The dust is more or less settling around the largest child custody case in Texas history. DNA samples and fingerprints having duly been taken, the 463 children removed by Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) from Warren Jeffs’s Yearning for Zion (YFZ) Ranch, near Eldorado, have been trundled off to foster care throughout the state. A few nursing mothers are in group home situations with their infants. The rest of the mothers, for whom supervised visitation with their children is being arranged by CPS, await custody hearings to be held by early June.
Any charges of sexual abuse that ultimately emerge from the ongoing investigation will, of course, deserve the most vigorous prosecution. Meanwhile, the case raises some thorny questions, both about how we as a society regard religious “others,” and about the role anti-cult stereotypes play in public decision-making. These questions center on the treatment of those mothers and children.
Legal experts are divided on the legitimacy of what Barbara Walther, the presiding judge in the case, off-handedly referred to as the “cattle call” that removed those mothers and children from their home on April 3. The closed federal warrant authorizing the raid relied heavily on phone calls, subsequently alleged to be a hoax, from 16-year-old “Sarah.” Flora Jessop, formerly a member of a Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) community in Utah and now an anti-polygamy activist in Phoenix, had told Texas law enforcement that she had received similar calls from a “Sarah.” Arguably, the raid was spurred more by negative stereotypes about FLDS and members’ practice of polygamy than by a thorough investigation of evidence.
I continue to be outraged by this arrogant and chilling abuse of power by the state. As a parent, my heart goes out to both the parents and their children. When I think of the confusion and terror the children are being subjected to, being torn from their parents and placed into an utterly alien context, and the unremitting anguish of the parents denied contact with their children, I can scarcely believe that this nightmare scenario is being permitted to continue. It was perpetrated based on the flimsiest of pretexts and I have no doubt that the state is now furiously coaching the terrified children in an effort to produce some sort of evidence to justify their heinous actions.
This situation will end up whittling away at the mono-cultural wall that has been eroding in the United States for the past two generations. We are a but step or two behind England, which has our beloved Archbishop musing about developing a tolerance for Shari’a law. If same sex marriages—today’s cause celebré—is so popular here, cannot tolerance for group marriages be far behind?
[size=1][color=red][url=http://resurrectioncommunitypersonal.blogspot.com/]The Rabbit[/url][/color][color=gray].[/color][/size]
Having worked closely with CPS in other situations, it is impossible for me to believe that they could have circumvented the law inm this situation. If a report of child abuse is received, CPS is obligated to investigate it. If the adults in this situation had been honest and not tried to confuse the authorities by changing namebands, changing the childrens identities frequently and other surreptious acts, much of this could have been avoided. I guarantee you that the CPS system did not need 400+ children thrown into their system all at once. Most of the Social Workers with CPS are overworked, stressed, yet determined to do what is rught for the children. Much of what has been said, including interviews (?) held on the Today Show this morning, is just not plausible to any one who had worked with the family law systems in Texas. Parents and children have attorneys and other resources to assist them. It’s the law. The state does not “want” these children. They do want to protect the children if there are reasons for that protection. 14 yr old girls with babies certainly suggest that there is something beyond the norm going on. The only thing different in this situation is the number of children involved. Get a grip, folks! Let’s give the system ( as flawed as it is) a chance to work. Armchair quarterbacks like the author of the article we don’t need!
#1 — “….justify their heinous actions”…. surely you are confused. You must be referring to the heinous actions of the “fathers” and “husbands” who now include pedophilia along with their religious beliefs of polygamy — and the heinous actions of the “mothers” for allowing (or being too scared/brainwashed) these things to happen. I am continually amazed at those who place their conspiracy theories above the health, safety and welfare of these children.
#1 Mr. Miller,
You make two unfounded remarks.
First, you contend that the CPS intervention at the FLDS compound was based on “flimsy pretext.” Rather, it was based on Texas state law, which requires an investigation of any and every allegation of child abuse. What they investigators found upon entering the compound then led to the more expansive second investigation and the subsequent CPS removal of the children.
Secondly, you accuse the CPS of coaching the children. In fact, CPS bent the rules for the FLDS, in an attempt to be culturally sensitive, allowing mothers to stay with their children until it was learned that they had smuggled cell phones and were receiving calls from their ‘husbands’ as to how to coach the children. Contrary to Texas state policy, the mothers were allowed to stay with the children until it was learned that they were, in fact, coaching the children.
I do not blame the FLDS for acting the way they did and do; it is consistent with their theology and their understanding of their relationship to the outside world. I do, however, cast blame at articles like this one and responses like yours who de-humanize both the FLDS and those in Eldorado, San Angelo, and the CPS who have only tried to help in a difficult and unprecedented event.