<p>CGM suggests in her original post that people in the area were in either unaware or unconcerned. In fact, since 2004, when the land was sold under false pretenses to the FLDS, people in that area have been extremely concerned about the welfare of the women and children and about the effect of thousands of potential new voters on the political landscape of a very sparsely populated county. A simple google will reveal many watch groups formed to keep an eye on the activity of the compound. Additionally, once the Legislature became aware of the FLDS intentions to move to Eldorado, they pushed through a bill to raise the age to legally marry from 14 to 16. That law was created specifically to address the FLDS in Texas issue. </p>
<p>Also, a CPS/law enforcement operation of this magnitude did not come without preparation. Whole divisions of law enforcement have been assigned to monitor the FLDS from the moment of their arrival in our state, and one has to assume they were just waiting for a chance to put a pre-designed plan into motion. The complaint of abuse was finally that catalyst.</p>
<p>*nstead, the State made the same assumption that the rest of you are making and took all of the children. Forcefully taking children from their homes can be tramatic for the children. *</p>
<p>removing children is par for the course when allegations of child abuse are suspected,
You insist that that the compound be treated as other US citizens.
When my mother who is mentally ill, called the police and told them I was going to hurt my child, they were removed from their schools immediately by police and I was arrested . ( she first told them I was going to hurt myself- this received no response- so she did what was logical to her to get a response)
While the case was being investigated I was not allowed to see them unsupervised after I was released from jail- this took months incidentally- not because there was evidence, but that is how the wheels of justice turn.
Kinda made taking them to school difficult.
Doing anything besides removing the children from the compound would be giving them special treatment, and I know you are against that .
;)</p>
<p>There are 400 of these kids, and there was apparently one phone call from one girl. I also note that they took away all the kids, boys and girls, even if they were very small. Can you imagine the reaction if this happened to an Amish or Hasidic Jewish community, based on a single unverified phone call? Look, I’m not defending the practices of this particular group, which I consider heinous, but I’m very concerned about the precedent you set when you take a huge action like this. Emeraldkity4, I do worry about the possiblity that these 400 kids will be separated from their parents for months, based on allegations that may end up applying to only a few of them.</p>
<p>"There are 400 of these kids, and there was apparently one phone call from one girl. I also note that they took away all the kids, boys and girls, even if they were very small. Can you imagine the reaction if this happened to an Amish or Hasidic Jewish community, based on a single unverified phone call? "</p>
<p>I agree with that completely and share the concern. I’m hoping that when they arrived, the authorities found more cause for concern. Wow, that didn’t come out right. I HOPE the children weren’t abused or in danger, but I do hope that the authorities had cause for what they did.</p>
<p>WHile I am no fan of child protective services- god knows the workers in my state were less literate than I, judging by their response to the child development books on my bookshelf. It irked me, that money was being spent to monitor me- apparently because I was a case easily cleared from teh books, as compared to a family that they didn’t know what to do with.</p>
<p>But- if you are parents of small children, and you are living in a situation where at least some of the children are being abused or neglected- you at minimum are neglecting to raise your children in a wholesome environment.</p>
<p>the phone call also came from within the compound-- it wasnt some random complaint.</p>
<p>It is possible, once given access to the compound, law enforcement and CPS officers observed a large number of potentially underage females who were the mothers of young children. If they also observed nothing but clearly overage males in residence, the presumption of criminal activity would not be off base and certainly justification for a large scale investigation.</p>
<p>I doubt a similar age disconnect would be observed in an Amish or Hasidic community.</p>
<p>The practice of “marrying off” their very young girls to their much older men is integral to this group’s religion. The case of the 16 yr. old whistle blower is not an isolated instance within this group, you can be darn sure. </p>
<p>The fact that this group banishes its teen aged boys for minor infractions, strongly indicates that the “men” within the group simply wish to eliminate the threat of competition for the “affections” of its adolescent girls. Such blatant disregard for the Child Protection laws of the land is indefensible. "Freedom of Religion my ***!</p>
