The Texas FLDS Raid: Views From Utah
By Christian Probasco, 5-07-08
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The handling of the raid of the Yearning for Zion Ranch polygamous compound in Eldorado, Texas, and the subsequent detainment of the entire community continues to draw strong reactions here in Utah. Connor Boyack, a website designer in Lehi, Utah circulated a petition calling for the release from custody or foster care of all Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) women and children gathered up in the raid, and an apology from the State of Texas. The petition received 2000 signatures before he forwarded it to Texas Governor Rick Perry, along with a letter noting
“I don’t think that a single person who signed this petition condones abuse in any fashion. Most don’t agree with polygamy or the FLDS religion. What unites us, however, is our demand that the Constitutional rights guaranteed to each citizen of this country be preserved.
If there are cases of abuse, we encourage you to investigate and prosecute them. But we condemn any broad action that targets innocent individuals who have done nothing to merit removal, interrogation, and detention. A fundamental maxim in our country’s legal process is the fact that all citizens are innocent until proven guilty. Apparently this is disregarded in your state.”
I contacted Boyack and asked him if he thought Texas had broken any laws in its roundup and detainment of FLDS members and he cited a Texas statute which requires there be “an immediate danger” to every person involved to warrant the kind of intervention we’re seeing on the nightly news. He added that the phone call that set off the raid, which now appears to have been a hoax, should not have been the “basis for the removal of 437 children.” He further added,
“CPS (Texas Child Protective Services) worker Angie Voss testified in court last week that the basis upon which the children were taken is that they would grow up in an environment that perpetuates abuse. Thus, they are arguing of a future danger, not an immediate one. They’ve broken the law right there. This isn’t some dystopian “Minority Report” world. People are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.”
LDS member Brian Hales of Layton, Utah, who runs the website Mormonfundamentalism, “dedicated to showing the errors in the FLDS religion,” told me that, although he believes those who follow the FLDS faith and practice polygamy are “terribly deluded,” he also hopes that the “State of Texas will quickly isolate the abusers and the abused and then let the remaining men, women and children reunite and continue to live peaceful lives.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, not surprisingly, also sees a problem with the abuse FLDS families are suffering at the hands of Texas authorities. In a recent statement, the ACLU counted the ways in which various rights have been violated:
“First, children have a right not to be abused (sexually or otherwise) nor forced into marriages by their parents or by any other person.
Second, parents have a constitutionally protected right to the free exercise of religion and to raise their children in their own faith.
Third, children and parents have the right to be together unless it is determined, applying the proper legal standards adopted by the state and consistent with the United States Constitution, that temporary or permanent removal is necessary. Children may not be separated from their parents based solely on the state’s disagreement with a group’s thoughts or beliefs, religious or otherwise.
Fourth, all persons, including children, have the fundamental right to due process of law. Due process rights for both potential victims and parents accused of neglect or abuse must be respected, and the law must afford each family notice of and the opportunity to contest allegations related to custody in a timely manner.”
So what is the ACLU going to do about said violations?
“The ACLU will continue to monitor the unfolding events and will work to ensure that Texas officials act in a manner that is consistent with the important principles set forth above, including making our views known to the Texas courts at appropriate points in the judicial proceedings.”
But is it possible that a lawsuit might be brought against the State of Texas? I asked Boyack. His response:
“Boy, I sure hope so. I think that the state has assumed powers it should not have, and a lawsuit is necessary and justified in pushing back and clarifying the constitutionality of their actions. Government does not easily relinquish power, so citizens must fight back to claim personal liberty and draw the line at where government can properly and morally intervene.”
Which leaves open the possibility of a big settlement for the FLDS Church and/or its allegedly child molesting, welfare-abusing members.
According to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, CPS believes that 31 of 53 girls/women taken from the ranch, whose ages allegedly range from 14 to 17, have had children and/or are now pregnant. According to lawyers for the church, CPS workers arrived at these figures, which have changed on an almost daily basis, through guesswork, based on appearance.
Last Wednesday, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services revealed that at least 41 of the children taken from the compound had experienced some type of bone fracture during their lives. No word on whether that number is higher than the national average. And Rod Parker, Utah attorney and FLDS spokesman, contends that some of the children have brittle bone disease.
There have also been allegations, based on testimony and journals seized in the raid, that some boys on the ranch had been sexually molested. Spokesmen for the church deny any such incidents.
Commissioner Cary Cockerell, who delivered that news, complained that FLDS members were deceptive when answering questions, that they removed or defaced the identification bracelets they were forced to wear, and that they were generally suspicious of outsiders.
It is important to note that similar allegations of abuse and worse have at times been leveled against “mainstream” Mormons, as well as Catholics, Jews and even Baptists by people more credible than the Colorado Springs woman who it now appears made the initial prank call that set off the raid. Representatives from the State of Texas have not indicated yet whether adult members of these religious organizations will also be rounded up and their children taken from them.
