Tears abound at parents rally

With cheers, tears, jeers and scripture, parents' rights advocates rallied for the second time this month Friday to demand that the state truly protect children by leaving innocent families alone.

A small crowd, which by the end was stirred up enough to pay an impromptu, technically illegal and ultimately fruitless visit to the offices of the attorney general and the governor, gathered in front of the Capitol to blame the state child welfare system for feeding off the economically downtrodden in the name of protecting children and splitting up many families whose only infraction oftentimes is being poor.

Saying the people at the rally are the true but ignored experts on how the system really is, speakers said parents who have been wrongly accused of child abuse and neglect have found their voice in the wake of the Parker Jensen case, and they aren't going to be quiet any longer.

Bonnie Macri, president of Justice, Economic Dignity and Independence for Women — who recently has been targeted in a child-abuse investigation — said her group has monitored the plight of nearly 300 falsely accused women since April 1999.

The vast majority of cases involve people having their children taken because they are poor and don't meet the personal notion of the ideal family held by "vindictive, ambitious, zealous" attorney general's lawyers and too-young social workers from the state Division of Child and Family Services, Macri said.

"In almost every case, these families could have been helped in the homes" without having their chil-

dren taken into state custody, she said. "Ultimately, the real victims are always the children."

The state acts too swiftly, too dramatically and can't admit it ever makes a mistake, other speakers said. One mother, who told the crowd she has proof that two of her children were taken July 21, 1998, because she had a dirty house, said the government is making families the newest endangered species in Utah.

The group chanted "give them back" as she finished her remarks.

Other speakers called for a legislative audit of the system and changes in the law so children can only be removed from their homes if a parent has been convicted by a jury of actual child abuse.