News Stories on the release

Was polygamist raid doomed from start? from the Seattle Times.

Investigators listened to a lot of misinformation and allowed themselves to be kind of captivated by these anti-FLDS people.

US sect children set to go home from the BBC demonstrates international coverage.

But last week the state's Supreme Court said officials had failed to prove the children faced immediate danger.

Critics say CPS failed to foresee nuances in the Houston Chronicle.
On the whole not a very good article, as it seems to try to cover the bias of the newspaper by trying to cover the CPS. But, I liked this quote about the CPS:

Their blundering and their hubris created this mess

Who's the real abuser? by the National Post in Canada

Unconscionably, the state agency clung to the YFZ children even after these facts were learned. The seizure, based as it was on a sincere belief that young children were being sexually abused and beaten, was one thing. But the refusal of the CPS to admit its mistake is quite another.

Tender Thoughts of a Lonely Mother by Maggie Jessop on Truth Will Prevail
I liked the pictures in this article. But, in regards to the picture at the bottom, please remind the boy not to touch the optics on the binoculars! (a pet peeve of mine ;)

Still I wonder just what will they do next to create "evidence" during the next ninety days, since they are requiring our subjection to their ongoing investigations. How could I possibly give these people my confidence after the atrocities heaped upon us and our innocent children during the last two months? It is not a matter of our unwillingness to cooperate and comply. It is a matter of betrayal. It is a situation of government officials destroying my trust in the ability of the State to govern justly, lawfully, and appropriately. How thankful I am to see the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the State of Texas beginning to bring injustice to a halt.

On the web

Some Muslims in U.S. Quietly Engage in Polygamy by Barbara Bradley Hagerty on NPR
I do, I do, I do. The last taboo and GTA's secret world of polygamy by Noor Javed in The Star (Toronto)
All of these articles discuss Muslim Polygamy. None of them talk about how removing criminal offenses for polygamy would greatly help the situation. Bringing it above board would do considerable good, especially for abused women.

FLDS mom, 18, says state wanted her baby from CNN

The state apparently agreed that Jessop was not a minor. A caseworker signed a statement saying Jessop gave her age as 18. Her birth certificate says so, along with a "bishop's list" collected as evidence from the sect's records.

Birthdays without Pressure
I don't know how many times I have been to a birthday party where the parents spent over and above their means to overindulge children and impress the parents. I wish people would chill a little where birthday parties are concerned. It should be about the kids having fun, not spoiling them or impressing parents.

If you think children’s birthday parties are getting out of control, you’ve come to the right place. We want to raise awareness of this problem and offer alternatives for parents and kids who want birthdays without pressure.

The savage travesty is unraveling from Wendy McElroy, self proclaimed feminist and Libertarian

As the media ceases to tiptoe like scared mice around the blatant, raging abuse of power that is the CPS in Texas (and elsewhere) other details might emerge. ... Is anyone in Mudville's media brave enough to inquire WHY the removal of children is entrusted to bureaucrats who can't even count how many children they kidnapped on one particular day? ... Are we going to have a State-imposed purity test for ideology before allowing parents to raise their children? ... Frankly, sometimes I don't like the fact that human rights are universal. But I always find solace in the fact that universal rights are tremendously better than the alternative.

"Heroes In Error", Again (Media Update) by William N. Grigg on Pro Liberate Blog

If they're looking for a slam-dunk criminal indictment, they could have one against Flora Jessop: She has publicly confessed to making a "False report regarding [a] missing child or missing person," as defined by Chapter 37, section 081 of the Texas Penal Code. Given that Flora Jessop appears to be the proverbial poisoned tree in this entire matter, she is the only legitimate target for a criminal probe -- unless, of course, the probe turns up tangible evidence of deliberate criminal misconduct on the part of CPS officials.

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?

Links for Today

Let's start off with some humor:

Dave's Political Satire has Polygamy Made Legal

Male politicians are also warming to Utah’s new offering. Rather than engage in risky extra-marital affairs and dalliances, certain high-needs officeholders can now satisfy their urges within the law.

FACT has Top Ten Signs You Are A Victim of Religious Persecution

9. Your religion is constantly referred to as a cult.
4. The state accepts birth certificates as proof of age for everyone
except those practicing your religion.
2. You have to prove to the State you can raise children, when you
have been raising them just fine.

Legal Documents relating to the reversal:
Appeals Court Decision
Amicus Curae letter of support
Texas RioGrande Legal Aid was the legal group that helped in the filing.

County Sheriff Travis McPherson - "I think that TRLA is the problem because they're supplying these people with the information and they're telling them all about the Federal laws and everything."

Polygamy? It's positively biblical on The Philadelphia Inquirer opinion page by Martha Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago

Yet in 1878, the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold an anti-polygamy statute with these words, extraordinary from justices who were supposedly Bible readers: "Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people."

I would like to personally thank the FLDS for standing up to the state. You have defended the family rights of everyone!

Here is the "Cattle Call" of daily links

A Chronology of Federal Legislation on Polygamy by Perry L. Porter
Hopefully, he will have some new, more positive legislation to add in the near future.

