Goodness, what’s the rush?
A Texas appeals court rules that the state CPS acted too hastily in removing all the children from the FLDS ranch.
In the decision, the 3rd Court ruled that CPS failed to provide any evidence that the children were in imminent danger. It said state acted hastily in removing them from their families. The agency had argued that the children on the ranch were either abused or at risk of abuse. The Texas Family Code allows a judge to consider whether the “household” to which a child would be returned includes a person who has sexually abused another child. Child welfare officials alleged that the polygamist sect’s practice of marrying underage girls to older men places all its children at risk of sexual abuse.
And there’s another thing – the fact that the children in question are not free to leave. To put it mildly. Make no mistake: they are locked in there, and the doors are not open. And, it goes without saying, they don’t go to school. If anything is wrong, there is no one they can tell.
The court wrote, “Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse as the Department contends, there is no evidence that this danger is ‘immediate’ or ‘urgent’ … with respect to every child in the community.”
Even though they can’t leave? Even if there is no way for anyone from outside to make sure all the children are all right? Sorry; I don’t buy it. I’ve read and heard enough accounts from some of the few people who have escaped to have good reason not to buy it.
Scott Dixon, a CPS regional director, said some shelters and facilities were already getting calls from parents asking when they could pick up their kids…Carolyn Jessop, who fled the sect in 2003, was leading the training. She called the decision “a shock. I am just hoping that enough people will come out and protest it,” said Jessop. She is an ex-wife of Merril Jessop, the assumed leader at the Eldorado compound.
An ex-wife who as a teenager was married to Jessop at the command of her father. She was raised FLDS, she couldn’t say no, but she was shocked and horrified. No; sorry; men shouldn’t be allowed to marry off their daughters like so much livestock.
Scott McCown, a former judge and executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, said…protective services could still remove the children after a full trial. McCown said there is a very real risk that if the children are returned to their parents they will be moved to another state, Canada or Mexico and be outside the jurisdiction of Texas’ protective custody. “One of the real dangers is flight, and the court doesn’t address that at all,” McCown said.
Oh well. So a few hundred kids have crappy lives, and raise their own children to have crappy lives, and so on forever; no big deal.
I’m worried that the blowback from this decision might cause the state to break off its investigation. There’s already way too much “oh, the gubmint took their babies away!” sentiment–and not enough people acquainted with the human rights violations that the FLDS (in its myriad compounds and bought cities) has committed and continues to commit as a matter of course.
From my days in social services (which ended only a few months ago, otherwise I might have been driving to Texas in April), I can assure you that there are plenty of people concerned about the children first and foremost who will recognize this rhetoric for what it is – apologetics for child abuse. There is no way that the FLDS will be allowed to operate their child prostitution ring from this day forward – and that’s a good thing.
“There is no evidence that [the mothers] have allowed or are going to allow any of their minor female children to be subjected to any sexual or physical abuse. There is simply no evidence specific to [the mothers’] children at all except that they exist, they were taken into custody at the Yearning For Zion ranch, and they are living with people who share a ‘pervasive belief system’ that condones underage marriage and underage pregnancy.”
So the fact that these children are being raised in a cult that condones, and has a history of, child abuse is not good enough evidence that they are at risk of abuse?
“So the fact that these children are being raised in a cult that condones, and has a history of, child abuse is not good enough evidence that they are at risk of abuse?”
On another forum I frequent there are people making this exact argument.
They are also denying that the FLDS’s brand of polygamy has anything to do with the subjection of women. I don’t even know what to say to that.
dzd, did you try saying it was nonsense?