Texas Supreme Court says the state crossed the line by keeping FLDS kids in custody
By Brooke Adams and Julia Lyon
The Salt Lake Tribune
SAN ANGELO, Texas—The e-mail sent by a legal aid firm moments after a Texas Supreme Court ruling Thursday said it all - Supreme Court to CPS: Send these children home.
By a 6-3 majority, the justices agreed an appeals court was correct in deciding a district court judge erred in keeping about 450 children from a polygamous sect in state custody.
It said 51st District Judge Barbara Walther must vacate her April 18 order, made two weeks after a raid on the sect’s west Texas ranch.
But key questions - when, how and under what conditions - still must be resolved, which could happen as soon as today.
On Thursday, the FLDS sent a message of gratitude for the public’s support and lawyers who had stood up for their rights.
“We made a plea to every politician there is, and it ends up being some kind-hearted attorneys that were willing to take up this fight,” said Willie Jessop, an FLDS member and spokesman.
The petition was brought by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) on behalf of 38 mothers and about 130 children, but will likely affect other children from the ranch now living in foster homes and shelters, attorneys said…
The ruling specifically pertains to the women and children represented in the appeals court’s May 22 decision.
But attorney Deborah Keenum, who represents 11 of the children, said the decision’s language is broad enough to encourage Walther to apply it to all the FLDS children in state custody…
A decision by Texas District Judge Barbara Walther means that to regain custody, the 38 mothers whose filed the complaint that led the Texas Supreme Court to reject the state’s massive seizure must personally sign an agreement their attorneys and state child-welfare officials have proposed.
That could add days to the process, attorneys for the mothers said, because the women are scattered across the state to be close to their children in foster care.
I hate to post anything by Thomas Fleming but it is a pretty good article.
Texas: Exes and Sexes
“Here is what the real issue is. State governments routinely promote teenage promiscuous sex in the sex education programs in government schools and in government-funded counseling centers. In many states, condoms are routinely provided to children on the pretext of preventing the spread of STD’s, when everyone knows or ought to know that the purpose, as much as the result, is to encourage teenage sex. And yet, here we have a state agency seizing a large group of children on the grounds that teenage girls are having sex with a man they regard as their husband and to whom they have promised fidelity.
If you want to talk about weird, what is weirder than the counselors, child-savers, and feminist prosecutors who want to rescue young women from polygamy only to turn them into unpaid strumpets… Let us cut the hypocrisy. America, as a society, is dedicated to the sexual exploitation of women. The only “crime ” committed by the Fundamentalist Mormons is their commitment to marriage."- Thomas Fleming
Another interesting quote from that article by Thomas Fleming (emphasis mine):
I do not know why such a strange religion as Mormonism was ever tolerated outside of Utah, but I do not make the laws. Mormonism is legal and so is Fundamentalist Mormonism. However repulsive we may find polygamy or marriage with young teenage women, let us remember that the Fundamentalist Mormons are hardly much different from polygamous Mormons down to 1890, when under very serious pressure from the Federal Government, the LDS renounced–for the time being–polygamy. I have read remarks from so-called Christian conservatives, who compare polygamy with homosexuality? Where did such people go to school? King David, then, was on the moral plane with homosexuals? When, by the way, did Jews renounce polygamy? It was banned in Europe, under threat of persecution, in the 12 century, though the ban apparently expired in the 13th. Today, European Jews continue to practice monogamy, which is the law in Israel, but some Middle Eastern Jews, even in Israel, continue to be polygenous. I do not think polygamy, whether practiced by Mormons, Muslims, or Jews, is an especially wholesome custom, and I much prefer the Greco-Roman marriage custom adopted by Christianity from the beginning, but it is foolish to be shocked or disgusted by an institution that is so common.
I’d have to look into that more, to believe it, given the specific OT law about a woman not returning to a former husband if she has had another in between…
Ha, ha! I read “polyandrous” where the quote says “polygenous” and polygeny doesn’t refer to polygamy at all, so I’m not sure what he’s trying to say. Perhaps he meant “polygynous”?
Well, shoot howdy, funny how that “Yearning for Zion” Ranch just happens to be in the path of the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor...I just can’t believe our beloved Texas State government would pull a crazy stunt like abducting 400 children and then possibly keeping their parents tied up in legal proceedings long enough for the whole community to go bankrupt and have no one able to resist the offer they make through eminent domain…
This is just disgusting enough that it might be true. Make sure you check out the maps and videos referenced in the column.
The man guarding the only entrance gate from town told me the children were being returned and they just wanted privacy. I didn’t have a problem with that because I really only wanted to ask him a question: Did he know anything about a new highway going through the area? Talk of a major freeway or anything like that? He replied no and I drove back to town. The reason I asked this question is because the question was raised: Is this 1700 acre ranch in the path of the NAFTA Super highway to Hell? I received an email dated April 16, 2008, which raised my radar:
“Eureka! I looked up Eldorado on my DeLorme Atlas, and sure enough, its location is right on the intersections of Hwys 190 and 277, just 10 miles North of major rte, U.S.10. Nearest populated town that I see on the map is San Angelo, Tx. some 60 miles due north of Eldorado..It appears to be right in the path of the planned NAFTA superhighway, which is supposed to connect to a major seaport to be built on the Mexican coast, just across the inlet from Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Baja, Calif (Mexican territory). Perhaps to use the town of Mazatlan as the hub of shipping. The port of Long Beach, California, now one of the fourth largest U.S.seaports will become an empty vessel; excuse the pun.”
