It sounds like a bad situation and one that could become as explosive as Waco (ouch), but I'm never impressed by efforts to restrict the reasonable freedoms of several thousand people in order to punish a few detestable specimens.
I quoted from this article (pasted below, and it's also online here), and little realized how inaccurate the article was. Hilderbran claims
"It's been reported," Mr. Hilderbran said, "that this self-proclaimed prophet encourages his followers to take dozens of wives, many of whom are underage and forced into marriage. I've heard that he encourages them to 'bleed the beast' by cheating the government and draining the welfare system of funds that should be used for hard-working families.
We now know that 'bleeding the beast' is not and never was an FLDS phrase, that was a term Flora Jessop made up and passed on to gullible people. And there were no recipients of welfare on the ranch.
This reality doesn't seem to have made a dent in Hilderbran's thinking, however. He's boasting about how wonderful that bill was (it actually failed, but he piggy backed parts of it onto other bills):
Hilderbran added, “Without H.B. 3006, which we passed during the 79th Legislative Session, none of the indictments that law enforcement got against these men would have been possible. This session, we are coming full circle to make sure we protect the children from anyone who might be complacent in abuse.”
And he's working on a new bill, again targeted at the FLDS, and again, restricting the reasonable liberties of thousands in order to target members of a religious group, and target them unfairly. Brooke Adams writes:
HB 4255 adds this paragraph to the Texas Family Code:
“In making a determination under Subsection (b), the court may find that based on the circumstances no reasonable efforts would prevent or eliminate the need to remove a child and that the department satisfied the requirements of Subsection (b) even though the department made no efforts to prevent or eliminate the need to remove a child.”
Here is what Subsection (b) says: “In determining the reasonable efforts, if any, that are required to be made with respect to preventing or eliminating the need to remove a child from the child’s home or to make it possible to return a child to the child’s home, the child’s health and safety is the paramount concern.”
So, if I am reading the proposed language correctly, under some circumstances, the Department of Family and Protective Services could make no effort to keep a child in a home, which is exactly what happened in the YFZ Ranch investigation. The language is contrary to Texas’ stated policy of making family-based services a priority (see blog on testimony before the Human Services committee).
In the comments to that post, Tx Blues writes:
OK, as I read the bill, it does the following:
1 - Failure to Report Child Abuse becomes a Class A misdemeanor on the second offense (1 year), unless the offender is a professional (doctor, teacher, etc). In that case it is a Class A on the first offense, and a State Jail felony (2 years) on the second offense.
2 - Removes the requirement for CPS to make any efforts to avoid removing the child from the home.
3 - May remove the perpetrator instead of the child from the home only if the adult that is left at the home with the child is likely to notify law enforcement of the perpetrator’s return to the home.
4 - Deletes the requirement for the child to be in immediate danger in order to remove the child.
5 - Changes the penalty for failing to report a birth from a Class C (fine only) to a Class A misdemeanor (1 year).
It also refers to changes in the Education Code, primarily in the area of investigation of compulsory school attendance by peace officers, but the actual text is omitted from the bill. Since this was filed on the last day to file a bill this session, that language will probably be added in a committee substitute, if it gets a hearing.
It is far more sweeping than it looks on the surface…
I would like to know exactly what those proposed changes to the Education Code are, and why Hilderbran thinks they are appropriate. Looks like homeschoolers in Texas need to start talking to their legislators.
Unpopular groups find themselves the target of wild rumours and exaggerated accusations at various times- I assume we're familiar the blood libel stories against the Jews, said to require the blood of Christian babies in their Matzo, the exaggerated stories of illegitimate children buried in the walls of nunneries, Janet Reno justifying Waco by talking about babies being beaten...
In response to FLDS moving in to the area, State Legislator Hilderbran, representative to Schleicher County, where YfZ ranch is located, proposed many legislative changes aimed directly at the FLDS. He invited Shurtleff, Utah Attorney General to testify:
"Imagine a community run as a theocracy," Shurtleff, the Utah attorney general, said at the Capitol in April, in testimony encouraging lawmakers to strengthen Texas' polygamy law (making it a felony offense) and to raise the age of consent for marriage from 14 to 16. (Gov. Rick Perry duly signed the measures into law last month, as amendments to SB 6.) In Short Creek, women are considered the exclusive "property" of the male "priesthood," Shurtleff explained, and are not allowed to attend school beyond the sixth grade. Women are expected to remain entirely subservient to men (or face retribution), and plural marriages are considered necessary to facilitate male salvation – indeed, Jeffs reportedly has at least 40 wives and 56 children. (On average, Krakauer told Texas lawmakers, FLDS women have between eight and 15 children each. And celestial wives, whose marriages are not recognized by law, are encouraged to "bleed the beast" by applying for food stamps and other welfare subsidies.) "This is the kind of stuff that, as the chief law enforcement officer in the state of Utah, keeps me up at night," Shurtleff said.I've italicized all the parts of his testimony that we now know are not true. I think a couple others are questionable- the idea that plural marriage is necessary for salvation, for instance, is an interpretation based on a Christian rather than Mormon idea of the afterlife- I think it might be necessary for elevation to godhood in FLDS theology, but most Americans would read that statement and think it means the FLDS teach a man will go to hell if he dies with only wife, and my understanding would be that you probably won't be elevated to godhood, but there's not a question that a man with only one spouse would go to hell. I am open to correction on that.
