaving for the London train when a Canadian psychologist took me quietly aside. Certainly, I was right, he said. Those images of children in Playboy/Penthouse would cause sexual acting out on children…I was appointed as a Full Research Professor at American University as the principal investigator of an $800,000 grant to investigate Kinsey's role in child sexual abuse and the link to children appearing in mainstream pornography, Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler. MASSACHUSETTS, 1989: Oakes v. Massachusetts. Massachusetts Attorney General, James Shannon cited Dr. Reisman's DoJ, Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention study in this successful brief and in oral appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Shannon wrote (1/8/90): I contacted Dr. Reisman in connection with an important child pornography case, Massachusetts v. Oakes…that I argued in the United States Supreme Court in January 1989…I had to convince the court that both nude and sexually explicit photographs of children were exploitive and harmful.To make the point, I quoted Dr. Reisman's study, "Images of Children, Crime and Violence in Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler Magazines," in which she showed that sexually exploitive photographs of children condone and promote a distorted view of sexuality, often by pairing...sexuality and violence, or depicting children as desiring sexual activity with adults…Susan Trento, Investigative Reporter, Author of The Power House: exposed Playboy's buying of legislative influence in Washington D.C. to discredit Reisman, whose cataloging of "children, crime and violence in pictures and cartoons found in Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler...made the publishers of these and other magazines very nervous" (1992:194). http://www.drjudithreisman.com/about_dr_reisman.html
It sounds like you WANT to believe the worst about these people, rather than approaching the accusations with an open mind.
You know what? There’s been literally dozens and dozens of FReeper threads over the past several years of educators who have been arrested for statutory rape, sexual abuse by a person in a position of authority over minor students, molestation of students, inappropriate e-mails with students, and the like. If you could show me just one time where you’ve gone on any of those threads and issued the same “open mind…don’t believe the worst about these people” line, I’ll at least commend you for consistency.
There’s also been threads about abortion industry clinics, both its phone “counselors” and staff, telling potential clients and clients how to “sneak” around the law provision that would trigger the clinic from having to report incest or statutory rape. (Have you posted this same line at any of those threads, or even informally made a comment like you have to somebody in those cases?)
What about all the threads posted about the allegations of Roman Catholic priests re: abuse? Do you post on any of these to warn about "appoaching the accusations with an open mind?" (No? Why not?)
What about the pre-trial O.J. Simpson discussions you had with folks. Did you tell them to keep an “open mind…don’t believe the worst about O.J.?”
…approaching the accusations with an open mind.
It’s exactly because I’ve kept an open, learning mind about the fLDS that I’ve taken the time to study them, which hasn’t left me surprised about Eldorado or its criminal justice track record in other states. (What? Do you think a Utah sherriff in recent years had 80 search warrants for the Colorado City polygamists and just sat on them because they were just minor offenses like playing tiddlywinks too late at night?)
How open is your mind to the fLDS if you have or would have prê-teen and/or early teen daughters? Would you consider poster FastCoyote’s challenge?
Here’s a way to see whether or not you are full of it. If the fLDS are such great people, then surely you won’t mind them being around either your daughters, or the underage daughters of close friends. All you have to do to show us how sincere you are is to mail a letter with the addresses of those young ones to Warren Jeffs, care of the Nevada prison system, and tell him he should explain his innocense to them. You can mail the same letter to the Patriarchs at YFZ Ranch. Maybe we can set up tours for the younguns.
Part of the “open mind learning” I mentioned above also continued post eldorado. I wanted to see what the “scholarly” pro-polygamous folks were saying from their side…and Mormon historian Todd M. Compton is one of the leading experts on polygamy. In his Signature Books article online, he provided a link to such a fundamentalist group, which was made up doctorate level and other plural wives (one was no longer a “plural” wife because one of her husbands had died recently). While I can’t pretend to know all the motivations for these women to produce such a Web site and other material, one of the reasons they had was to put a better face on the practice of contemporary polygamy. They interviewed 100 plural wives in-depth for a book they published. Six of the women confessed to becoming married at age 15.
While that’s legal in Utah with parental consent, when even the pro-polygamists concede that 6% of their female population was willing to be up front about becoming wives at age 15, what does that say about the “hidden” minors in Bountiful, Canada, Montana, Arizona, Mexico, Texas and elsewhere?
And when you consider that a lot of fundamentalist Mormon parents of 14 and 15 yo may be giving "consent" to their daughters being married, "consent" on part of a young teen in such sub-cultures where "placement marriages" (a euphemism for child rape) are practiced is a ridiculous consideration.
America's cities are filled with unwed mothers who practice polygamy with the village. Many of their children have no idea who are their fathers. Many of the women don't know who are the fathers of their children. These ghettos are filled with angry, confused men where as many as one quarter wind up in prison. These number in the millions. People live in fear in these ghettos.
