Yearning For Justice

I am sickened by what's happening in the state of Texas.

The Texas State Supreme Court, asked to rule on the removal of 468 children from a polygamist compound, has declared, "On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted."

Oh, really?

So, the fact that authorities found so many underage girls had either already given birth to babies or were currently pregnant means nothing - have I got that straight? So, 13 and 14 year old girls having sex is legal in Texas, is that the message?

And I would assume the fact that the young boys on the compound who were, in the words of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, "being groomed to be perpetrators" is just hunky-dory too? And, does anyone care that the state of Texas is still investigating claims from former members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that the boys in the group are also routinely sexually abused?

The action just taken by the Texas high court now clears the way for all the children to be given back to church members. It clears the way for the church elders (read that the adult men) to resume satisfying their sexual desires or quest to propagate with girls who've just entered puberty.

Think if it were your 13 year old daughter. I have a daughter and it makes me sick to think of it.

If these grown men lived next door to you and behaved like this with the young children in their family they would be arrested and put in jail. But because they've cloaked themselves in a religious façade the rest of us are just supposed to ignore what's happening to hundreds of children?

Under Texas law a child can be taken from their parents if there is "an imminent danger to their physical safety or an urgent need for protection." Besides the obvious sexual abuse on the compound consider this: After the children were taken away from the ranch it was learned that more than forty of them had suffered broken bones at one time or another. Was it a result of a coincidental rash of accidents or proof of a practice of over-the-top discipline?

The Texas State Supreme Court ruled that child welfare officials offered no proof of the imminent danger to all the children they removed from the YFZ Ranch. If they had taken away only, say, the pregnant girls or underage mothers things might have been different. In other words, we should wait for the younger girls to become impregnated too before they are legally considered to be in danger.

Well, I say its time to change the damn law! The government is supposed to protect its citizens and that includes children.

I was appalled to read the conclusion of one Texas justice, Harriet O'Neill, who agreed the state acted reasonably in seeking to remove "demonstrably endangered" pubescent girls but then said it abused it's discretion by removing the younger girls and boys, too.

Oh, come on, Harriet - and the rest of you decision makers! Are you lost in the pages of your law book? Are your robes compromising your common sense? If pubescent girls are being sexually abused what do you think will happen to the younger girls in a few months or years? And the boys are being corrupted just as badly by growing up in an atmosphere where females are considered nothing more than brood mares.

This is what the legal-beagles of Texas are sending those children back to. And Texas child services workers who have spoken with the YFZ Ranch kids say many of them don't even know who their birth mother is. They are raised to call every older female "Mother". At a certain age these mothers will certainly turn them over to the clutches of the men. If the boys are not completely compliant they are tossed out of the group to fend for themselves.

In America everyone gets to live life the way they want to - within the confines of the law. Go live in a compound and raise your own food and make your own bread and furniture, raise your kids to embrace the simple life. That's fine by me. But when you start abusing your daughters and abandoning your young boys the separation line between church and state blurs in my eyes.

The systematic abuse of children perpetrated in the name of God just doesn't fly with me.

There was a glimmer of hope for these kids when they were taken away from this confusing and, I say, criminal way of life. Now, it seems they'll soon be sent back to the clutches of their "church."

This is the life we have now condemned these children to live.

Diane Dimond writes a weekly newspaper column on issues of crime and justice. More at her website: www.DianeDimond.net

Comments

[lewes17266]

collusion is more powerful than any court
especially when it is united with "religion"

[BrooklynDaveM]

It's great to see Diane Dimond's column in the HuffPost. She was great on TV and will be a great addition to your site. I agree that what's going on in Texas is crazy from every angle. How did this compound get so huge to begin with? Isolationist sects, especially in Texas don't have a sterling history and I wonder if anyone has been keeping up with what was going on long before the state stepped in. I wonder about any organization that creates rules for what you wear, where you live, who you live with and who you marry. I agree Diane, a lot more should have gone into this before allowing the cult/religious members to pick their kids back up. No one wants to see children separated from their parents, but if Dad has lots of kids with several wives, some of whom are teenagers, you have to wonder what kind of care they are really getting at home. Nice column Miss Dimond. I look forward to more insight. Now if you could finally get Michael Jackson behind bars, even more kids would be safer.

[idahoblues]

Anyone wishing to understand more about the practice of polygamy, how it began and grew in LDS/FLDS community should find a copy of "Wife No.19 - A Life in Bondage" published in 1875 by Ann-Eliza Young. Young was the 19th wife of Mormon prophet Brigham Young and delivers a stunning look inside the lifestyle.

Read it first, then tell me it isn't right to intervene in the lives of these unfortunates in Texas.

[flowers21]

I am a mother and I am appalled. We have chosen proper, correctness, and worry about hurting someone's feelings, over common sense and the safety and well being of our children. I've heard nothing but ...We just want the children back...we just want the children back...we just want the children back...out of these anti government individuals. What would the child want if she knew she was going to be raped on her 12th birthday?

[daretobetruthful]

So...the State of Texas gets a phone call. Someone is going on about little girls being raped. The State enters this place, in this case a compound, and discovers some very unsocietal conditions, if not grisly, and takes all of the kids into custody. Is this not what would happen if this were me or my next door neighbor? Would not all the children be taken until the investigation was completed? And if there were found children being raped would not all of the children be taken from that home? What makes this case so different? What Congressperson is pulling the strings this time?
In my state the original caller would never even been identified even if it was a hoax.
I say give the caller a parade and give these parents...if you can identify them...some lessons in decency.
Very good story.

[montestruc]

The phone call was a hoax, Texas Rangers traced the call to a woman named Swinden who has a history of making hoax phone calls.