Flora Jessop, btw, is quoted extensively in the above article, and she makes claims that are clearly nonsense that the author of the article accepts at face value, with no critical thinking whatsoever. One of them is that the FLDS 'lost boys' don't even know how to bathe or perform basic grooming tasks such as applying lotion because they are trained never to touch themselves. At. All. These are boys. Does Flora or the reporter honestly expect us to believe that they do not brush their hair, wash their faces, dress themselves, shower, and we are expected to believe they use the bathroom like girls? Please.
According to a writ of Habeus Corpus filed on behalf of three FLDS fathers (the top of page 68 of the PDF, 71 of the document):
He [Hilderbran] expressed fear that the FLDS would take over the electorate and he and the Attorney General of Utah presented testimony alleging that the members of FLDS killed small animals to give their children the feel of blood on their hands and other atrocities vilifying all members of FLDS.
Blink. I cannot believe adult legislators listened to such nonsense with a straight face.
The HG wants to know, "So, what? Don't many hunters have a tradition of wiping the blood of the first kill on their faces or something weird and icky like that?"
The YfZ community is an agrarian community. In an agrarian life, you have to understand the connection between the meat you eat and the death of an animal. If that's abuse, then I hope Hilderbran is a vegetarian.
Brooke Adams once reported on her reading of ''Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict.''
She said:
Let me share the recommendations made by Christopher G. Ellison and John P. Bartkowski in their chapter titled, ''Babies Were Being Beaten: Exploring child abuse allegations at Ranch Apocalypse.''
The title is borrowed from a statement by then-Attorney General Janet Reno in explaining why the government had to act as it did at Waco.
The chapter centers on the allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse leveled at the Davidians, primarily leader David Koresh, and how those claims shaped public opinion about the group. The authors discredit most of the physical abuse claims based on a ''dearth of contemporaneous evidence'' while finding substance in the sexual abuse allegations.
Even so, ''the apparent theological underpinnings of these relationships and the consent given freely by the parents underscore the complexity of these situations, dictating some degree of interpretive caution.''
They note that the government put off criticism of its actions by ''emphasizing child-saving themes'' and that apostates who made most of the claims ''were able to use largely unsubstantiated allegations in their unrelenting campaign to demonize David Koresh.''
Child abuse allegations resonant with the public, the authors said, and ''have the potential to cement an odd anticult alliance from forces of the sociopolitical left and right: law enforcement agents, therapists, social workers and other children's advocates, as well as diverse segments of the religious establishment . . . ''
Here is the ''stocktaking'' the authors said was necessary to avoid similar catastrophes, which I am closely quoting below:
1. Authorities and media should investigate carefully the complex process of claims-making surrounding mariginal religious groups and their child-rearing practices. . . . It is important to link conflicting accounts about the group to the divergent ideological, psychological, and material interests and agendas of the adversarial parties.
2. ''Child abuse'' should be defined very carefully, so as to avoid loose and ideologically laden uses of this stigamtizing label. Children who are physically punished, taught a distinctive (e.g., apocalyptic) theology, or raised in an unusual set of circumstances (e.g., communally) are not necessarily being abused by their caregivers.
3. Authorities who must adjudicate the various claims and counterclaims about marginal religious groups should solicit and take seriously the input of social scientists who are familiar with the theology, history, and collective dynamics of such groups.
4. When child abuse claims are at issue, these investigators should be attentive to the growing body of scholarly research that treats such accusations critically. . . . studies in this tradition suggest that child abuse allegations often turn out to be inaccurrate for various reasons, and that a substantial proportion of such allegations emerge from child custody battles, or from other intrafamily or intragroup conflicts.
5. At each step in the investigative process, it must be the responsibility of authorities to weigh carefully the tradeoffs between the preservation of religious liberty for minority religious groups and the welfare of the children. They must avoid taking steps which might jeopardize the physical or emotional well-being of the youngsters.
Almost any Civil liberty can be violated today 'for the sake of the children' and Hilderbran wants to give the people who botched the YfZ case even more power and authority- and less accountability.
