If I were a polygamist sect, I would base everything in California. They are moving away from 'traditional' marriage and would not prosecute. Free love and communes are accepted.

The US needs to decide which way it wants to go - you can't prosecute one form of non-traditional marriage while legalizing another. How and where do you draw the line?

DO some people not realize that these people BROKEN THE LAW. Nothing to fear except the fear of getting cought breaking the law some more. If kids where moved onto the Ranch for any reason to include provide additional Wifes to the males on the compound, they are in an unsafe enviroment and need to be removed. If they are there for any reason they need to be removed. Get a Warrent go back in and see what you can find. Bring the Dogs and the Half Track. If you find underaged people remove them.

I hope Parker is getting paid a huge fee by the polygamist's because it's likely he will never be asked to do any work outside this group. To condone teen marriage, the taking away families from men while they are dismissed from the compound, and the disposal of the majority of the young boys, is more than any attorneys I know would be willing to do.
He is the fulfillment of all the lawyer jokes.

Unlike you awesome, i am disturbed by the lack of due process in this case. The parents have been given no chance to refute the charges against them.

Do some people not realize that these people ARE CITIZENS WITH RIGHTS? Everything to fear from a civil agency with police powers, who can make blanket accusations against your entire neighborhood, and force you to prove yourself innocent after convicting you and sentencing you of "child abuse" and forcing you to sign their "agreements" to get your children back. If there are any children there, they do need to be removed- before the government gets them!

What????

Now this is the last straw! Did you see that quote?: "Because they are a civil agency, officials noted they may not need a warrant to conduct a civil investigation."

If the governmental agencies reach they point that they feel that they do not need a warrant... then they will have crossed a line that the constitution is not just threatened, but euthanized. I have nothing to do with the FLDS, but would be willing to take up arms to protect their civil liberties (or anyone else’s) if that line is crossed.

Don't get me wrong -- I am not a whacko militia type, but kidnapping of children on unproven rumor, "genocide" (as defined by U.N. resolution), and now the discussion of warrantless searches... The country and constitution I love are crumbling, and I think that all Americans should -- must! -- start considering options. If constitutional order cannot be restored by our legitimate government, it is time to consider the possibility our right to revolt.

Wake up! The constitution is being trampled!

To Which way america--This is not about traditional marriage. THis is about child abuse, which California prosecutes aggressively. Very aggressively.

Any person living in any country must follow or or obey the law of the land. I moved to the Philippines from the U.S. And I must obey the laws here even if I don't agree with all of them.Same holds true for the FLDS. The U.S is a free country.But no one is free to break the law of the land.

re: awesomeron
You say that these people have broken the law, what law? The legal age to marry in Texas is 16. The girls they thought were minors they now say are adults. What law has been broken to justify what the State has done? Where are the charges? It's been almost 2 months now. No one has been charges with a crime. You say these people BROKE THE LAW, I ask what law?

The problem is they are only enforcing the law against one particular religion. If everyone under 16 that showed up at an abortion clinic where put in protective custody and the father tracxked down and jailed it would be a different matter.

in New Hampshire

or would that be St. George?

Still on the "genocide" campaign I see.

Despite the hyperbole, this is not genocide or kidnapping, but an investigation of child abuse, which is taught and practiced by the FLDS in the form of forced, underage marriages.

They are enforcing the law against polygamists and child abusers who try to get away with it under the guise of religion, the worst excuse there is. I daresay they should be charged also with running some sort of illegal prison camp. Go texas

This will only make Greg Abbott, att. general of Texas, more determined to get these criminals behind bars. They should have played along......BIG mistake!!! I will probebly drive up there when they begin to cuff the mom and dads and provide snacks and water to the law officials, and applaud them for doing an outstanding job, in breaking up this child sex slave ring!!!!

I agree with Angry in New Hampshire! We got to start protecting ourselves and families..... Their are no more RIGHTS IN THIS COUNTRY .. THIS CASE HAS SHOWED THAT .. I think that Texas want these children for their own purpose-- must be alot of people in Texas that can't have kids and this may be a way to get them ... No one is safe at this point ! We all need to protect our rights America !! Free the children !!! Free the children!!!

your everyday teenager that fools around with their boyfriend and gets pregnant and an FLDS girl is comparing apples to oranges.

The FLDS are not following the laws of the land. Period. Just wait when more information gets out - child traffiking, abuse, polygamy, ect. It won't be pretty for the FLDS. They should obey the laws of the lands like the rest of us.

"The problem is they are only enforcing the law against one particular religion."