<p>This stuff makes me crazy. Anyone who thinks polygamy has anything to do with “freedom”, religious or otherwise, is only fooling themselves. Has no one here read “Under the Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer? It deals more with “modern” mormons, but explains how the polygamy got started. It’s just a very easy way to grow their group very quickly. They sell it to the women by saying that they have such an important job to do, and are so special because they are giving birth to souls from heaven, and are made for this, etc, etc. These girls are often told when they are just starting to mature that they will be marrying their cousin, or uncle, who is most often way older than they are, and they are supposed to be happy about it because they have been chosen for this. The inbreeding is atrocious, and the women often hope they will have a Downs baby because they are easier to care for. </p>
<p>I am just happy that Texas had the ■■■■■■■ to do something about this, because they don’t in Utah. Thousands of kids in the state still live this way, but the lawmakers pretend to wring their hands, then look the other way.</p>
<p>I’m also concerned about giving the government the ability to look behind religious beliefs to determine what is “really” going on. Thus, for example, the Amish cut off further education for their children because they are “really” just developing cheap labor, etc. To me, it’s better to assume that the practice is based on a genuine religious belief–you still might decide that it can’t be tolerated in our society, of course. In the case of these polygamists, I fully support prosecuting them for “marrying” girls below the age of consent, or for forcing anybody to have sex against their will. I get nervous, though, if we start saying that they can’t teach their kids that polygamy is God’s will. What are you going to tell me that I can’t teach my kids?</p>
<p>Last I checked polygamy was illegal too, as was statutory rape, as were the basically coercive rapes that were said to occur at the compound… shall I go on? Or were you just ignoring the manifestly obvious crimes these people were committing because of some a priori decision on your part that they should not be infringed upon? When does your outrage overcome your ideology? Slavery? Rape? Where?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No. I postulate that most or many of these people are criminals. I think there is a great deal of statutory rape, a great deal of child abuse, a great deal of polygamy, and a great deal of essentially forced imprisonment of women going on at that compound. All of these things are crimes. Did you actually read the article? Or did you just read the title and decide on your argument?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Stop twisting my words and trying to extend my logic ad my “view” (whatever twisted notion you have of that) in ways I did not expressly state it. If you want to talk about stupidities of religion we can talk about that, but that is **not what this is about<img src=“though%20you%20seem%20to%20have%20lots%20of%20trouble%20understanding%20that” alt=“/B”> I may not agree with a lot of religions or their beliefs; I don’t, in fact. But I leave them alone to practice them as they wish (though I do think that forced indoctrination of children amounts to child abuse, but that’s only a tangential issue here). The point is that this groups “religion” includes a significant amount of criminal activity, and basically raises women to be sex slaves. Yes, some of them “choose” it, but it is only a choice in the loosest, most corrupted sense of the word. And if you think otherwise, you are letting your ideology cloud your judgment. Significantly.</p>
<p>As for your last question: when that woman is 40 I think her ability to give consent will be enhanced. 40 is a lot older than 16. However, there are probably many women who at age 40 in that society are still not capable of giving particularly informed consent. That is the tragedy of the FLDS. And with regards to abortion, I think it’s a tossup as to whether or not a girl is truly capable of giving consent to that procedure at that age. I would lean towards saying yes, but that’s not why I support availability of abortions to girls like that - I support it because it’s good public policy, in that many bad outcomes can and would result from requiring parental consent, including the unintended consequence of a significant rise in teen births, unsafe abortions, that kind of thing. You don’t support it not because of the child issue (we’ve seen here that you don’t much care about that) but for other reasons. Stop being intellectually dishonest and trying to lead me into a contradiction - it’s not going to happen.</p>
<p>Hunt, zoosermom: I understand what you’re saying about slippery slopes and religious beliefs. But I think in this situation the course of action to take is very clear, and while there is some danger associated with going down the path of governing religion like this, I don’t feel any ambiguity exists in this case.</p>
<p>If you are participating in this discussion, please look at these 2 articles before you continue; especially the one in Legal Affairs. It’s very readable. It’s partly about American law enforcement (failures) and prosecutorial indifference to pervasive and acknowledged child sexual abuse and incest in many Amish communities.</p>
<p>First of all, thanks to emeraldkity for posting those links.</p>
<p>In the end, I think legal means will be an imperfect partial solution to the horrors vividly described. I don’t have much sympathy for the extreme devotion to the rights of wacky, domineering, narcissistic individuals and groups that razorsharp seems to have. I worry about the ability of the government to distinguish between the obviously goofy and what I personally find meaningful. I do wonder why razorsharp is not more concerned about the 15 and 14 year old girls that are obviously being raped in that community. Also, about the parents dumping their teenage boys without financial support in the middle of town - aren’t there laws about that on the books? So I believe the state has good reason to be concerned, to force entrance, to remove children while they investigate and to question parents and children living in the compound. But still, legal means are not going to solve everything rotten about groups and situations like this one. </p>