The beginnings of this chronology of the anti-polygamy bills for the Utah Territory, come from a hand out I received in a Religion or History class at BYU in the mid 1970's. I have significantly augmented it from 3 pages to about 29 pages, with additional line items from various scholarly History books and professional articles.

Sect mom allowed to stay with all her children from the Houston Chronicle.
While the judge denied the ruling on procedural grounds, she sounds quite sympathetic. It seems to me that the further the FLDS get from San Angelo, the more they are likely to find unbiased justice.

"If you think (Judge Walther) is biased, file a motion to recuse her. If you don't like the order, tell her to fix it. Don't ask another trial judge to fix it. I am not going to retry this case."
Addressing Daniel Jessop, who sat beside his attorney, Byrne added that she sympathized with his plight. "I know you don't think I do, but I do," she said.

FLDS Human Rights Violations are Fraud Reminiscient of KGB by Frank Staheli on Simple Utah Mormon Politics
While the article is not entirely current, it is certainly timely. The current abuses in Texas mirror other abusive dictatorships.

Texas is now in full damage-control mode for a heinous abrogation of human rights at Eldorado. The best damage control would be for them to admit that it was all a mistake.

More/Corrected info on Wilford Black by PligChild on FLDS View
Story of how the 1953 raid created long-term problems in at least one boy.

When he was returned to his mother, he stopped communicating with others and started wandering away. He would walk away from home and would have to be found and brought back. ... Wilford had begun attending school before the Raid, so he could do some things. After he was returned to his parents, they tried to send him back to school, but they could not get him to do anything. He couldn’t seem to concentrate.

Small Victory for Open Discussions

Earlier, I posted that our local library blocked PrincipalVoices.org. They have now unblocked it. Here is the email I received.

Hello,

Thank you for calling this to our attention. The Web Sense filter
blocked this site because of questionable content. Unfortunately, web
filters have their own mechanisms for determining which sites should be
blocked (and why), and sometimes their determination disagrees with our
own evaluation.

After reviewing www.principlevoices.org, I agree that this site should
not have been blocked. I have instructed our I.T. department to remove
it from the blocked list for the library.

Again, thank you for notifying us.

Regards,
xxxxxxx
Electronic Resources Librarian
Virtual Library

Something Positive in the Deseret News

It seems to me that the Deseret News editorial board has taken a rather decided stance against the FLDS, and in their coverage and editorials have mostly tried to distinguish between LDS and FLDS. Thus it was encouraging to see this article:

Long litany of legal disputes begins in FLDS raid

It contained this tremendous one-liner:

Speculation does not suffice

I wish that saying were stamped in the minds of all judges who are trying these cases.

More News Stories and Links

There are a bunch of good links and stories out there. I really want to include more, but these are just some I happened across today.

Do the FLDS in Texas Deserve Due Process? I Mean, Polygamy’s Worse Than Murder, Right?

It’s easy to pick on people that are different — and, as far as I can tell, that’s what’s happening to the FLDS in Texas. There’s been no court proceedings that have shown the individual parents of the abducted children have done anything untoward to their kids. (None that’ve been even suggested publicly, at least.) What there has been is a religious group that has different practices than are observed in the “mainstream”. And since they’re different, well then, there’s not going to be much of an outcry if we strip them of their rights, right?

Where's the evidence of abuse?

The Grit's blogger comes through in this very excellent op-ed piece.

Excuse me, Judge? You issued a sweeping, house-to-house search warrant based on a highly questionable anonymous call that turned out to be phony. You refused to allow individual hearings for children, grouping them together like cattle. You accepted the testimony of an expert on "cults" who only learned about FLDS from media accounts, rather than an academic who'd studied them professionally for 18 years.

A Vermont Expert's Take on Polygamy
Lyndon State College Professor Janet Bennion

If you can establish abuse, of course intervention must be made, but use an intervention that doesn't break the constitution and that doesn't violate all these civil rights laws

Life on the rock: A different brand of polygamy

It's simply a place where we strive to respect each other's differences

Polygamy in Islamic Law
Dr. Jamal Badawi examines polygamy in the Muslim, Jewish and Christian traditions.

Texas judge's 'concern'
Editorial by Ed Firmage Jr., Salt Lake City

Why? Because Walther thinks that membership in a religious group alone is grounds for ripping your children, even your nursing babies, from your arms and giving them to proper parents. Her justification: Belonging to your religion may - may - lead to abuse.

Parents Bill of Rights

WE THE PEOPLE do hereby insist on a Parent's Bill of Rights as an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect in perpetuity the family.

Some of these are rather old, but I wanted links to them for the record.

News Articles this morning

Here is a collection of some interesting items that have popped up in the news. Thanks to Grits for Breakfast and The Plural Life and their comment sections for the original links.

