Reader comments
Plans for FLDS families are not so individual

The CPS is drunk with power. Somebody somewhere must restrain them. These service plans amount to the attempted destruction of a religion.

And cps accuses us of lying?

CPS needs to be extremely hands on if those poor kids go back. I would also put in there the children must attend public school.

Thomas pleeeeeze

"CPS says a large number of girls, ages 14-17, have children, are pregnant or both."

More carefully crafted wording by CPS. OK, no one should be in favor of teenagers getting pregnant against their will if the implications are true, etc. etc. but these statements from CPS have the ring of child abusers accusing others of child abuse to distract from their crimes. But are they applying the same standards to girls and children in the public sector and gang infested inner cities who are dealing with far worse abuse and crime? Of course not, but why would it make sense to send in a criminal agency to police these areas anyway? You would never have have one of these Nazi spokepeople have the audacity to make similar statements about other groups, particularly those of minority races, because then the bigotry would be more apparent to the American public.

Christina | 1:04 a.m. May 15, 2008 said "CPS needs to be extremely hands on if those poor kids go back. I would also put in there the children must attend public school."

And by what right can the State tell one particular group of people that they are NOT allowed to home school their children if the laws in that State allow home schooling?

That is the trouble with this whole mess. The rights of the individual. CPS is stepping all over their rights - and that is always the downfall. In this case PARTICULAR, they needed to be compassionate, careful, follow every regulation, cross every T and dot every I.

When they failed to do that, they allowed themselves to be used as propaganda by the FLDS and set correcting the abuses of the FLDS back.

Once again, I commend Utah and Arizona for taking a different approach. So Texas takes all their kids... they can always make more. What good did that do in the long run?

This is going to be very interesting. CPS had to remove all of the children because it was impossible to identify which children belonged to which parents.

So, some of the children are from young families where no polygamy and no abuse exists. These families if well-represented may get their children back relatively quickly and then later on down the road, these children may be at risk for abuse.

Then there are children living with polygamous parents. Polygamy as practiced in other sects doesn't equate to child abuse, but the way Jeffs has set it up with the eviction of the boys and the early marriage of the girls, it almost does. Plus, it is criminal behavior. One might think that the answer to polygamy, would be to jail the male and possibly the surplus wives. Thus, perhaps the children should be returned at least upon separation of the wives.

Then you have the families in which sexual and physical abuse has occurred and in those, the children should be removed. The catch in this is that some of those families are in Arizona/Utah and only the girl has been shipped off for marriage.

This week will be interesting.

A better place to put CPS police would be at all the abortion clinics in Texas that provide the 400+ abortions to girls under fifteen every year.

All girls who look like they are under seventeen should be forced to give their names, proof of age, as well as the name, age, and marital status of the male rapist; in addition, the names and address of her parents so that any younger siblings of the girl can be removed to prevent the girls from becoming victims and the boys from becoming perpetrators. Routine DNA sampling should be done on all fetuses, the alleged rapist, and the girl's father to rule out incest.

Christina,

Exactly why should the children be sent to public schools? I've been following this story very closely, and I haven't heard ONE HINT even that there has been any educational neglect at all! On the contrary, the reports I've read is that the children are ahead of their peers educationally. They seem to have a top-notch education system going at least, which isn't costing the tax-payers a cent by the way.

Everyone's complaining that these people are on all kinds of assistance, yet now you are suggesting we put them on MORE public assistance by putting them into public schools just so they can get a second class education. These children would be eaten alive in the "law of the jungle" public schools. They would be teased, verbally abused, picked on, beat up, and otherwise ostracized.

What are you thinking? Public school is the last place in the world these children should be.

To Thomas: Actually it was Warren Jeffs who was drunk with power. As absolute power corrupts absolutely Warren became corrupt and turned the flds into a personality cult.

Dee PLEEZE The CPS is essentialy reQuring these parents to move out of the ranch and renounce their religion. Lay down your prejudices and look at the truth. They seized every child these people has based on allegations of a handful of underage marriages.

The existance of the service plans shows that CPS did, in fact, violoate the rights of each child and each parent when each child and each parent was not given an individual hearing justifying removal of the child from the parent within 14 days. Since the illegal actions of CPS started on that first 14 days, it's logical to assume they've been doing a lot of illegal things from day 1.

FLDS needs to kidnap all these abusive CPS workers, and force THEM to agree to "service plans" admitting their guilt in the pervasive pattern of abuse under their care.

CPS is doing their best to protect the kids from abuse; the FLDS didn't have any interest in protecting the kids from abuse.

Yea, Christina. Put them all in public school and the girls can get pregnant there, and pick up an STD to boot! At least it would be government approved.

Next time a 14-year-old girl shows up at any Texas high school pregnant, they now have legal precidence to call the whole school one household and take away every kid from every family! Watch out, Texas! It's just starting!!

I am still so amazed that the public outrage has not forced the cps in texas to give those children back to their families. Maybe we need to stop watching tv and turn off our radios and stop buying any products from anyone except necessairy food, until these peoples constitutional rights are respected by texas cps and courts. If we don't start a mass protest we will ourselves have no rights when this is over. Pray for a mass protest and help get it started money is what will bring this to an end.

Christina, no state has the right to insist that children be educated in a public school. That's the sort of statism practiced in Germany, and was briefly attempted in California.

The locals in Eldorado were worried about the FLDS taking over the county, so State Rep. Harvey Hilderbran sponsored a bill in 2005 that raised the legal age of consent to marry in Texas from 14 to 16. This was specifically targeted against the FLDS. When the FLDS moved to Texas the legal age was 14.


Note how the Texas Child Protective Service implies that 18 is the legal age. The CPS can�t be trusted and can�t be trusted with foster children. Two-thirds of their foster children are on mind-altering drugs. Wouldn�t the FLDS children be better off if they were returned to their mothers. Prosecute the men who fathered children with �wives� 15 or less and let the others alone.


I believe the diabolical outcome of Lawrence v Texas by the U.S. Supreme Court ensures that polygamy will be found legal � so polygamy cannot be legally outlawed

Re - Robert | 1:40 a.m. May 15, 2008 "So Texas takes all their kids... they can always make more."

If the FLDS have their parental rights terminated to these children, CPS will probably remove children born to them in the future as well.

If you're getting ready to flame me please know that I'm not making a value statement about the appropriateness of that action, just passing along information that many people in the general public may not be aware of.

Like most cults, the FLDS feel that they are above the law.

Polygamy, child rape, child abandonment, welfare fraud, kidnapping, false imprisonment, stealing families, and incest are all practices that are AGAINST THE LAW, but are fully accepted by the FLDS as part of their "religious beliefs."

Now, they want the law to step in and protect their law-breaking practices.

As much as I want to have sympathy for the parents who have had their children taken into protective custody, it's difficult to have sympathy for a group who has abused their own children and has shown such blatant disregard for the law.

What is the actual number of girls that are pregnant or have children under the age of 18. The only statements made has been that there is a large group of them. Give us some factual numbers.

How did the state come up with so many foster homes so quick. Taking a child who is not real young and stating that they may end up in foster care or be adopted is quite troublesome. A big group of children over a certain age will never be adopted and most likely moved from one foster home to another.
A better solution needs to be made. I have known several foster children that were taken out of their homes when they were young and there was good reason to do so, but they went from one home to another and ended up having major troubles themselves.

If foster parents are going to take on the role of parenting, they should be required to keep the children until their 18, and not give up when they are tired of parenting.