Texas Wants 8 Sect Kids Back
Officials Want Several Children Of Polygamist Sect Returned To Foster Care
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Law enforcement officials use school buses to relocate members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints in April. Although a judge ordered the state to return more than 400 children taken from the sect, officials are asking that eight minors be returned to foster care. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
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Play CBS Video Video Polygamy: A World Apart A provocative 360 degree view of this intricate and mysterious world.
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Video Polygamy Cases Overwhelm Court Hearings are underway in the massive child custody case involving children of a polygamous sect in Texas. There are 463 children, 168 mothers, and only 69 fathers. Mark Strassmann reports.
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Video Polygamy Kids Await Fate The polygamist families have to wait three weeks to learn the fate of more than 400 children now in foster homes. Mark Strassmann reports.
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Photos Polygamist Sect Ordeal Church compound raided, children placed in foster care, returned to parents after court fight.
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Photo Essay Sect Kids, Parents Reunited Children taken from polygamist sect's ranch return to arms of their tearful parents.
Individual hearings for the four mothers of the children, ranging in age from 5 to 17, are set to begin Monday.
Child Protective Services has asked Texas District Judge Barbara Walther to return the children to foster care because their mothers allegedly have refused to limit their contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.
"We continue to have concerns in particular for these eight children, which is why we have asked the judge to review the case," said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.
None of the children currently live at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, where authorities swept roughly 440 children into foster care in April. Officials said the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which established the ranch, was forcing girls into underage marriages and grooming boys to be adult abusers.
Six weeks after the children were placed in foster care, the Texas Supreme Court forced CPS to return them to their parents, ruling that the agency presented evidence of no more than a handful of teenage girls being abused. Many of the children taken into CPS custody were infants and toddlers.
In the new CPS petitions seeking foster placement for the eight children, the agency detailed alleged underage marriages involving the children's fathers or stepfathers, though only one faces any criminal charges.
Rod Parker, a church spokesman, said that even though the families are getting individual hearings this time, the argument that they shouldn't be allowed to retain custody of their children remains unfair.
The issue, as it was in the earlier case, is "whether the children are in any immediate danger simply because their parents choose to raise them in this religion," he said. "The substance of what they're doing here is fundamentally the same."
Parker also noted that the church issued a statement in June saying it would not bless underage marriages.
The FLDS church believes polygamy brings glory in heaven. It is a breakaway sect of the mainstream Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which officially renounced polygamy more than a century ago.
Sect leader Warren Jeffs, already convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape, awaits trial in Arizona on charges of being an accomplice to sexual contact with a minor - all stemming from alleged underage marriages within the sect.
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See all 32 CommentsMy 12 year old is certainly not ''getting horizontal'' with a 37 or 58 year old pervert salivating over the next available virgin in his cult compound. Get a freaking clue!
And I fully EXPECT my government deparment whom I pay to look out for children to step in anytime they even hear a WHISPER of abuse against a child! I give them full authority to march across YOUR yard and check it out! Your rights don''t mean KRAP to me if you are abusing yours or anyone elses children!
I wonder what makes age 18 a magic number? Why not 21 as in some countries, 12 as in others?
prisonrn makes a thoughtful comment that is unfortuneately not referenced. curious_minds recognized that.
It turns out that there are a handful of States that have no minimum age for marriage, parental permission being the requirement.
Mental (brain) development continues until about age 25.
I submit that 18 became the magic number because that is the age that the government could require compulsory military service of its citizens and ship them to war. The arguement was that if they are old enough to fight they are old enough to do everything else. Another case of the old yellow men in smokey rooms deciding military policy that ripples throughout our lives.
Then, you have these men, claiming to be in loving marriages. Having more than one wife, in the US, is illegal. If you want to practice another lifestyle, then move to a country that allows it. If there are minimum ages to marry, then you must abide by them. I don''t understand what is so hard to understand this. I find the whole thing very sad, thinking that these children and young girls are caught up in this situation.
Now we are back to portraying worthless opinions as evidence. Could you direct me to this evidence so it can be assessed? I personally know instances where there have been 12 year olds with the wisdom of the ancients, yet the mothers being mentally worthless. Age has nothing to do with maturity. This evidence is just an attempt to lump everyone together into categories. It was most likely an assemblage of con artists looking for a consensus to identify potential sources of income.
This has nothing to do with FLDS since we don''t know that any kids were "molested" by the folks at the ranch. It does have everything to do with creating an illusion of wrongdoing as a front for ulterior motives.
