FLDS Children to be returned?

[amicus]

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=8365474

AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) -- The Third Court of Appeals has ruled that Child Protective Services did not have the right to remove children from the Yearning for Zion ranch last month.

The ruling comes as a result of a document filed by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid last month. The TRLA is the largest provider of legal aid in Texas, on behalf of 48 FLDS mothers that TRLA is representing in their child custody cases.

"The way that the courts have ignored the legal rights of these mothers is ridiculous," said TRLA attorney Julie Balovich. "It was about time a court stood up and said that was has been happening to these families is wrong."

In the decision, the Court ruled that CPS failed to provide any evidence that the children were in imminent danger and acted hastily in removing them from their families. According to the Court, "The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the Department's witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger."

TRLA will be holding a press conference in front of the courthouse in San Angelo Thursday at 1:30 p.m.

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) -- Half the mothers put in foster care as children by Texas child welfare authorities have now been declared adults.

Attorneys for Child Protective Services have been conceding, one by one, that many of the mothers authorities cited as evidence that the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints committed widespread sexual abuse of girls are actually adults.

They've admitted 15 of the 31 mothers are adults, one is actually 27.

Another girl listed as an underage mother is 14, but the state has conceded she is not pregnant or have a child.

CPS officials in April raided a ranch run by a polygamist sect in West Texas. Their contention that abuse was widespread led to the removal of more than 460 children from the ranch.

KXAN Austin News has a crew in Eldorado and will bring updates as they become available.

~~~

Justice grinds exceedingly slow....

Amicus...

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

I've sort of been waiting for this. Now what's the next step? Will the Texas State morons try another attack on the FLDS compound claiming underage butt-fucking or something?

Stay tuned for later developments...

 

[amicus]

All the media that I have listened to and every single poster on my previous thread have already made a judgment on this event.

The last thing I heard was that the State of Texas may ask for a 'Stay' on the Court's decision and take it to a higher court. And they are discussing the possibility of civil suits by the FLDS mothers against the State for unconstitutional behavior.

We shall see...


ami

edited to add, I also heard that all court hearings for the captive children and mothers have been canceled for the next two days...dunno....

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Civilization and the Texas Cult
By LIONEL TIGER

The desperate tragedy involving polygamous cultists in Texas has attracted a growing phalanx of lawyers, judges, law enforcers and assorted psychologists.

Those responsible for coping with this astonishing disaster would be well-advised to add a primatologist to the team. The fact is that, despite all the blather about faith and freedom of religion, the men operating the various compounds in question are behaving in virtually the same manner as countless dominant males in countless primate troops observed over the years.

The essence of the case is that the men who control the politics of the group (as well as the hapless women and children who live there) have used junk theology about heaven, hell, paradise and salvation to maintain their unquestioned access to all females of reproductive age (or younger).

That's the reproductive fantasy of any adult male primate.

In this blow to simple decency, the Texas polygamists are not pathfinders. Multiple wives are of course permitted in the Islamic religion, and co-wives are a feature of dozens of human groups in which powerful men control sufficient resources to be able to support more than one woman.

This is usually because the societies in which they live are sharply unequal. Sex and offspring flow to those with resources.

One of the triumphs of Western arrangements is the institution of monogamy, which has in principle made it possible for each male and female to enjoy a plausible shot at the reproductive outcome which all the apparatus of nature demands. Even Karl Marx did not fully appreciate the immense radicalism of this form of equity.

The Texans' faith-flaunting is morally disgraceful and crudely cynical. It also raises bewildering questions about human gullibility on one hand and the efficacy of the Big Lie on the other.

Can anyone really believe that the notorious communal bed to which senior men command 16-year-old girls is part of some holy temple apparatus? Apparently some people do, and the few escapees from the fetid zoo have testified to the power the ridiculous theory wields.

The victims are not only young women but young men too. They are reproductively and productively disenfranchised, and are in effect forced to leave the communities to become hopeless, ill-schooled misfits in the towns of normal life. No dignified lives as celibate monks with colorful costumes for them.

Again, the issue is cross-cultural. Osama bin Laden has at least five wives, which means that four young men of his tribe have no date on Saturday night and forever. They may become willing jihadists, or desperate suicides eager to soothe their god by killing infidels and Americans.

Elsewhere, preference for sons has meant a sharp shortage of women in China. It is known that raiding parties from there cross into bordering countries with more regular sex ratios to steal women.

The deranged cults have been operating in plain sight for years in Texan communities whose police forces have been earnestly writing parking tickets while ignoring what is obvious major criminality. Some 400 young children have been drastically separated from their mothers – who among other derogations of civil life are allegedly part of longstanding welfare fraud engineered by their sexual tyrants.

And now what? It will be intensely depressing but probably useful to acknowledge this is at bottom a natural matter, a product of our inner behavioral nature. Understanding the shadowy sources of this nightmare may help our community cope with its victims.

Mr. Tiger teaches anthropology at Rutgers and is the author of "The Decline of Males" (St. Martin's, 2000).

 

[amicus]

As you chose to cut and paste that article, is one safe to assume it reflects your thoughts? Or are you Pure in disguise again?

The article does bring out into the open the hidden agenda of those who have taken similar positions on this forum and elsewhere, namely, that the entire avenue of attack is a feminist complaint.

I reiterate my previous concern: that the power of the State was misused to remove civil rights from hundreds of innocent victims.

It seems the court, at least one anyway, agrees with me. The State of Texas, according to the court, had no just cause for the actions taken.

Amicus...

 

[amicus]

Latest on the news, 12 children are to be released to their families and the Appellate court ruling, even though it was unanimous, has been appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.

and so it goes...

ami

 

[xssve]

I'm with Appleby and Tiger on this one, it's pure opportunism - apparently Amicus doesn't mind that the only way these guys can operate is to keep churning out welfare dependents

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I predicted the court would throw it out because the Supremes have already ruled that taking a child into custody is a 4th Amendment search & seizure issue. The Supremes ruled there must be imminent danger or you cant take the child. Imminent means right now.

But child abuse is so toxic an issue cops and lower courts are afraid to use commonsense and good judgment, so they take the kid knowing an appellate court will send the kid home.

This was no surprise to me.