Thought Police, II

See Grits for Breakfast for another good post:

[...] Allegations of forcible rape turned out to be bogus, and only five girls between 16-19 girls were found with child - probably about the same ratio you'd find if you rounded up all the kids in my neighborhood.

Instead, I wonder what it would be like for these children to be torn from a loving family by people whose message is this: Everyone who loves you is bad. Everything you believe is wrong. The God you've been taught is a fraud and belief in Him is harming you.

To pluck any deeply religious child out of a secluded household and shower them with such messages from "de-programmers" would scar a kid for life, if they believed it.
[...]
In Eldorado, no one alleges YFZ parents are themselves abusing children. Instead the allegation (in court, at least) is that they're teaching their kids that a woman's highest calling is giving birth and raising children, and that it's acceptable to get married at an early age. Even if it were true, and the allegation was disputed, can this really be enough to seize children from their homes? It's not SUCH an outrageous belief, even if you don't share it: Until 2005, 14-year olds could marry in Texas with parental consent, and 16 year olds didn't need parents' permission.

Cicero has a long list of links about the case. These resources have been particularly useful:

Brooke Adams of the Polygamy Files (she's not polygamous, she's not even Mormon) does a great job of staying even handed and carefully teasing out the details.

The Salt Lake Tribune- absolutely the best news coverage anywhere. Because they are in Salt Lake, I had just assumed they were LDS, but according to Cicero:

(The Salt Lake Tribune was founded as an anti-Mormon anti-polygamy newspaper and so has extensive experience in reporting on these types of issues).

According to the Deseret News:

"To make this transition as smooth as possible, we're going to try to keep these children in groups," Shari Pulliam of the Texas Department of Family Services said Saturday. "We're going to keep the teenage girls and their children together, the siblings together as much as possible."

This would mean they can't place the children until the DNA testing is done, right? I believe we were told that CPS didn't know whose children were whose or which family groups they were in because nobody would tell them, except for when they did tell and were then accused of lying.

FLDS members opened the ranch for their attorneys and the childrens' guardians ad litum to visit:

Susan Hays, a Dallas attorney acting as a guardian ad litem for a little girl taken from the YFZ Ranch, left the ranch impressed.

"These people can build houses. It's an amazing facility, amazing construction," she said Saturday. "These aren't poor kids living in trailers. They're huge buildings, very clean and, frankly, they're a lot better conditions than the children are living in right now inside the coliseum."

Some of the children taken from the YFZ Ranch are being housed in nearby San Angelo, where they are sleeping on cots in what some of the FLDS have said are very cramped conditions. Attorneys have complained that they have had to conduct interviews with their clients in horse barns.

Patricia Deveau, a San Antonio attorney representing a 9-year-old boy, said the YFZ Ranch was a beautiful, self-sustaining community.

"I wanted to meet my child's father and see where he's been living so I can complete my own investigation," she said. "I was impressed with how self-sustaining this community is. I had no idea. It was an education for me."

DNA testing isn't completed yet, so, um, how does Deveau know that the man she is visiting is the father of her client, since nobody knows, and the children give conflicting information? Does it sound like perhaps CPS may have over-stated the case in court?

When you see a small child that's living on a cot instead of in their home, that's sad," Hays said. "It's frustrating and sad for individual lawyers when they have not seen any evidence of abuse in that child's home. The state seems to be making this argument that the whole thing's a big house. It's a 1,700-acre ranch with multiple buildings, large homes."

I general rule of thumb for me is that if ever I find myself and the ACLU on the same side, I need to rethink the issue. I have, and I did, and currently the ACLU and I are still on the same side:

"While we acknowledge that Judge Walthers' task may be unprecedented in Texas judicial history, we question whether the current proceedings adequately protect the fundamental rights of the mothers and children of the FLDS," said Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas, in a statement.
While the ACLU "deplores" crimes against children, Burke said that "constitutional rights that all Americans rely upon and cherish - that we are secure in our homes, that we may worship as we please and hold our places of worship sacred, and that we may be with our children absent evidence of imminent danger - have been threatened" by the state's actions.

