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FLDS women: Mothers plead to see children

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Allen | 1:28 a.m. April 11, 2008
Thank you mothers! There are millions of us who would fight with and for you! Thank you Deseret News for this excellent report!
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chemist | 2:07 a.m. April 11, 2008
Let us also have some sympathy for the families that Warren Jeffs has separated and reassigned. Some of those people have not been able to see or have contact with children or former spouses for years, not days. If the saying "by your fruits ye shall know them is true" it is obvious that Warren Jeffs and the FLDS leaders are truly evil.
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A MOM | 2:13 a.m. April 11, 2008
As a mother of 4, I understand the dedication of these women to protect their children. I love the passion and conviction with which these mothers are trying to fight to be with and to take care of their children. But, I also believe that these horrible things have been and will probably will continue to happen in the FLDS Church. Where was the same determination to protect these children from the beasts they call husbands and fathers and Church leaders?
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Y Chromosome | 5:08 a.m. April 11, 2008
There is no doubt that what the TX authorities found at the ranch justified taking the pregnant teen girls into protective custody. After all, they clearly were victimized by unlawful sexual contact with minors. However, what should concern everyone looking at this story is the scope of government action, particularly the scope of the judicial orders to take all 416 children into protective custody. A typical judicial order is limited only to probable cause relating to specific crimes, in this case locating the alleged 16 yr old anonymous complainant. The complainant alleged she had been abused by her 50 yr old husband and named him (although he was reportedly not in TX when she claimed the abuse took place). Thus, the judicial order should have permitted taking into custody all pregnant 16 yr old girls if the state's interest was really to rescue the anonymous complainant. None of the affidavits supporting the search warrants indicate that children younger than their teens were abused or sexually assaulted, so why did the judicial order allow seizure of ALL children regardless of age? Babies? Toddlers? They were clearly not the anonymous complainant needing rescue. The state wanted the group broken all along.
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KingM | 5:29 a.m. April 11, 2008
I'm not going to defend this nasty little cult, but how is this remotely legal? They've raided this place based on a single phone call from someone who has not been found and as a result hundreds of people were rounded up, children sent off to foster care, etc. This is America, you simply can't do that.
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Karen | 6:25 a.m. April 11, 2008
It is always the children that are the innocent victims of the crimes / sins we, as adults commit.
My heart cries for them....
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massgirl | 6:29 a.m. April 11, 2008
Have you lost your mind? These mothers sacrifice their children for their church! Carolyn Jessup would have never got her book published if it was pure conjecture or straight out lies! These mothers will surely follow wherever their children are taken, but thank god they were taken!
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Anonymous | 6:37 a.m. April 11, 2008
It is not like the government raided their homes, stole all their children ripping apart families and smashing open their most sacred building that could have possibly raised their anxiety?
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Stephen | 6:44 a.m. April 11, 2008
I feel for these frightened children, Imagine their terror. I imagine they are going through the same emotions that anyone who has been kidnapped goes through. However, "caring" these government employees may appear, these children do not understand where their mother is, nor do they understand what is happening, Mom should be close enough to these children, to deminish their fears. Talk about terrorism!! Only the government can get away with these tactic, and NO ONE is immune from their whims.
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Tai H. | 6:52 a.m. April 11, 2008
This nation has the most pathetic law enforcement in the world. It's horrible what the Texas governemnt and law officials have done to these innocent families.
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DeLaval Milker | 7:02 a.m. April 11, 2008
Go texas.
The longer this nonsense is allowed to go on, obviously the harder it is to deal with when it finally must be done. We need to learn in Utah.
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Dadams | 7:04 a.m. April 11, 2008
When one religion is under attack, all religions are under attack
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Change needs to Happen | 7:13 a.m. April 11, 2008
Genoside or cultural changes needs to happen here. Not only do they abuse their daughters, they abuse their sons by kicking out young teenagers, they don't do this with the girls, no doubt the purpose is to skew the sex ratio to make room for pologamy.

Imagine you are 13 years old and then kicked out to fend for yourself.

Not only that, this religion believes it has the right to re-assign a family and wives to another man. The church owns the house the family lives in. At any time the "prophet" can tell a man he must leave the house he and his family lives in, and re-assign the family to another man. The woman is brainwashed enough that she goes along with this, fearing if she doesn't that she will burn in hell forever.

This religion truely needs to be changed or to dissapear. If taking all these children breaks the back of the religion, then good, it needs to go.

If history is any guide to the future, Texas will in time put these familys back together, as Utah did in the past, with the promice they will change, but they will not.
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massgirl | 7:20 a.m. April 11, 2008
These moms are concerned with their children who are under 12. They say nothing about the teenaged girls and boys they have already sacrificed!!
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Bob | 7:23 a.m. April 11, 2008
The Texas officals were quoted as saying it was hard to identify who is the Mother. Ask the children. Any child old enough to talk can identify his or her mother is asked.
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Blaine | 7:29 a.m. April 11, 2008
"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me." -- Pastor Martin Niem�ller
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Onlooker | 7:35 a.m. April 11, 2008
The mothers should be able to have contact with their children and the children should be able to contact their mothers. I support the mothers in this particular regard.
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masked_data | 7:49 a.m. April 11, 2008
Wow! Three mothers got permission from their rapist husbands to speak.
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Anonymous | 7:51 a.m. April 11, 2008
As might be expected in any small closed society, it is common for many close relatives to marry. This sect suffers from Fularase Deficiency.

Fumarase Deficiency is an enzyme irregularity that causes severe mental retardation, epileptic seizures and other cruel effects that leave children nearly helpless and unable to take care of themselves.

This community needs to be disbanded for several reasons, not the least of which is Fumarase Deficienty.

This deficiency can if these people were to be disbanded be introduced to the population at large. The longer we wait the larger the problem will be.

What these people are doing is unacceptable, they need to be stopped.
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GT | 7:52 a.m. April 11, 2008
How hard would it be to check the phone records and find the phone that made the call to CPS?? Come on Texas do a better job of detective work and let that information known. Did this all happen because books on Escape needed to be sold? Stepout of the religious box and start asking questions people. This whole thing reads like an entertainment tonight story. But it's not. So don't act like it is.
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