Did you FLDS ever consider that they're only enforcing the law against one particular religion, because only one particular religion has institutionalized child abuse in the form of forced underaged marriages of young girls and the indoctrination of young boys to become future abusers?

Exactly, Dave! Why aren't we worried about the millions of teenage mothers giving birth and those seeking abortions? Why aren't we finding their perpetrators? Oh, yeah, they aren't concerned with finding the perps, just jailing the victims. Let's round up all the teen pregnant girls, lock them up and if they already have children, take them away. When they give birth, take the newborn too and give them a "safe" foster home because obviously they are likely to be groomed to become a teen mom themselves, right? Where is their role model to do something different - if grandma helps raise the child, isn't the child also likely to be a teen mom?

Or perhaps they have "gay" mothers or dads. Take them away too because they might be influenced that direction. If you don't like their religion, round them all up as a group without due process and warrants. Assume the worst of them all. This is America.... but as was said above, go to California or Massachusetts where anything goes. You can't prosecute someone with two wives if it's also OK to have other non-traditional marriage.

Next they may seek everyone who is not blonde, blue eyed, white.

'The judge hearing the case objected, saying [actual facts are] not relevant'

How can a judge say clearing up a lie is not relevant? The truth does not matter to this judge!! Unbelievable!! Well, I believe it, I just wish it wasn't so.

Shut down this travesty and send those kids home!

Angry in New Hampshire = free the children

It's nice that you agree with yourself (same exact writing style), but the rights of the children to be protected from being abused are more important to truly caring people than the rights of the parents to abuse their children.

When will CPS leave these people alone and return the children.

Yo, Dude, what sex-slave ring? The so-called complaining pregnant 14-year-old never existed. The other so-called pregnant 14-year-old says she is not pregnant. One so-called pregnant teenager turns out to be 27 years old!! Where's the sex crimes? The crimes here are the CPS lies!!

Constitution? What Constitution? Only lip service is paid to it, but it really doesn't exist anymore. The lip service paid is just to keep the masses in their lethargic state - keep them asleep to their eventual doom.

Tell us - with the IRS - is one innocent until proven guilty, or guilty until proven innocent?

Tell us - the CPS - are the parents innocent until proven guilty, or the other way around?

With Patriot Acts 1 and 2, do any of the Bill of Rights apply? ANY OF THEM? Ever hear of WARRANTLESS SEARCHES? Ever hear of being arrested with no miranda, locked up in Guantanamo or other places, no charges filed, held indefinitely, tortured... Just because someone is "suspicious"? Ever hear that anyone can be considered a "terrorist", even someone who says that today's laws don't line up with the Constitution, and YOU can be send town to Guantanamo Bay and tortured until you say what they want you to say? Anyone can be taken...

We are talking today, in Amerika, not Nazi Germany or Communist Russia - even though they did the same things there?

Governments have killed far more people than any other group.

You are wrong. They are not enforcing laws against polygamists. TX already stated they will not attempt prosecution against polygamy. I am more surprised that you are not outraged that many copies of the Book of Mormon were removed from children. While I don't believe in any scripture, I find that action outrageous.

Let's see now:
1. China style 'relocation' of children is in the best interest of the State.
2. Unfettered authority for 'warrantless searches' is legal.
3. Rubber-stamped - broad-brushed justice without case related specifics is OK.
4. You should be prohibited from speaking, thinking, reading Religious material.
5. If you are a member of a religion, it is illegal for underage pregnancies to occur, but if you are from a slum somewhere, high rates are acceptable.
6. Families that stay together are bad - casual childbearing is fine.

These are just for starters - now, when do we see CPS 'invade' high rate child pregnancy innercity areas and 'relocate' all the children to 'safe' areas, swab everyones mouth and run DNA tests to determine if some 'crime' might be found and prosecuted.

While I don't favor polygamy, I question how serial childbearing in marriages is OK, casual 'live-in' relationships resulting in children are OK, one-night stands resulting in pregnancy is OK, even sodomy is OK, but providing clean homes, devoted large families, private schools,etc. is AGAINST THE LAW and MUST be punished.

Something is really screwed up here!

To all of you who are saying polygomy is illegal, ask this - how fair is it to make polygomy illegal, but keep adultery legal????The boatload of allegations the state of TX has made are based on nothing but a hoax. Every day this boat is getting leakier and leakier. Why else would they have shown up MINUS a search warrant yesterday? The only abuse these children have really recieved is the abuse of ripping them from their parents and siblings, and slapping them helter skelter whereever there's room in various citys in TX while the parents fight lies to get them back!! That is abuse!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is quickly becoming clear that the intention was to get FLDS money. The TX official went in slinging guns because of fraudulant abuse allegations that my caller I.D. would have detected, but are checking FLDS finances and billing the FLDS for foster care. Note that TX still refuses to acknowledge that the call was fraudulent when simple telephone records that are easily accessible. Again, follow the paper, not the bruise trail.

