From Deseret News archives:
FLDS to quit underage marriages
"In the future, the church commits that it will not preside over the marriage of any woman under the age of legal consent in the jurisdiction in which the marriage takes place," Fundamentalist LDS Church member Willie Jessop said Monday, reading from a statement. "The church will counsel families that they neither request nor consent to any underage marriages. This policy will apply church-wide."
Jessop stood on a dirt road here at the YFZ Ranch in the hot sun, wearing his Sunday best as he spoke passionately about the reunions taking place, and the pain that FLDS faithful have endured.
"With the help of thousands of prayers that have been offered, we believe that God can start to mend so many broken and devastated hearts," he said.
Families will be criss-crossing Texas today — sometimes traveling hundreds of miles to pick up their children from foster care facilities in happy reunions, exactly two months after the children were taken in the raid that became the nation's largest-ever child custody case.
Susan Hays, a Dallas attorney appointed by the courts to represent a little girl in state custody, picked up her client's mother and has been driving her across Texas to retrieve the child.
"The little girl is sleeping right now after we played a game of spot the cows," Hays chuckled over the phone, the sound of the freeway behind her.
The order
As soon as the Tom Green County Courthouse opened on Monday, lawyers representing a group of FLDS mothers marched in and presented their order to the judge.
It was one of several put before Judge Barbara Walther.
"We gave her an order and we're pleased she signed an order," said Julie Balovich, a lawyer for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which represents 48 mothers who challenged the decision to place their children in foster care.
The order requires parenting classes, cooperation in an ongoing child abuse investigation, including unannounced home visits, and interviews between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. It also requires all children involved in the custody case to remain in Texas unless they get prior approval from the court. It does not require families to renounce their faith or leave the YFZ Ranch.
"We are grateful that the court at least allowed mothers and children to come back," Jessop said. "We wished it was a better order, but hey, it gets the children and the mothers back, and we'll take it."
Jessop said the requirements continue to blanket the entire community with allegations.