It looks increasingly like 33 year old Swinton, with absolutely no affiliation with FLDS, was behind the false allegations that prompted the raid and removal of all 416 children from the FLDS ranch:

The Texas Ranger Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed Friday that Swinton was a person of interest in calls placed to a crisis hotline by someone claiming to be Sarah, a 16-year-old girl who had been sexually abused and beaten by a 50-year-old polygamous husband.
[...]
Flora Jessop, a former polygamist-sect member who now runs a crisis center, says Swinton repeatedly called her posing as a young abused girl and could be the same person whose complaints led to the April 3 raid on the Texas ranch.
Jessop said she first received a call March 30 from a woman, since identified as Swinton, claiming to be an abuse victim named Sarah.
But the hotline call that led to the raid wasn't publicized until after Jessop spoke with Sarah, leaving Jessop to speculate that she could have been the same person making the calls.
"It does kind of indicate (Swinton) made those calls," Jessop said. "There was no press on it at the time."

There's a good post with much food for thought here. The comments are interesting, too, particularly, oh, this one, #26 from Hawkgrrrl:

I definitely feel that TX has overreached in this situation. No question that people’s rights have been trampled. And I have a lot of respect for how UT and AZ have historically handled the situation.

But I for one would not shed a single tear if the end of polygamy is the outcome of this action. I am thrilled polygamy was ended by the LDS in 1890.

Agreed

And a religion that encourages illegal behavior is harmful and creates a need for secrecy.

Not necessarily. It's illegal to meet with two or three of your coreligionists in China and worship as you please. So Chinese Christians arrive gradually and secretively at meeting places and whisper hymns together, because they cannot sing for fear of getting caught.
I get her point- I just think it depends on what's illegal.

However, there are issues wih prosecuting polygamy that make it difficult:
1 - consensual polygamous marriages are not legal; therefore, being in a polygamous marriage is not illegal because you’re only married to one person legally. It’s not illegal in this country to have consensual unmarried sex and children with many partners.
2 - you can and should prosecute for any instance of statutory rape.
3 - you can and should prosecute when the welfare system is being defrauded.
4 - you can and should prosecute when any instance of abuse occurs. However, taking over 400 children from their mothers over one complaint is overreaching.

[...]

I agree wholeheartedly.

Other changes to the laws might help, too:
1 - raise the legal marriage age to 18 nationally, no exceptions. 18 is still too young if you ask me.
2 - eliminate home schooling or severely restrict it (e.g. limit to one consecutive year and insist on some additional oversight and socialization).

Oh, brother. Absolute bosh, completely unacceptable, and totally irrational, unconstitutional, authoritarian, police state minded.

CPS has claimed all along that they have no idea who these people are because they give conflicting testimony, different names, and they don't know their own birthdays. I have wondered why FLDS people don't seem to have identification. At least two women have testified that they have identification, driver's licenses, birth certificates, and so forth, but CPS wouldn't accept them. It seems they aren't the only two. When Richard Jessop, father of seven in state custody, said he'd be giving a DNA sample even though he couldn't see why it was necessary, because he'd do anything he could to 'help them clean up their mess,' CPS worker Voss disagreed:

The mess, Voss said, is of the parents' own making.
She rebuffed attorneys who pressed her to believe women who have certified birth certificates, Social Security numbers and income tax returns as proof of name and age.
Voss said the state can't rely on such documents yet because they might be forged, and the judge agreed.
"How do you know, in today's world of identity theft, a birth certificate is proof of who they are?" the judge asked one woman's attorney.

Most of the residents of the YfZ ranch are descendants of the same four men, who founded the sect. So the same last name is common. They like Bible names, so there would be many girls with the same name. Where CPS sees four Martha Steeds as an indication of fraud, there is an innocent interpretation of that.

Are there underaged brides? Undoubtedly. Those cases should be prosecuted. Are 416 children in custody child-brides? No. The press has been reporting upwards of fifty underaged girls pregnant and burdened with several children, but in fact, when it came down to evidence:

"Texas investigators say they have identified five underage teenagers who are pregnant or mothers.