Mental Health Workers Rip CPS
Houston Chronicle
San Antonio Express News
Dallas Morning News
Summary: Previously, FLDS complained about their treatment from CPS, which has often been dismissed as the FLDS trying to wage a "propaganda campaign." However, in this story nine different workers from Hill Country Community Mental Health-Mental Retardation Center sent anonymous letters to the Hill Country MHMR board, who made them public. One board member, Jack Dawson, is also a Comal County commissioner.

This illustrates a few points:

1. It is not just the FLDS who thought the conditions at the shelter were poor, or that CPS mistreated them, lied to them, and lied in subsequent press releases/press conferences.
2. These reports are coming from at least one Texas politician, and various Texas mental health workers. Thus, it shows that Texas is not unanimous in condemning the FLDS, and people are willing to support fairness of unpopular religions.
3. The State CPS are not above reproach, and more evidence exists that they have lied.
4. Criticism of the CPS are coming from multiple sources, and not just the FLDS. It is much easier to dismiss the opinions of an unpopular religion than experienced mental health workers and county commissioners.

Editorial from Maggie Jessop in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Here is an editorial from an FLDS mother. She attacks head-on some of the many negative rumors, slanders, and lies that have been published about the FLDS. I think I liked this line of sarcasm best:

However, I may not have it within my psychological or emotional capacity to communicate appropriately due to the widespread "fact" that I belong to an uneducated, underprivileged, information-deprived, brainless, spineless, poor, picked-on, dependent, misled class of women identified as "brain-washed." But, I'll give it my best shot.

She certainly lets loose some emotion. It is a rather potent denunciation of the actions of Texas, and the media for spreading unsubstantiated, incorrect, and sensational rumors.

Child protection law and the FLDS: There's a better way by Linda F. Smith, professor and clinical program director at the University of Utah's S. J. Quinney College of Law.

Here is the final two paragraphs:

If there are families within the FLDS community who do not impose under-age "marriages" on their children, the CPS workers should return their children to them and solicit their help to change this dynamic within the community.
Such an approach would more likely lead to eradicating what society clearly considers abusive than will a full-scale assault on the community's practice of plural marriage.

It seems to be a well-reasoned and well-informed article. She lists possible means of appeal, and what amounts to the really terrible method of the initial hearing that deprived the parents of their children without due process. It has encouraged me to once again write my state legislators and appeal for parental rights and the support of the constitution in child welfare cases.

What does Texas church raid say about us? USA Today editorial by Mary Zeiss Stange, professor of Women's Studies and Religion at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Here is an official USA Today editorial ripping the situation in Texas, and bringing up the bigotry aspect.

What is clear, however, is that there is no objective justification for brushing off the mothers as a bunch of prairie-style Stepford wives, let alone for leaping to the conclusion that mounting an armed raid to take their children away was indeed proper to do on the strength of a metaphor grounded in a religious stereotype.

This is a professor and a feminist saying this, not a member of the FLDS, and probably someone who has no contact with them. From this I pick up a few important points:

1. Feminists, who tend to extremely oppose polygamy, and are generally considered a hostile witness, oppose the actions of Texas. It is hard to argue that it is just the FLDS, religious extremists, "Utah Mormons," or pedophiles that oppose the raid.
2. A professor opposes the actions of Texas, and says so in an editorial. Professors have many things to write about. That they would write about the Eldorado raid signifies that it is important to them, and that intelligent people oppose the actions of Texas.
3. Problems with the Eldorado raid are recognized nationally. Just like Jim Crow laws and civil rights, those outside Texas saw the problems, and opposed the abuses.
   

Tucson Public Libraries Block Principal Voices!

I have been quite busy the last few days. I came to the library, and was using their wireless to access the internet. I checked up on the news, which I hadn't done for a few days, and found that Principal Voices was blocked by their filtering software. I sent them this complaint:

Right now www.principlevoices.org is blocked. However, it provides important information on the entire Eldorado raid debate. I've never seen any obscenity, hate speech, nudity, or calls to violence on the site. It is completely and utterly ridiculous to have this site blocked. Please unblock it immediately.

Hopefully, I will be able to report in a few days that access to the site has been restored. I wonder how many other libraries block the site.

Some more good links

The San Angelo Witch Hunts

"I am not a member of the FLDS. I am a leftist radical. I care about the FLDS because they are human beings and their rights are being violated. I also care because I cannot avoid the question: "Whose rights next will be disregarded?" You should care too."

The Freedom Liberty Defenders Society

"This site has been created to Promote Due Process, Religious Liberty, Human Rights, Constitutional Rights, and Freedom for the FLDS Community and All Of Us! "

Some Links

Here are some more links on the Eldorado raid that I found interesting.

Equal justice for prophets and priests

FLDS: Big Hate - Big Brother

What Did The FLDS Kids Do To Deserve This?

FLDS intolerance, prejudice unjustified

Messenger and Advocate

Principle Voices

FLDS - The Victim that Wasn't

Links to Blogs

Here are links to three excellent blogs that give you the inside scoop combined with excellent analysis. I have found them to be much more accurate and informative than the mainstream media.

Prairie Fire Journal

Grits for Breakfast

The Polygamy Files