Some Web highlights

I am only linking a few articles that I feel are either important or rare. You can get most of the mainline stories from newspapers or other blogs.

Follow-up failure in Texas from Journalism.org notes that the original raid recieved much more media attention than the Texas Supreme Court forcing the children's release.

The drop-off in coverage from the initial raid to the Supreme Court decision occurred across all media sectors. Online and network news saw the greatest decline in coverage.

Plural Marriage is Among Consenting Adults by James A. Marples in the Albert Lea Tribune (Minnisota and Northern Iowa) as a Letter-to-the-editor

If all those in the relationship were consenting adults and no abuse, incest or coercion takes place, and if all the children are happy and healthy, I say: Let those people live quietly in peace. It was good enough in Old Testament days of the Holy Bible. And that scriptural precedent should be the legal foundation or precedent for revisions in America law today.

Monogamous Deception Letter to the Editor by Thomas McCabe in the Cape Verde (AZ) Bugle

The lower courts have spoken; the Supreme Court of Texas has spoken. Yet the quasi-dictatorial government agency, the Texas Child Protective Services, defies the courts to impose 'their' own brand of 'law.' On March 29, Texas State Police armed with assault rifles, attacked, without cause, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints and forcibly removed 416 children. What is considered kidnapping in Texas? Doesn't the Bill of Rights apply to all citizens?

CPS Actions Damaged Children Editorial by Johana Scot and Richard Wexler in the San Angelo Standard-Times.

Instead, CPS opted for the mass amputation of the mothers from their children. They were taken from the foggy and distant danger they faced and thrown into the clear and present danger of foster care. ... Instead, CPS opted for the mass amputation of the mothers from their children. They were taken from the foggy and distant danger they faced and thrown into the clear and present danger of foster care.

Home Schoolers Threaten our Cultural Comfort by Sonny Scott in the Northeast Mississipi Daily Journal.

Indications are that home schooling is working well for the kids, and the parents are pleased with their choice, but the practice is coming under increasing suspicion, and even official attack, as in California. ... Now the kid is raising hell again, demanding the latest Play Station as his price for doing his school work … and there goes that modest young woman in the home-made dress with her four bright-eyed, well-behaved home-schooled children in tow. Wouldn’t you just love to wipe that serene look right off her smug face?

You can now purchase FLDS clothing! Provide modest and functional clothing for your children while helping the famalies recovery from the raid.

Lawyers taking a stand against abuses

Kurt S. Schulzke, an attorney from Woodstock, GA, wrote a powerful editorial in the San Angelo Times, and commented about it on his blog.

Let the government violate the law today to "protect children" and you empower it, tomorrow, to violate your rights in pursuit of other objectives. How will you redraw the line once you have crossed it "just this once"?
This isn't just a case about child endangerment; It's about the rule of law and the American system of government. Those who commit such crimes against the rule of law - whatever their office - should pay a price in court or at the ballot box. If they don't, the rest of us someday will.

Another attorney, this time Gregory Hession in Springfield, Missouri wrote an excellent article entitled "Whose Children are they, Anyway" in The New American.

This episode should be a warning to all families that an arbitrary attack by the state against a family can happen to any of us and that a court will likely not protect the family from overreaching state social workers or false reports of child abuse.

The Christian Science Monitor has an article on an appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court to invalidate illegal tactics that the Illinois CPS has been using.

The offer: Agree to a safety plan or your children may be taken away. Parents are not given an opportunity to know the substance and source of an abuse allegation, nor are they given an opportunity to challenge the safety plan before a neutral decisionmaker.

With the slur "cult" back in the news I found a great link to quotes on what comprises a cult. I encourage everyone to continue to fight the bigotry of those who use "cult" as hate speech.

1. "...one person's cult is another's religion; all religions begin life as cults. An alternative definition is that a cult is a religion which you happen to dislike." Anthony Campbell
   
2. "Cult is a word without much use outside the realm of religious mudslinging." Philip Kennicott
3. "When someone uses the word 'cult,' it usually says more about them than the group," J. Gordon Melton, founder and director of The Institute for the Study of American Religion.
   