Given the high teen pregnancy rates in California, you'd find five pregnant girls (or more) at any high school school in Texas. Voss made it crystal clear that this was about a belief system rather than the five pregnant teens the state is holding:

"They explain they are one big family, one big community, and share one belief system," Texas Child Protective Services investigator Angie Voss said during a hearing last week. "They believe that having children at a young age is a blessing, and therefore a child of any age isn't safe."

Although we'd all like to think this comfort with young girls marrying is a freaky aberration and proof that there's something insidiously wrong with this group, it's been the social norm for centuries, and it wasn't something Texas took issue with until very recently:

Until 2005, Texas allowed girls as young as 14 to marry with parental permission; it was then raised to 16. On Sunday several FLDS women said they they didn't know the law had changed until the raid.

While it is a sad fact for FLDS women, ignorance of the law is no excuse, and I think we can expect some convictions here if this is pursued as it should be- a legal, rather than a civil case. I do not take issue with pursuing criminal charges against adult men who have fathered children on 16 year olds. I take issue with Angie Voss determining what an entire sect believes based on interviews with children (she spoke to no fathers and few mothers, and she didn't believe the adults she did speak with, and removing those children based on beliefs she finds unpalatable.
The sect does believe that children are a blessing, as do many non-FLDS people. While there have been abuses (which have resulted in Warren Jeff's well deserved jail term) it's reasonable to doubt that Voss is correct when she says the entire sect couples the 'children are a blessing' belief with ' children are a blessing if they're born to young mothers:'

...other FLDS members said this week such marriages have been discouraged in recent years.
"There may be individual cases where something may have happened, but that's different than [having it] hang over the whole religion, over all the people," Johnson said.
Her older daughter, Sarah, is 18, married and has a 5-month-old. She is one of the teens whose age is disputed by Texas authorities. Johnson said her 13-year-old daughter will have to be at least that age before she is allowed to marry. "

She's cornered and she wants her child, so maybe she's making promises she has no intention of keeping. Maybe you would, too. Should CPS be able to remove 416 children because of a maybe, or should there be better proof? Wouldn't it be possible to return the children with restrictions? CPS would reserve the right to monitor the situation, to visit the teen girls regularly to maintain that they are not engaging in underaged sex? Isn't it interesting that if these parents just wanted to give birth control to these girls, the press would be on their side?

And shouldn't we have more proof of what the entire sect believes and practices than Angie Voss's clearly distorted viewpoint? Why is she relying on the testimony of 8 year old children instead of talking to the adults? Are children ever a little simplistic about the nuances of their parents' faith?

I believe children are a blessing, and we have done nothing to stop God from so blessing us for many years. When I was pregnant with my seventh child, our then 9 year old said to me, "Oh, I hope this is not our last baby! I want to have a LARGE family!" I wryly pointed out that most people believed we already had a large family, and asked her what she thought a large family would be. I forget her exact number- I probably fainted and had to be revived- but I know it was somewhere between 27 and 35. I know I shudder to think what CPS would have made of that.

How much time did Voss spend with adults asking what they believed? Which of their religious documents did she read? Where did she gain her expertise into the religious beliefs of this sect, and why is her representation so at odds with those of "William John Walsh, a Mormon scholar who said he has studied the FLDS for 18 years?"

As for underage marriage, Walsh told 51st District Judge Barbara Walther that the FLDS is a conservative sect that teaches that men are the heads of families in much the same manner that Catholics and Baptists do.
He said actual practice varies from family to family - especially regarding the appropriate age for girls to marry. "There is nothing in scripture about when marriage should occur."
That age appeared to have fallen under the reign of FLDS President Warren S. Jeffs, he said, but it would be a "major distortion" to say the FLDS teach that girls should become sexually active as adolescents.
Some may have become wives when they were younger than 18.
Contrary to state allegations, he said that girls and their parents would jointly make decisions about when she was ready to marry. "Basically they are into matchmaking," he said.

Would you want the state making determinations about what you believe based on what your children say?