Hearings are being held, plans to return the children are being drawn up, but still the "Free the Children" drum beat continues.

Why?

It makes you wonder if some of those children in Texas CPS protective custody aren't the children of child brides and the men responsible know that if Texas continues to investigate, they'll discover that some of these girls weren't actually forced into underage marriages in Texas, but they were forced into underage marriages in Utah or Arizona, where underage marriages are also illegal.

Could this be why the FLDS men keep repeating that there is NO PROOF that laws were broken IN TEXAS, when, what they're really trying to do is hide the fact that laws WERE BROKEN in UTAH and ARIZONA?

"It was Joseph Smith who has been quoted as having said that the time would come when the Constitution would hang as by a thread and at that time when it was thus in jeopardy, the elders of this Church would step forth and save it from destruction."

where are the elders of the church who will save the constitution from destruction?

amazing the advocates for warrantless searches and other constitutional violations in the name of humanity

The investigation isn't finished yet. Give it time. The abusers already know if there's evidence still to be discovered. The rest of us will just have to wait until the investigation is complete.

I am with you. We need to go down there, and fight for the Constitution.
There in lies the problem. While we see the problem we are unwilling to give up our homes, and jobs to defend those things that are right. The problem will contintue to get worse until either we stand up fight like our ancestors did, or one day we will wake up, and it will be to late. The way things are I really think it will be the latter.

Weak strawman, but the FLDS aren't being investigated for providing clean homes, having large families, or having private schools, they're being investigated for forcing young underage girls to be married and raped, which is CHILD ABUSE!!!

Whether you call this a religious belief or not, it's still child abuse.

Any of you who are refuting the ethics or legality of the raid at the compound need to read the stories of those who have escaped. I know such a woman and her story is frightening. 'Forcing' young girls to marry men who are old enough to be their fathers, or granfathers, or forcing them to marry at all is against their constitutional rights, not to mention against the law. They have no choice in the matter. The man is the law. It is not a commune full of 'love and laughter' and those who believe it is are kidding themselves. Of course those adult women who live there will stand up for their beliefs, it is all they have known from birth, but it is WRONG. I daresay that any of you with daughters of your own would NEVER allow such a thing to happen to them. Those of you who are complaining about justice in America and then vowing to protect the rights of the FLDS adults are turning yourselves into real live oxymorons, and, if you have to look that term up, perhaps you should just bow out of the governmental arena all together.

These people are caught in an impossible situation: first they are commanded by God via the revelations of the prophet Joseph Smith to practice plural marriages, and now they are told by the state that it is against the law, so who do they obey; God's law or man's law. It would be best if they where left alone to their own divises.

"Because they are a civil agency, officials noted they MAY not need a warrant to conduct a civil investigation."

To date, there have been on warrantless searches and CPS is just blowing smoke by suggesting that the MAY not need a warrant. Scare tactics or a CPS worker just spouting off.

There have been and there will be NO warrantless searches.

Sorry to disappoint all the paranoid conspiracy nuts.

There is evidence that some of the current 16 and 17 year olds have 2 and 3 year olds. Doesn't that show that there is some strange stugg going on. Wait and see what the DNA test say, that will be interesting. The difference is that they were forced into these spiritual relationships and got pregnant; they weren't just fooling around with a boyfriend. Also, why would 6 of the women in the beginning of the raid opt to leave with their children to a safe place, something obviously isn't right here, we need to make sure that these women are not part of the Stockholm Syndrome. They love the men that are brainwashing them, and continue to be their sex harems.

Every day more disputed teenagers turn out to have been adults all along. Between Tuesday and yesterday the only two allegedly pregnant 14-year-olds turned out to just plain not be pregnant 14-year-olds.

Hour by hour more and more CPS lies are falling by the wayside. I expect by the time all of the hearings are done, there won't be a shread of fact to base this atrocity on.

Oh yea, facts don't matter here. The facts don't matter because some chick wrote a story book about life in Utah and said she was forced into something she didn't want. Probably the most absurd thing about this is the judge in the first place accepting passages from a story book as evidence!!!

