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Texas fights return of FLDS kids

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Phil | 12:59 a.m. May 24, 2008
Any members of one religion who calls other members 'brother' and 'sister' should have all of their children removed when one case of abuse pops up, that is what I got out of reading CPS filing with the supreme court.
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Guardian | 1:16 a.m. May 24, 2008
Read the response to the supreme court. It reveals the whine about orchestrated denial of ID is a lie. All CPS knows to do is lie. This entire fiasco is a lie.

lie
lie
lie
lie
lie

Let them people go!
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Guardian | 1:17 a.m. May 24, 2008
amen brother

oops!
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CG | 4:18 a.m. May 24, 2008
Voss's statement about babies is a virtual admission that the CPS removed the vast majority of the children on the basis of their religious beliefs, without even an attempt to show they were in imminent danger of abuse, as the law requires. It reeks of bigotry and feminist contempt for any woman who would hold up childbearing to be her greatest duty in life.

Yet the CPS must continue to engage in this constitutionally violative line of argument, or else find itself setting the precedent that whenever a CPS worker sees a pregnant girl who looks "young," immediate state custody is in order.
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Hey Phil | 4:30 a.m. May 24, 2008
Lots of religions seem to have its adherents call one another brother or sister...it's wording from the New Testament.

The only issue I have with this case is simple application of the law. Because these people are FLDS, TX and its citizens, think it acceptable NOT to apply the rights granted every citizen of the U.S. The rest all remains noise, even if it causes a knee jerk response.
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Re Phil | 4:40 a.m. May 24, 2008
So since nuns are called sisters we should remove all the children from the parents that attend catholic church where we have proven child abuse.
The CPS needs to wake up and return the children Now.
Hopefully the Texas supreme court will agree with the court in Austin and return all the children soon.
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Anon | 5:07 a.m. May 24, 2008
There is a clear case of abuse here: the judge is clearly out of control and not impartial. She should recuse herself or be disbarred.
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Freethinker | 5:21 a.m. May 24, 2008
The appeals court decision was a big, fat black eye for CPS. The agency is now trying to save face and gain time by appealing the decision to the Supreme Court. Its argument for the appeal is as flimsy and hollow as was it reasoning for invading the YFZ Ranch in the first place. Don't the over-zealous bureaucrats at CPS realize that when you are in a hole you quit digging?
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jwats0560 | 5:23 a.m. May 24, 2008
CPS is a ninety pound gorilla. No one knows how to stop it. Somebody sometime is gonna have to put that sucker on a diet. I hope it will be the State Supreme Court. What chance do you give that the State Supreme Court is going to overturn three very conservative Republican judges? I say two chances, slim and none.
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Hawkeye | 5:28 a.m. May 24, 2008
The Texas DFPS is engaged in a transparent game of sandbagging and footdragging. By this point they must realize they have no hope of making a case against the FLDS. Despite strident claims and their best propaganda effort, most of their claims have vaperized back into the smoke they came from.

No, I'm not FLDS, nor a Utahan. I'm an Iowan. I'm just a US citizen sickened by the demonstrated abuse of power, the willingness to ignore due process and the continued willingness to fabricate the truth, desplayed by this agency.
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Pat | 6:02 a.m. May 24, 2008
The harm to these children, which is going to affect them a lifetime, was all caused by the FLDS itself. There are, and should be, consequences to how we live and treat those around us. FLDS dispises the very people who have assisted them through the years and arrogantly hold the belief that everyone other than themselves are wicked, damned and to be shunned.

The only way this sect has survived in this country is by deliberate lying and self-isolation so that their law-breaking fraud is "overlooked". They feel justified in perfecting the art of lying (from early childhood) since it means (to them) survival of their beliefs. Any state with these or similar sects within its boarders have a choice: Overlook (Utah) or tackle the problem (Texas).

Overlooking has produced readers of this story to add "comment" to this paper such as "...MY tax money goes to support these people with welfare and medical assistance?" Incredible. By the hundreds these FLDS citizens are gov`t-supported for decade after decade and the state has ignored it. In the meantime, FLDS has (even within their children) perfected the "righteous lying" to implement the "wicked world`s" roll in helping them to survive.
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Anonymous | 6:09 a.m. May 24, 2008
It is truly amazing how much of the 'Jack-
booted Thug" activities the citizens of this Grand State will tolerate as long as ". . . it's for the children". The 3d Court Judge seems to really understand the 4th Amendment (from the Bill of Rights for those educated in government schools). This differed from Waco only in that the FLDS had no guns, otherwise the govewrnment in their rush to 'protect' might have killed all these children too.

