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This won't be 'another Short Creek'
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As a 67 year old member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I applaud your efforts. May God bless the good people of Texas!
khs@xmission.com
A man or woman can be married to no more than 1 man or woman, of the opposite sex, at one time. A common law marriage is considered a legal marriage if there have been sexually relations between the parties.
(this should help separated spouses, clarify the consequences of their actions, recalling that until a divorce is final they are indeed married)
Why doesn't Utah have a simple common sense law such as this? I welcome your comments.
The political establishment in Texas will go to great lengths to support the Texas CPS. Texas does not want the flds there. If my reading is correct the flds won't be getting their children back for a long time, if ever. Life for the flds at the YFZ compound will never return to what it was like before the raid. Will the flds now leave Texas and go back to the more tolerable environs of Utah and Arizona?
I also expect that there will eventually felony convictions from these "spiritual" marriages with underage girls. This is a crushing blow to the FLDS.
I hate to see children separated from their mothers, but in this case, it probably is for the best. What future do the boys have, when two thirds will be kicked out of their religion and families to maintain the 3 to 1 ratio for wives to husbands. What future do young girls have, pregnant at such young ages? What a mess.
457:4 Marriageable. � no female below the age of 13 years shall be capable of contracting a valid marriage
I guess the NBC DateLine program last night (Sunday) really showed exactly how wrong the locals were about the living conditions of the children.
I was startled by the smashed open door, the empty beds, the excellent teaching conditions, and the entering of the church.
I am ashamed of what has been done in the name of "law and order".
I wonder what happened to the two missing children.
Wow! That's powerful, Hilderbran. Your lifestyle allowed 14 year olds to marry... until FLDS came to town.
Does your lifestyle also include burning down temples... Waco style?
I wonder how long it will be before Texas finds out what Jews and many Christians do to their newborn sons . . . .
Further, we should not tolerate ANY sexual exploit of underage girls - "married" or not. Of course if we follow Tesas' example, we should round up whole groups of children who were the product of such young mothers (often unwed and therefore similar to the "spiritual wives" of the FLDS) and separate them from their mothers for their own good. We should put them in foster homes because clearly there was sexual abuse and could be other problems as well, related to poverty, communal living and immoral attitudes.
Surely foster care would be superior over a single, teenage mother, right? This is the message they are sending. Foster care does not have a record for producing great results.
Why isn't Texas worried about the other mothers, sometimes a young as 12? Why does the country allow abortions without questions. No baby; no problem? Oh, yeah, we made that "legal." Is Texas sending "raiders" out to the abortion clinics to round up all these young girls who have clearly been violated?
dance. The truth is being revealed, that this RAID
was, and is about religion. The Baptists are flexing
their religous bigotry, thru the power of the state
of Texas. Rome did the same thing 2,000 years ago.
Things truly never change.
The Exalted Harvy Hilderbran has crawled out for his
day in the sun, and is prancing for a greater office
such as the Govenorship.
An interesting choice of words.
The FLDS didn't believe in Texas (Southern Baptist) "values", "lifestyles" and "traditional relationships", and many Texans apparently don't "tolerate" other religious views. So they took advantage of abuse allegations to kick them out of the state.
Did you notice his remarks about the hunting preserve? That makes me suspect they were thinking about coming after them for zoning violation.
This from the state that ranked, according to Guttmacher Institute, second highest in the country in teenage (15-19 years old)birthrates in 2000. In 2001, the Texas Department of Health announced that 1 out of every 34 teenage girls ages 13-17 gets pregnant and that 13.1% were repeat births. But thank goodness the Texas officials felt the FLDS chilren (all of them down to babies) were in imminent danger because of their belief in marrying and having children young -- they jumped right in there, took the children and are now placing some of the females into foster homes for pregnant teens. I guess from these statistics there should be plenty of teen preganncy homes available and one can only imagine the great atmosphere and potential influence on these girls who had come from loving families and homes.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I smell hypocrisy wafting up from Texas and it doesn't smell very good.
There's no painless way to remove children from an abusive situation. You just have to do it (and do it NOW) hoping and praying you weren't too late to rehabilitate the children and give them hope of a somewhat normal, self-directed, happy life.
RE the article--only if you've lived in Texas can you understand: "Don't Mess with Texas!!!"
Texas: 1 conviction.
FLDS: $1,000,000,000.00
Their children are "removed" from that individual and "given" to another (susposably better) individual or family. It is appaling the level of deception and manipulation the leaders of the FLDS and their "faithful" followers go to to distort the truth.
Let Texas do their very dificult job and we will eventually see what the truth really is.
It is a mistake to attribute that to anti-Mormon sentiment.
Many LDS where I live feel nothing but revulsion for FLDS practices. I am aware of nothing in LDS teachings that would lead members to condone in the least degree FLDS practices, quite the opposite.
As a "mission field" LDS I find many of the attitudes posted on these boards supportive of YTF puzzling and disturbing.
One also really wonders what made FLDS think Texas would be a supportive place. Quite a miscalculation, but a blessing for the children.
RE the article--only if you've lived in Texas can you understand: "Don't Mess with Texas!!!""
I agree "don't mess with Texas". Give them back to Mexico.
Unfortunately, the probable cause for the search warrant of the El Dorado compound looks weak. While this didn't stop CPS from their ludicrous overreaction, it lowers the chance that Texas will get any convictions out of this. And anyway, don't you expect that the men who broke the law are long gone now? Texas was too busy herding mothers and children to pay attention.
Texas (and all other states) should take reasonable action to protect children, but they must scrupulously follow the law, respecting the rights even of the suspected criminal. Anything less than this leads to more Missouris and Nauvoos.
you dont see the FLDS men because standard operating procedure is run out the crying women and children and play up the emotions of everyone. we tend to forget that these "mothers" sold thier daughters into this. they are willing participants in the lifestyle of rape, incest, abuse, and imprisonment. it doesnt matter rto the FLDS male leadership what you do as long as all you see is the women crying tears and wailing with hurt and injustice. you are being manipulated and have fallen victim to a well orginized and rehearsed propaganda machine.
maybe texas did over react but the law will work all of that out. lets not read protections into the constitution that are not there.
none of this would happen if children were not being groomed to be raped, groomed to be breeders and if babies were not being waterboarded in an effort to teach them to keep sweet.
Yes, it is totally sad from many sides.
I applaud Texas for following its laws.
The FLDS have broken laws from the beginning by not
telling the truth about why they purchased the land.
How can anyone think that you can break the law. But then the FLDS think they are exceptions to the rules. Not.
Reasonable people see that legal authorities in Texas are struggling in the face of a difficult situation to protect the children and enforce the law. Reasonable people are sickened by the scale and circumstances of the abuse at YFZ and applaud efforts to eliminate it.
Comparisons to Missouri or Nauvoo are perverse. Those were illegal mob actions against innocent people.
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Texas CPS shouted PEDOPHILE in the theater and needs to be held accountable.
Americans have civil liberties that the state of Texas has decided don't really count. Remember Tulia? We see the exact same forces of the state engaged in the most outrageous behavior. And the apologist for the state keep saying the end justifies the means. The state of Texas is clearly engaged in un-American and illegal aggression against its citizens.
Return those children to their homes now.