4. "It's easy to tell the difference - a cult is someone else's religion. Corollary: "A fanatic is someone who believes something more strongly than you do." Jim Heldberg
   
5. "I have often thought that the difference between a cult and a religion is an IRS ruling." Ron Barrier
   

Links to Editorials

The National Coalition for Child Protection Reform has a blog, and they ran a piece entitled The unbearable vindictiveness of Judge Walther. It has a number of good snippets.

Ever since the first three judges, on an appellate court, ruled against her, Judge Walther has made her displeasure clear. But apparently her vindictiveness knows no bounds. ... She decided to impose a series of extra conditions of her own, which appear to have no purpose other than harassment. ... As far as I can tell, since the appellate court ruled, that brings the number of editorial pages from outside Texas and Utah condemning Texas CPS to 11. The number supporting CPS: 0.

It also contains links to two more editorials.
The right decision - Texas court rules state overstepped authority by the Worcester Telegram.

It still may be weeks or months before many of the children and parents have been reunited. Nonetheless, in declaring state officials overstepped their authority, the Supreme Court took a welcome first step toward righting a wrong that defied logic, compassion and the law.

Texas went too far in case by the Leaf-Chronicle in Clarksville, TN.

No government agency in the United States should simply round up hundreds of children and take them from the arms of their mothers without just cause. This is still a nation of laws and individual rights, and the nanny-state doesn't always know best.

The blog also links to other articles in earlier posts.
Sect Mothers Say Separation Endangers Children in the New York Times.

Many child-welfare experts across the nation ... say the raid on the polygamist ranch diverged sharply from the recommended practices both in Texas and elsewhere in the country.

Child Welfare — Think First in the Topeka Capitol-Journal.

The Texas case brought to mind an incident in April in which a man temporarily lost custody of his son for buying him a lemonade at a baseball game.

Polygamists' Kids in Their Own Private Gitmo by Richard Wexler in The Nation magazine

When children are needlessly put into foster care, they lose not only mom and dad but often brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, friends and classmates. For a young enough child, it's an experience akin to a kidnapping.

Overprotective in Texas from the New Jersey Star-Ledger

By overreacting, Texas officials may have hurt what they described as their primary mission: protecting children.

More links for today

FLDS: Court victory but no closer to home from Austin News - KXAN

The couple also believe the raid was a form of religious persecution. Joseph Jessop said he remains convinced the state would not back off its case, no matter what evidence the couple might have presented that they were monogamous and their children were not abused.

Are FLDS sect's beliefs sufficient grounds for taking the kids? from The Christian Science Monitor

It also now appears that evidence about the sect's belief system that the state collected during the raid – and presented to a district court to justify its temporary removal of the children – is probably flawed.

Lawyers cry foul in FLDS seizures covered by many, including the Houston Chronicle

"They have created chaos. They don't know what to do. This case has holes in it the size of the Grand Canyon," said Laura Shockley, a Dallas family law specialist with six clients in the case. "There is no way to fix this." She and other lawyers say some of the seized people, especially those who it turns out are 18 or older, have potent federal civil rights lawsuits against the state.

Texas justice: Court says state acted illegally against FLDS Salt Lake Tribune editorial

In essence, here's what the court said: You can't grab people's kids and put them in foster care unless you first prove that each one is in imminent danger. And even if, for example, you have proof that an underage girl has been forced into marriage with an adult male, you can't then claim that every other child is likewise endangered and place them in state custody.
That's Texas law, the court said, and FPS didn't follow it. Nor did a district judge, who refused to return the children to their parents, even though the state hadn't proven its claim of systemic child abuse within the FLDS compound.

Texas' FLDS vendetta Robert Murton Letter to the Editor in the Salt Lake Tribune

Perhaps he has realized that Texas will not be able to justify the extreme actions of its Child Protection Services and some quirk in the Texas law will allow it to take some innocent people's property to pay for this government excess.

CPS commits moral crime against FLDS Alberta Spence Letter to the Editor in the San Angelo Standard-Times

I am not a FLDS member, just a mother and grandmother, but I know how I would feel as would most of you. We must all protest this type of gestapo action. We are not a third world country, but if we allow this to happen we are on our way.

Watchdog criticizes FLDS hearings in the Salt Lake Tribune

These people do this everyday for a living but CPS is going to give them training?