Certain elements are amassing more and more power unto themselves, and it's all 'for the sake of the children,' of course. "The children' are the nuclear weapon in contested divorce cases, and they are increasing used to control other elements of society we find uncomfortably nonconformist.
Richard Wexler, Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, says:
Imagine for a moment that, when he was Attorney General, John Ashcroft had proposed anti-terrorism legislation with the following provisions:
Special anti-terrorism police can enter any home and search it without a warrant; in fact, they can do it based on no more than an anonymous tip. (Or they can simply threaten to detain anyone in the household if they are not given permission to enter.) Not only can they search the home, they can stripsearch the occupants or arrange for a doctor to do so.
They can detain any member of the household for anywhere from 24 hours to a week or more before they even see the inside of a courtroom. In fact, detention will probably last for the duration of the proceeding because no judge wants to look "soft on terrorism."
Those arrested under this statute get a lawyer only moments before the first hearing begins – or perhaps only after that hearing already is over, and that lawyer often is too overwhelmed to mount a real defense. Or maybe they get no lawyer at all. To prolong detention the standard of proof is merely “preponderance of the evidence.” And all of the trials and hearings and most of the records are secret. (In Texas the hearings are open, but that's unusual).
what I have just described *is* the current law on child welfare in most states. And it’s largely the left that wants to keep it that way.
Richard Wexler
Executive Director
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
www.nccpr.org
I don't think most of the right is very interested in changing it, either. Oh, some of us may say we are, and we may talk about being strict constructionists, and Constitutionalists. But we've let the Child Abuse Industry control the terms of the discussion, (the source of the fallacious 'erring on the side of the child' doctrine) and so we're afraid to speak up. People will think we're guilty of something we want to hide, or accuse us of supporting, aiding, or abetting child abusers. Or worse.
Homeschoolers, Hilderbran is trying to curtail our freedoms because he doesn't like polygamy. Who will be next?
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Here's the entire 2005 article recounting Hilderbran's initial legislative efforts to make religious discrimination part of Texas law. If anybody can give me a link to the actual testimony in HR 3006 of that year, I should be grateful:
AUSTIN, Texas -- A burgeoning, secretive sect of polygamists in a small, western Texas rural community has state legislators considering new bills to combat what many consider the group's unacceptable lifestyle.
State Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, a Republican, is pushing several changes to state law, particularly those concerning child-protective services, home schooling and marriage between stepchildren and stepparents.
At issue is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a rogue flank of the Mormon denomination that secretly purchased a 1,691-acre ranch outside Eldorado 14 months ago and moved several dozen followers from Utah to begin building a religious center. Warren Jeffs is the self-named prophet of the sect.
Several specialists on polygamy testified last week before the House Juvenile Justice and Family Issues Committee, including Utah's attorney general and a well-known author who has written extensively about fundamentalist sects.
"I'm embarrassed," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff told the legislators, "that for years Utah did nothing. I feel bad that we have basically exported our problem to Texas."
Jon Krakauer, author of "Under the Banner of Heaven," who has spent years investigating the sect, predicted that the group would head south to Texas and thinks there will be a bloody outcome if authorities try to arrest its leader.
"I personally think the possibility of another Waco or Jonestown is huge," Mr. Krakauer said, referring to the deadly standoff in Texas and mass suicide in Guyana. "If [Mr. Jeffs] feels cornered and threatened, he's not going to go out alone. He's not going to allow himself to be arrested."
The group had been under increasing pressure from Utah and various civil lawsuits to criminally prosecute several of the sect's hierarchy who have conceived children with underage girls. Some say that is why the group ventured to the remote Texas site. Mormons officially outlawed polygamy more than a century ago.
Mr. Hilderbran said Saturday that several suggestions had come as a result of last Wednesday's hearing -- some fine-tuning that would be in the final bill. He said he would have the legislation ready to introduce later this week.
"It's just too hot a subject to be ignored," he said.
"It's been reported," Mr. Hilderbran said, "that this self-proclaimed prophet encourages his followers to take dozens of wives, many of whom are underage and forced into marriage. I've heard that he encourages them to 'bleed the beast' by cheating the government and draining the welfare system of funds that should be used for hard-working families. The people of Schneider County and Eldorado don't want this type of activity going on in their own back yards and neither do I."
Mr. Shurtleff, in his second term as Utah attorney general, praised Texas authorities for dealing with what he termed "a growing problem."
"He told us we'd better not wait as long as Utah did in dealing with it because it could get a lot more difficult later on," Mr. Hilderbran said.
You can read more about his efforts here, and his impolitic statements about why his political goals (keep the FLDS out, make them miserable if they come). Pin It