It is only called a "compound" because that is a government word for a location of people they do not like live, the FLDS never called the YFZ Ranch that, the Branch Davidians never called the Mount Carmel Center that, both had churches on site. Calling it a "compound" is government spin doctoring. If the government starts calling where you live a "compound" watch out!

They found no specific evidence any child abuse on the site - NONE.

Don't take my word for it, take the word of Texas courts of appeals and the Texas State Supreme Court on that. So now we have 12 appeals court justices, 9 of the Texas state supreme court who have stated in a professional opinion that taking the kids was illegal, and that no evidence that the kids were being abused was shown.

You might want to rethink the idea that all FLDS people are child abusers.

As to the underage pregnant girls or mothers, the rate of underage motherhood at YFZ was at or under the state average, once you remove the CPS lies about the 20 odd young women 18 and over who were claimed by CPS to be minors.

[lewes17266]

c-o-l-l-u-s-i-o-n

you can blab all you want but collusion is why they won this case
and maybe Waco had something to do with it also

[lewes17266]

Thank you for this.

You have a daughter and it makes you sick. I have sons and it makes me sick.

I have to turn off my tv when this story appears.

Larry King made me sick the other night - his opportunity was wasted. The role the media plays in such events is a mystery to me. Do they have no power or influence to make changes?

[montestruc]

The appeals court ruled and the supreme court affirmed that you need actual EVIDENCE of abuse and/or actual EVIDENCE of risk of danger to the specific children in question. Accusation and innuendo are just not good enough.

I am sorry for those who do not understand the distinctions between accusation, evidence, and proof, but they are quite profound and the basis of law in civilized nations.

[txbyrd]

Change the law to what? Allow the state to take away kids from anyone based on an anonymous telephone call from someone with a record of making false charges?
Even after this illegal seizure, the families are being made to sign agreements with the State, such as promising to take parenting classes.

If children are being abused, then the State should and could take them and prosecute the adults involved. May Jeffries stay in jail forever.

This case raises all kinds of issues regarding parental perogative, children's rights, and religious freedom.

Be careful the laws you wish for.

[Bobrobert]

Just a quick statement.

I am glad I do not have to depend on the public for justice.

They react on feelings instead of what the facts of the case may be.

[nunzia]

Oh please, those people on the TEXAS Supreme Court? You think they're judicial heavyweights? Or are they friends of W? Remember Alberto Gonzales? Wasn't he on that Court? Those are POLITICAL positions. What kind of legal reasoning do you think went into their opinion?

[nunzia]

I just looked up the so-called Justice, O'Neill. Yes, she was appointed by W to the Appelate Court. It's a snap to get yourself elected to Texas State Supreme Court when you'e running as an Appelate Judge. W appointed her to the bench.

[Bobrobert]

I really find it sickening that people want to control other peoples kids.

Get on with your own life, right anything wrong with it.

Leave the children with their loving parents.

Taking babies from their mothers is lower than dirt.

[SamThornton]

My question is, where is the legitimate LDS church in this? Why haven't they stepped forward to help ameliorate the situation? Why hasn't, for example, Mitt Romney or any of his prominent co-religionists at least spoken up and at best stepped up to the plate to help children and young adults caught up in this nightmare? Certainly the LDS is not technically responsible for the mess, but these are people they are best qualified to understand, counsel, and assist. Why the silence?

[Bobrobert]

No other church is gonna involve themselves with this mess.

They are not stupid.

They will not get involved at all.

That is like asking the Southern Baptists to overrule the Pope on birthcontrol.

They have NOTHING to do with each other.

[idahoblues]

"They have nothing to do with each other" ? How absurd !

FLDS polygamy is practiced today as it was by the founders of the "legitimate" LDS church.
Mitt Romney doesn't want to draw attention to his own family history of polygamy.
Despite a current ban on the practice of having "plural wives", "celestial marriage" (including polygamy) is deeply buried into the LDS scripture (see their Doctrine and Covenants sec 132). Can any LDS tell us that this section has been renounced?

Furthermore, I don't see how protecting vulnerable citizens from abuse has anything to do with the separation of church and state.

Kudos to the LDS for stopping this barbaric practice among themselves, but it is the tragic legacy of their founders, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, who are also considered by the FLDS to be their modern day founders.

[Bobrobert]

Funny, so much opinion based on nothing.

He says she says is called gossip.

You want the court to act on gossip.

Right.

Have a nice day folks.

[nunzia]

So, teenage girls impregnated by old men doesn't bother you?

[montestruc]

Any clear and specific evidence of that taking place at the YFZ ranch in Texas? FYI the rate of pregnant real teens (as opposed to CPS declaring ~ 24 mothers in their 20s including one 27 y/o to be under 18) is at or under the state average rate of pregnancy of underage females.

Try again, this is you making accusation w/o any basis in facts.

[KillTheMessenger]

It looks like the authorities blew it and the law does what the law does... judge by the book and not by common sense. It is sickening, but I bet it was predictable and preventable... if the right legal minds had been hired to make the correctly filed legal case for the benefit of the children. Instead a bunch of law enforcement people who are not likely to understand the finer mechanisms of the law tried a heavy handed approach and were handed their worthless law diplomas by the court. Way to go child protection agencies, way to go.

[nunzia]

Again, what makes you think the "right legal minds" are sitting on the TEXAS court?
Are they Bushco pals? Political appointees?
Think!

[nunzia]

Amazing that you people so readily accept the opinion of a TEXAS supreme court as some kind of righteous decision. A small group of reichwing political hacks, and you buy their b.s. right away. No wonder this country's so f_cked up!