<p>I think countering harmful religious propaganda and doctrine through exposure, debate, education, ridicule, etc… is an important part of the solution.</p>
<p>“Hunt, zoosermom: I understand what you’re saying about slippery slopes and religious beliefs. But I think in this situation the course of action to take is very clear, and while there is some danger associated with going down the path of governing religion like this, I don’t feel any ambiguity exists in this case.”</p>
<p>Based on the allegations we have heard, what is the justification for removing the male children and very young female children from their parents?</p>
<p>Concern for their welfare based on the criminal activities of the community their parents are complicit in, if not their parents themselves. Try to extract yourself from thinking of this as some kind of religious persecution and look beyond that to the real problems (the extensive criminal and coercive activities) that are the issue here.</p>
<p>Hunt - Not sure if correct, but it could very likely be that big group of children moved off the compound consisted, in part, of young women who WERE parents . The read we are getting here in Texas is authorities attempted to keep children with their mothers when they removed them. I assume CPS will eventually temporarily separate them when interviews take place.</p>
<p>Well, if there are allegations that girls are being raised in order to be married off (or, given to) adult males as plural wives before they reach the age of consent, in other words, that there is definite intent to rape them at some future point, and meanwhile they are being educated to acquiesce in this rape, why wouldn’t you take them from their parents while you investigate those allegations?</p>
<p>I believe another facet of the new Texas law comes into play as well. If I’m not mistaken it is also now illegal for a stepfather to marry a stepdaughter. Because authorities are basically getting the silent treatment, this will take some time to investigate.</p>
<p>I am personally fascinated by the religious community in general & the LDS specificially. Religious, because I have always been interested in logic and philosophy even though I don’t have a college degree, but LDS, because my younger sister started to be interested in the church when she was in high school & married a man when she was 19 ( he was 33) in the LDS temple- and given that you have to be engaged for two years, apparently to be married in the temple, he was engaged to her when she was still in high school. ( I was long out of the house)</p>
<p>I also have witnessed abusive/neglectful behavior in her household regarding her children and other members of the family & while I would never say, that it exists in every patriarchal household, I believe that certain belief systems encourage or even mandate those behaviors to persist & what is more egregious, IMO, to allow them to persist unchecked & to discourage getting help from outside the church.</p>
<p>I haven’t really known that many Mormons I admit, the Seattle area, is relatively “unchurched”, but I have worked with a few, and they are very nice and didn’t prostelytize. ( not counting the " elders" but I didn’t encourage them- since I didn’t want them to waste their time)</p>
<p>But for my sister, I see her having to shut out a great deal of how she was raised & how she thinks in order to fit in and to do her duty & that seems to be destructive to her, and it comes out as anger. Some women turn anger inward, which is then depression-</p>
<p>I recognize the appeal of a strict religion, finding your own path in this complex world without a guidebook can be exhausting.</p>
<p>But I question any religion that seeks to ban knowledge that it cannot control & discourage followers from having contact with their extended families and friends.</p>
<p>“I doubt a similar age disconnect would be observed in an Amish or Hasidic community.”</p>
<p>Definitely not with the Amish. Their whole system is based on the idea of accepting baptism and marriage, usually around the same time, when you are an adult and you’ve had plenty of time to think about it. Marrying at 14 or 15 is inconsistent with the heart of their religious doctrine. Every Hasidic sect is somewhat different, but since they usually care about getting male as well as female children married off young, there’s no reason to match younger women with older men.</p>
<p>Hunt, do you think it is appropriate to teach young children, girls AND boys, that it is God’s word that young girls are obligated to marry older men as soon as they can? DO you think it is right to isolate children, teaching them to fear the world, to keep them basically uneducated so they are unable to fend for themselves in the outside world, to banish your sons as soon as it is legally okay just because they look at the girls, do you think this is “religion” and belief in God, or is it more of a way to control your followers and for old men to get some young girls body…</p>
<p>And Hunt, can you explain why its okay or even normal to banish the boys and keep allt he girls? what religious explanation do you have for that?</p>