BTW being a Mormon is not the tag for identifying sexually active young teens. Your own kids are very likely "getting horizontal" despite your Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, etc affiliations. Get a clue folks. The finger pointing should start in your own home instead of condemning your neighbors. Your experts and government leaders are more likely to be the villains that the people they try to crucify.
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Posted by OneWorldUSA
Good one . . . I''d like to see an update on that as well!
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I the man is of good christian character I have no worries.
I wonder what makes age 18 a magic number? Why not 21 as in some countries, 12 as in others?
Posted by RJSparling at 03:11 AM : Aug 18, 2008
The age of consent is based on the premise that although human bodies can mature rapidly physically, emotional and mental maturity lags far behind. It has been determined that at around age 18 for most and after, people have developed enough mental faculties to make informed decisions about what they are doing and what they want.
Before that age, many people can easily be misled, and they appear to not know what they have really committed to--this has led to horrendous experiences and regret for the children/adults involved--from abuse to long term psychological damage. We did allow early marriage years before, but social and psychological studies done in the 20th century has shown this was not a good idea and the evidence that it was damaging was overwhelming. The government then came up with what they considered to be the time period when people not only understood the ramifications of certain decisions, but lived up (sort of) to the responsibilities that came with them. This led to the idea of 18 as the age of adulthood and in most cases--the age of consent for sexxxx.
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Posted by GOP_forever at 09:13 AM : Aug 18, 2008
So, are you going to marry off your daughter at 13 years old? You sound like that is what you want...
Posted by RJSparling at 03:11 AM : Aug 18, 2008
The age of consent is based on the premise that although human bodies can mature rapidly physically, emotional and mental maturity lags far behind. It has been determined that at around age 18 for most and after, people have developed enough mental faculties to make informed decisions about what they are doing and what they want.
Before that age, many people can easily be misled, and they appear to not know what they have really committed to--this has led to horrendous experiences and regret for the children/adults involved--from abuse to long term psychological damage. We did allow early marriage years before, but social and psychological studies done in the 20th century has shown this was not a good idea and the evidence that it was damaging was overwhelming. The government then came up with what they considered to be the time period when people not only understood the ramifications of certain decisions, but lived up (sort of) to the responsibilities that came with them. This led to the idea of 18 as the age of adulthood and in most cases--the age of consent for sexxxx.
Posted by RJSparling at 03:11 AM : Aug 18, 2008
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It''s a 12 year-old boy if you are a Catholic priest. It''s a 13 year-old girl if you are a fundamentalist baptist preacher. It''s a 10 year-old if you are a FLDS pedophile. It''s a 40 year old rich b*tch if you are John McCain and already married. It''s a 50 year-old grandmother if you are a evangelical. Yes, the age varies... ROFLMAO
Religious fanatics of all kinds need to crawl back into their caves and die. They are just useless lemmings following the word of false preachers and religious documents written by men claiming to "talk to God"- Documents that can be interpreted in whatever way is useful to them at the moment (catholics and boy-sux, etc.)
Nothing but fakes and liars. The followers are just sheep that parrot the platitudes of their religious masters. Put them in cages like the backward animals they are. Let them throw their monkey-sh*t at each other and leave the rest of the civilized world alone.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." - Sinclair Lewis
Freedom of religion does not trump federal or state laws.
The scary part to this is other religions have similar sexual abuse issues. Notice how quiet other religions became when this hit several months ago?
You name the religion and there are preachers, or ministers who abuse children AND ADULTS; all in the name of serving God.
Religions that promote older men having sexxx with underage females or males, is a sexxxual cult, nothing more, nothing less. Those responsible for such activity should get the chance to do it in prison.
Mothers who seriously believe that it is ok for 14 year-old daughters to marry a man, of any age, need a tap on the head with a 2x4. A good whack would be better.
Probably, Warren Jeffs is a pedophile; and, I wonder if he has been getting any while in prison? Or, maybe it is his turn in the barrel.
The ultimate bad part of this whole matter is the fact that Warren Jeffs still is calling the shots, from prison, AND, there are his faithful followers who still believe he is the messiah.
It makes me wonder what is wrong with them.
Clearly, all of them need deprogramming, by qualified medical and psychological staff. That would put an end to Warren Jeffs'' game.
This is clearly religious persecution and they know it and they don''t care.
What a bunch of rednecks.
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