"The only defense we offered was with songs and prayer. Still you came charging up at a high speed and steered toward a man standing at the gate as if you intended to run him over, but he stood fast, so you slammed on the brakes. Your troopers bailed out as if they were ready for combat, and two of your huskies took him by the arms and violently carried him across the road and dumped him."

Roundy wrote that Texas is abusing and traumatizing the children by taking them from their homes and parents. He challenged Gov. Rick Perry to appoint an unbiased third party to interview the children and underage wives and offer them the choice of the state's services or returning home.

The 80-year-old wrote a brief history of the church, describing the restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith, the subsequent persecutions and forced migrations of early Saints from state to state and Smith's murder.

"Now let us do a little comparing between your (the world in general) lifestyle and ours. Your divorce rate is over 50 percent of all marriages. Ours is less than 1 percent," Roundy wrote. "Your system generates infidelity, adultery, venereal disease, whoredom, homosexuality, drunkenness, lawlessness, drug abuse, thieving, cheating and murder, and as Isaiah prophesied, your women rule over you and your children are your oppressors. Satan sponsored the movement called women's liberation to thwart the principle of God that man should be the head of the house," he wrote.

"We do not have policemen because we have no law breakers. We leave the keys in our cars, and we can leave our tools where we quit working ...," he wrote. "The false accusation that our driveway is locked to keep people in is nonsense. The purpose is solely to keep you dear people out of our midst so that we do not have to tolerate your misconduct."

Roundy wraps up the letter by saying Texas "has now added their name to the list of states who will not tolera te the gospel of Jesus Christ and the living priesthood operating in thier state. The list is New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Arizona, Utah and now Texas. I fear, dear people, that you are stirring up a controversy with God."

---

Contributing: Brian West

---

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com