Yet, the lesbians running child services chose to target a patriarchy cult and drag all the members through Hell using abusive power of the state. It really is a strange statistic where a non criminal patriarchy is punished while the criminal matriarchy goes unchecked.
In the meantime the fascists in state government get accustomed to getting away with abusive power and others are held unaccountable for a massive social failure. And, the scary part is the high number of Free Republic members who are outraged by the patriarchy.
Another allegation that has been shown to be patently false, btw.
L
“(Hypothetical: So as long as Hugh Hefner were to put just enough minors in his mansion and leave just enough of them alone, that’s the basis of your compound vs. culture comment?)”
So now we’re jumping from forced unions, mock weddings, statutory rape of young minors to already married men to women (not girls) who voluntarily (not forced) sleep with men?
Yet, the lesbians running child services chose to target a patriarchy cult and drag all the members through Hell using abusive power of the state. It really is a strange statistic where a non criminal patriarchy is punished while the criminal matriarchy goes unchecked.
Nonsequitor: Most of what you’re talking about is legal (as in l-e-g-a-l). For that which isn’t (pregnant or assaulted minors in the ghetto + an adult male...not just another minor), ya know somebody’s got to report something to even trigger it. And, yes, a problem exists there that it’s often “accepted.” But once the report is out, it needs to be followed up on.
I recall a Freeperette breathlessly informing us on an early thread that there were DOZENS of pregnant 12 & 13 year-old girls taken into custody.
Where are they being hidden?
Obviously in witness protection by CPS to insure their safety.
You'll all change your tune when CPS troops them into court!
Name a situation...
…of a school counselor hearing about a report of "abuse" and repetitive imminent threat from a student...
…of a pastor hearing about a similar report...
…where the CPS is simply suppose to sit on their hands about these reports?
Some of what you may perceive as “tolerance” is sometimes buried within the victim. Here’s an recent example. I just read (about 3 weeks ago) a case where a 51 yo educator was sentenced because for over 1 yr (or longer) he committed a series of crimes against a 17 yo student in the 1990s. She didn’t report it until recently. Therefore he couldn’t immediately be held accountable. Even if somebody back then had (correctly in hindsight) assumed they knew what was going on, if they didn’t have evidence, a false accusation back then could have ruined a perfectly good educator’s reputation.
What if, instead of all this being a Mormon compound it was a Roman Catholic summer camp or Roman Catholic boarding school with chapel? What if a Roman Catholic priest was ordering students to undergo private “weddings” to camp counselors or educators? I mean so what if half of such students or summer campers for whom this occurred in this hypothetical were 18? People forget that this wasn’t just a compound residence, but it was also a school, a summer camp, and a church? So what? You’d give a Roman Catholic priest a free pass if he was ordering 14 to 18 yo summer campers and boarding school students to get married to already married folks on campus? (Haven’t you ever heard about criminal investigations for a person abusing their position of authority?)
What I love about posters like you and LoneRangerMassachusetts…is that you can stare at a cult square on, hearing that they've…
…trafficked minors across state borders and even across Canada;
…sexually abused minors;
…coerced them into bedding an already married man after a mock wedding;
.."escorted" most of their teen boys out of their communities ("lost boys") to "weed out" competition;
…coached kids & wives to deceive authorities or just plain leave them in the dark as to issues like age, who their parents are, who their unionized husband is, etc.; etc, etc, etc...
…and your conclusion? Well, it's not the cultists that’s a "poisonous tree," why it's the government (what LoneRangerMassachusetts calls the fascists in state government) that has planted a "poisonous tree?"
Ahhh, you must be referring to "Chester the Molester".
One of my alltime favorite cartoons.
Let’s just do the math...
They KIDNAPPED 400 Children, LIED about it, and now at the end of it all, they MIGHT have 7 potential cases of young women under 18 being married and having given birth?
Ludicrous is too soft of a word for it.
I hope every child effected gets an attorney and sues the state of Texas 400 with individual cases.
Then I hope that if they suffer any “trauma” they come BACK before the statute of limitations run out and SUE The State AGAIN for the additional damages.
And if there was ANY leadership remotely conservative, they would file criminal charges against every member of the CPS from the file clerk to typed up the info to the Department Head.
And see to it that 100 CPS employees were driven to bankruptcy in legal fees both criminal and civil for the rest of their miserable lives.
And that’s just for starters!!
Most of what goes on in the ghetto is older men preying on younger women and older women preying on younger men. There is one important difference. The child born to polygamous patriarchy at least know who is his father. In the matriarchal village families of the ghetto, the child often has no idea who is his father. The social consequences are more ruinous to the latter as it creates a drifter out of the male. The difference in polygamy between the Texas case and the greater national problem is one where the former has paperwork for its marriages and the latter does not. To legally argue they are not alike, your non sequitur, is to support form over substance. It's a shallow view.
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