More on the Polygamy Case

I blogged about this earlier here, and provided an update from Grits at Breakfast, and then realized I could go on and on with updates, so I needed a new post:Also found at Grits for Breakfast (this is actually from one of his commenters):

Did no one think in advance to look if there were enough lawyers in a five county radius to serve as ad litems? Or if it was even feasible for one district court to shut down all it's operations to devote to one case? Or if there was even a courtroom big enough? And now, after letting some mothers come along with their children (admittedly an unusual act in a removal case), then stripping them of their cell phones, now they decide to kick them out unless they have kids under 4? This sort of screaming incompetence is going to permanently scar these children AND risk destroying any criminal cases that might be made. It's just beyond belief.

Says GfB:

That agrees essentially with my assessment so far. I fear this overreaction by the state will make it impossible to pursue real abuse cases, and simply cause more harm than it cures.

Here's another blog questioning the reality of the initial phone call prompting the raid and removal of 416 children from their homes. She still hasn't turned up, the man CPS identified as her abusive husband (and they named him in their first warrant, the one giving them permission to invade the ranch) isn't the man- even CPS now admits he's the wrong guy. The details in her two phone calls do not mesh with the common terms and jargon of the cult, and there was a nearly identical phone call to authorities near another FLDS group in Arizona- and it all smells of fish.

The 139 women who accompanied their children to the fort (in buses provided by Baptist churches, for a surreal moment, and several of them first were taken to a Baptist church building for temporary living quarters) had their cell phones confiscated. Does that strike anybody as odd? I mean, how did they have cell phones in the first place, given the other things we've heard about them? And why aren't the allowed to speak to their husbands, since only two people have actually be charged with any crimes thus far (both crimes stemming from their response to the investigation, not prior to it)? Elsewhere, and unfortunately I didn't keep the link because I got wrapped up in reading, I 've read confirmation from CPS that the young mothers were told they could leave the fort to confer with their husbands or their attorneys, but then they wouldn't be allowed back. How can the women call for help or legal assistance if they can't use their phones, and are forced to choose between consulting with their husbands or lawyers and being able to remain with their children?

According to this post from the very excellent Polygamy Files, the court order permitted, indeed, required, the removal of cell phones that store images. Why? What's going on in there that CPS and the court system don't want photographed?

It certainly seems that's what the cell phone removal is about: The order, signed Sunday morning by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther, came after someone used a cell phone to send out images of living conditions at one shelter and to speak with a newspaper reporter.

Yet Children's Protective Services spokesman Marleigh Meisner insists that the women there don't want to talk to reporters. Apparently somebody did. And isn't one of the problems with this cult that they keep their members isolated and prohibit contact with outsiders? They at least permitted cell phones, didn't they?

Ah, here's part of that pesky phone call to a reporter that prompted the judge to confiscate everybody's cell phones:

There are 170 people, with only two bathroom facilities. There are children, who are crying and sick. They play outside on gravel, which is very dusty. They are being restricted from a large nearby grassy area where the kids could play. They undergo intrusive questioning by lawyers. There is intimidation by CPS workers telling children if they don’t relate things against their parents, they will never see their parents again. There are only six showers between the two facilities. They only have the clothes they wore from the ranch. Additional clothes sent from the ranch, but CPS will not allow them access to the clothes. Children crying and screaming from CPS physical examinations conducted without mothers present. Mothers and children being kept apart with no means of communication available.

Yeah, I can see why that was a danger. To CPS.

From the same link comes this very moving account:

State troopers confiscated at least one box full of cell phones, chargers and other devices, said Marissa Gonzales, a spokeswoman for Texas Child Protective Services.
The search continued late into the afternoon. More than a dozen troopers were seen leaving a building being used to house boys at Fort Concho, and one used a metal detector to sweep its porch.
Dozens of boys stood outside the building during the search. Later, they gathered on the parade grounds at the historic military fort and sang songs from what appeared to be a hymnal. At one point the boys, who are being kept in separate quarters from the women and younger children, formed a line and faced a group of FLDS women and children about 50 yards across the grassy field. The boys and the women then sang. It lasted for nearly 90 minutes.

An FLDS woman contacted this blogger for The Polygamy Files at the Salt Lake Tribune and said she recognized one of the pictures of a group of youngsters playing soccer at the fort where the children were being held as her 17 year old younger brother. He's married, his older sister says, to a young lady his own age and they have a child. But:

in a brief phone call made to family in the past few days, her brother began to cry. He said he has seen his wife across the grassy field at the compound but hasn't been able to speak with her.