E. Ross Craft, J.D.
Houston, Texas

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Texas Sheriff | 7:19 a.m. May 24, 2008
This week a sheriff was charged with sex with an underage girl. Were his biological children removed from his wife? I'm just curious. I would think them in immediate and imminent danger.
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dissident | 7:33 a.m. May 24, 2008
Now these FLDS will know the pain we dissidents have felt to have our children who are married to FLDS men taken from our association. Our grand kids have been told we are wicked appostates because we do not love the prophet. The FLDS proclaim they are free but I have a daughter who has been made prisoner to her own home. she cannot leave the home for fear she might meet up with her mother who could influence her.
C'mon Willie let our children free. I quote your saying to the media "do unto others as you would have them do to you" Release these young women who have been sealed to the prophet only to live the life of a Catholic Nun. What future have they got hidden up in some house of hiding? Time to get the "Mormon aspect back into the church.
It's time for all the FLDS to break free from the bondage they have put themselve in. Let the Articles of our Faith and the Ten Commandments of our God be your Moses to lead you free.
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wrz | 7:32 a.m. May 24, 2008
What I got out of the CPS filing is that the girls will be taught to have children, that the boys will be taught to impregnate girls, and that older men who already have wives may well take younger girls to wife and get them pregnant. And that this all adds up to abuse of children. This all may well be true. And in some respects and in some circles it could be considered despicable and even wrong. But in no way does it show that these kids are in IMMINENT danger requiring their removal. CPS is wrong, exceeded its authority, and will lose.
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Bruce | 8:01 a.m. May 24, 2008
My goodness, what are they going to do with the Catholics that call nuns "sister" and priests "father".
Bring on the buses.

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Freedom Mann | 8:14 a.m. May 24, 2008
This country, from colonial times onward, has had to endure various witch-hunts from time-to-time, and this is just another one.

So far, Phil, there have been no SPECIFIC CHARGES leveled at ANYONE; people who have a belief system where they call each other "brother and sister" may indicate what you claim it does (much as Communists all calling each other "comrade") but that's not the point.

The point IS, Phil, that there is something called Personal FREEDOM in this country; it's codified in the US Constitution and it all seems non-applicable to the FLDS simply because a bunch of bigots just flat-out don't like them and that seems to include YOU.

Yes, there are a few girls who are very, very underage and pregnant. That said, the percentage of unmarried teen pregnancy amongst the FLDS is WAY lower than that of this nation and/or the State of Texas. If you want to use this as a standard for state-wide Custody of Children, you'd have to empty out the Naval Air Station at Corpus Christi to handle them all.

This whole business with the FLDS is just one big double-standard.
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Helga | 8:29 a.m. May 24, 2008
I think People need to obey the Law, and since Polygamy is illegale, I think this schould be inforfoced. Takink the children away from their Mothers is quite another. Yes they seem to leave in a different World of their own that doesn't mean they abused.
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Concerned citizen | 8:43 a.m. May 24, 2008
Absolutely ridiculous accusations, which they just keep escalating in severity, yet have yet to prove a SINGLE ONE OF THEM which is cause for removal of all of the children.

If the Supreme Court sides with CPS, then all hope is lost for the State of Texas. It seems clear that rioting and just about anything else will ensue. It won't be safe to work for CPS. Time to look for other work?
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BeeCareful | 8:43 a.m. May 24, 2008
Of course kidnapping the kids was an overreach by CPS. The appeals court has now confirmed it. And the supreme court will uphold that verdict unless they are incredibly stupid or biased. The kids should be speedily returned to their mothers -- with certain conditions attached.

What is really needed here is prevention of further child sexual abuse by some in the FLDS community. They simply must give up any notion that impregnating girls under the age of 18 is allowed period, end of story. If any future girl turns up pregnant, the father will be tracked down and tossed in jail. In order to get the kids back, all men women and children in that community must submit to DNA testing, especially the men. The all girls in that group must give their true age (and there must me some kind of medical test that can confirm the age. If they can find out the age of trees or horses, they certainly should be able to do the same with children.) If any girl under the age of 18 becomes pregnant, a simple scan of the DNA database would reveal the perpetrator and he would go to jail.
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No. Utah sees a major earthquake every 350 years. Last one? 350 years ago.