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Comments
When someone is in an environment that is abusive to one member or group of members, the others, who are not the object of the specific abuse are nonetheless suffering immediate harm.
To the extreme, imagine being forced to watch helplessly as your child is raped, tortured and murdered. You as the person forced to witness this actually suffers real emotional and psychological damage.
Likewise, boys in a home where girls are being abused suffer damage as the indirect witness. To lessen the experience of the immediate psychological damage, they tend to normalize and minimize the abuse suffered by their sisters. The EVIDENCE that this damage has taken place is the perpetuation of future acts of abuse by those same boys.
So you see, just because the damage is played out years in the future, doesn't mean that the damage did not take place today, and that the boys are not in equal need of protection.
http://spirituallibertarian.blogspot.com/
If that really is the definition of "immediate danger"-- and God help every parent if so--then the State of Texas is guilty of placing every child in the community--which is not just a single home--in "immediate danger."
Just how do you intend to eradicate them?
Eradication, no.
They are still people with rights. If they break the law they need prosecuted, not persecuted. CPS in Texas has more abusers in their own system. I fail to see how a 1 or 2 year old boy is being protected by CPS from abuse by a father who may, or may not, be breaking the law. Too many kids were taken without just cause.
"The Primer- Helping Victims of Domestic Violence and Child Abuse in Polygamous Communities"
http://www.attorneygeneral.utah.gov/polygamy/The_Primer.pdf
Sadly, polygamy of consenting adults will never be able to be punished as a crime. Our society allows any consenting adults to have as many sexual partners as they can get away with. The problem within polygamy is that incest, child abuse (both sexual, physical and emotional) and fraud (welfare) are more prevalent than the general population.
So in Islamic middle East, the 4 wives allowed law also has a FIFO clause to it (first in, first out accounting) that allows the men to rid themselves of wife number one in order to take wife number 5 and evidently that pleases Allah, the all-understanding of male needs and desires. But the result of that is an endless supply of suicide bombers denied a roll in the hay just due to numbers and culture. Of course, they can come to the West, get laid by infidel whores or rape infidel whores in their pursuit of jihad against a world of reason. And then blow themselves up, mentally appeased by the thought of some finite number of virgins in Paradise, the after life. I find little comfort in human herd social ordering. Too many idle young men with no future and an early death.
So what is the fate of these Conservative Mormon polygamy born boys? Who looks out for their future? They aren't building houses with a zillion bedrooms and whose -night -is- it- tonight calendars for the benefit of the male children. All this newspaper and magazine reporting talks about women, girls, children, but none of it addresses the society of males that has to share in a finite number of females, which means the young men are out of luck unless there is some sort of primogeniture rule for a very few young men that allows them to marry at the exclusion of most of their peers. Until there is a satisfactory answer to that question, Texas has every right to be involved if they think children are being abused, and common sense would say that in a place where females are "married" as soon as they are able to conceive, determining what value do boys have in that society, under those conditions, and if some sort of control is at work, it is most likely abusive control. How are they treated? Is there a cult of slavery to all this? To what extent are people allowed to avoid the law of the land under the guise of religion? Texas legal authorities, judicial system, have a right and a responsibility to examine this type of living and control of people by non-legal authority, the male cult leaders. Texas will sort it out. Children will better off for this examination of illegal group behavior.
As a Texan, the raid concerns me. And whenever I say "Maybe the authorities went too far" or "I can't believe law enforcement showed up in armored vehicles and carry automatic weapons. Did they expect another Waco?", I tend to get painted as soft on child abuse. In this false dichotomy one forgets there is a middle ground. I think the State could have handled things better.
), and the abuse they are inflicting on these precious children.
I am sure there have been lies told, BUT, what about the Bishops Record that plainly shows marriages of men to teenage girls.
It seems that your whole defense rests on the fact that there was no one under 16 pregnant. Are you then saying it is OK for men to marry 16 year olds? If so, where are the marriage certificates?
If an adult has sex with a minor it is against the law, unless they are legally married. No adult can have sex with a minor without first satisfying the law. PERIOD. If there is no legal marriage, recognized by the state it is considered CHILD ABUSE.
If it was a first marriage between an adult and minor, with parental consent, and recognized by the state, there would be no problem with the law, and CPS would not have the FLDS children.
This is the plain and simple truth. The law is there to protect minors.
OK, here is the way the FLDS could have easily gotten around the problems in Texas.
Divorce the first wife, legally.
Marry the 16 year old, legally.
The law can do nothing against you if you do things legally.
Its a tricky area; but should be handled first by legislative means, second by judicial concern, and only finally by executive actions.
Texas and most states have let things gestate for way too long; but to begin with executive actions is invariably wrong...