27 of the older boys have been taken even further away- 400 miles away from home- at a boy's ranch.

Here's another blogger's viewpoint (and it's pretty close to mine):

Here's my take on the FLDS organization. (I'm actually getting pretty disgusted with even calling them a religion.) They damage the lives of girls by turning them into child brides. They discard their male children because they're ultimately competition for sexual partners.

The Constitution is not an easy document. If you're a constitutional lover, it's easy to say that the First Amendment should control. However, like much in life, it's just not that tidy.

However, I'm still not certain that CPS will cause less harm than that organization would in the lives of those 416 children.

This sends chills up my spine:

In my opinion, this is the largest endeavor we've ever been involved in in the state of Texas," said Children's Protective Services spokesman Marleigh Meisner, who said she was also involved in the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.

Meisner is the one who insisted that none of the mothers sequestered by the state within the fort wanted to talk to the media. But when CPS kicked out all the mothers of children over 4, they called to speak to the media almost as soon as they arrived home. Many of criticized the women for refusing to tell their names or the ages of their children- but since they were separated from their children based on the children's ages, it doesn't seem like that was such a foolish move.

And not all the children under 4 have their mothers with them more than one woman was away from the ranch at the time of the raid, including:

Shannon, a mother who was also off the ranch when officers served the search warrants, said she's also tried several times to see her three children but has been refused.

"Every day I've called them. They put me off saying they don't have the authority to let me in and there's no proof the children are mine. I tell them the children know who their mother is, and I know who my children are," she said.

The 30-year-old says she provided child welfare officials with identification and even birth certificates proving she is her children's mother. She says she and other mothers were told those documents could have been fake.

"I couldn't believe it. I wondered if we were in America or Russia," Shannon said. "I kept thinking, 'How can they do that?' They're breaking every rule. They're breaking every law."

Shannon has been told that her youngest child, who is just 2 years old, clings to her caretaker in the shelter. "She's sick right now and needs her mother."

Mothers at Fort Concho have been told if they leave to meet with their attorneys they cannot return. The Judge says he wants a 'more efficient' way of dealing with the possibility of removing these children from their homes- he suggests 'bundling' them, basically, putting large groups of children together based on the judgment of CPS and court appointed representatives about which of them have similar interests. Then he will limit the amount of time they can have- because, I guess, efficiency is more important than making sure these kids and their mothers get due process before their lives are changed forever.

As I read around, I see several commenters saying that this group obviously needs to be punished because they were breaking the law by practicing polygamy. But from what I can tell, they practiced it in name and deed, but not in law. By which I mean that under state law, basically they were all just shacking up. The men don't get civil, legal, marriages except to one wife, usually, I guess, the first. So how is this different from, oh, much of secular America, except they dress funny and don't drink and swear? So legally, they don't practice polygamy. They call it a marriage without sanction of law, like the shacked up kids who say, "We're married in God's eyes," but never bother to get a marriage license. Does the state go after parents who are not married to each other? No. Does the state go after serial polygamists (divorce, remarriage, divorce, marry another, divorce again....)? OF course not, although we now know that divorce is horribly traumatic for the children involved. So why does the state of Texas care that these people live together without benefit of marriage? Welfare Fraud, I can understand why they go after that, although there is no evidence thus far that this is the issue. Child Abuse, certainly- and adult men who take on child-brides should be prosecuted to the fullest extent. But do we take the word of an anonymous phone caller who gives information that is demonstrably false to remove over 400 children from their homes? This is like arresting everybody at your church because somebody made an anonymous phone call to CPS about ONE member.
Here's where we are as of this writing:

Of the 416 children taken from the YFZ Ranch, 289 who are 4 or younger are at the Wells Fargo Pavilion in San Angelo. With them are 82 mothers who have children in the group.
Another 100 children, ages 5 to 18, are in the adjacent coliseum, where they are being supervised by Child Protective Services workers and licensed caregivers.
A judge awarded the state temporary foster care for 27 teenage boys, and they are now at Cal Farley's Boys Ranch northwest of Amarillo, nearly 400 miles from home.

I have never heard anything I admire about the FLDS, and I am concerned about the alleged abusive practices. But if that anonymous phone call from an apparently false accuser is all CPS had to go before invading the ranch at midnight and taking away over 400 children, then something is really wrong, and we are all at risk.