In response to "Anonymous" (8:21 am):

While it is certainly premature to "take up arms" (as I irresponsibly suggested in my passion and dismay over this issue at 5:18 am -- remember, I live in a state where the state motto is "Live Free or Die"), there is still the question as to what the "elders of the church" will do to save the constitution.

I know that, personally, my shock that this abrogation of parental and religious rights has cemented my will to run for Congress in 2010 to try to restore some basic constitutional liberties. In the mean time, I will be trying to arrange a discussion with my congresswoman here to discuss what can be done (although, of course, this is a political hot potato, as action to rein in CPS could be misconstrued as supporting "sex slavery" as some people in this discussion have intimated -- which is not politically prudent). I will also be contacting the UN Special Advisor in the Prevention of Genocide. I will introduce a symbolic bill in the New Hampshire house recognizing the CPS action as "genocide."

Any other ideas? Trampling of the constitution must stop.

Top Ten Signs You Are A Victim of Religious Persecution

10. When people talk about where THEY live it is a four-plex, apartment building or ranch. When they talk about the four-plex, apartment or ranch YOU live at, it is a compound.
9. Your religion is constantly referred to as a cult.
8. The state decides how your children are to worship by taking away their religious documents and scriptures.
7. When you move to a state, laws are changed specifically to target your religion.
6. The only adults in your state not allowed to marry a 14 or 16 year olds are the members of your congregation.
5. Your religion cannot teach certain behaviors lead to damnation, but all other religions can.
4. The state accepts birth certificates as proof of age for everyone except those practicing your religion.
3. You can't have your children back unless you denounce your religion, and take classes learning how to think like them.
2. You have to prove to the State you can raise children, when you have been raising them just fine.
1. The children of your religion are hauled away in buses displaying the name of another church.

I am SO happy for those children, and have NO pity for the parents. The kids are finally free to be kids instead of mini-me slaves, and they will be able to form their own ideas. What a concept!

And "Uncle" Warren is going away for a LONG time. So the question is:

Since being a "prophet" seems to be handed down from father to son like a monarchy, who is Warren going to make the new "prophet"? I think his kid is too young (and a little hammerheaded) so who will it be? Probably that Willie Jessop dude - he seems like he's the most extreme so he fits the bill. I'm sure he'll have a "vision" just in time.

Can anyone (besides FLDS zombies) imagine being born into this? To have to live like that simply because of who your parents are? Wow - that would suck. No freedom of choice, no clue how the world works, 80 years of servitude for something that may not even be real, when you could have had 80 years of fun and gone to the same place?

Old men told you things - if they're wrong, you wasted your life.

run the FLDS members up on Federal Rico and Mann Act charges

For those of you guessing that I am in Utah or associated with the FLDS-Wrong! I did live in Utah when I was a BYU student for my undergrad and masters, before coming to Massachusetts to get my PhD, and eventually settling in New Hampshire, where I am active LDS. Despite being a descendant of early LDS polygamists, I do not condone polygamy. I certainly do not condone under-age marriage, sex slavery, etc., nor do I condone the civil disobedience espoused by the leadership of this group.

I am angry because, though not guaranteed by the constitution explicitly, I believe parental rights are as basic as life and liberty, to be abrogated under only the gravest of circumstances, and only with due process.

The term "genocide" is not a hyperbole. This action by the state of Texas clearly falls under Article 2(e) of the UN Resolution on Genocide. READ IT.

It breaks my heart to see this happening on American soil. I am left to wonder what my patriotic duty is when the constitution has been set aside. If we allow this to happen to them, what group will be next? When will it be us?

Sounds like a couple of FLDSers are on the warpath this morning talking about taking up arms and civil insurrection. Did Warren Jeffs anticipate this from the beginning when he built a guard tower at the gates of the walled YFZ Ranch?

Is YFZ a ranch or a fort?

People say this isn't about polygamy, but if that were so, they would legalize polygamy. In Texas it is OK for any adult to marry a 16 year old with parental consent. The only reason some of these alleged marriages to 16 year olds are illegal is because the pligs couldn't legally marry since polygamy is illegal. Because polygamy is illegal, the marriage then becomes statutory rape. It's religious persecution at this point, because believe me, they would have married legally if it could have been done.

So you see, it is about polygamy after all.

why should parents even go through the cps circus rings? If no abuse is found then give the kids back and close this dumb case. Maybe many of you have never done a thing wrong parenting your kids..I know i made plenty. I am 61 and have 8 children. I used to tell the LLUMC that I neede a revolving door for my family with our name on it. Active children do get hurt, illness can get really bad and sometimes accidents happen. As for the sex ed kids get..they almost encourage the kids to experiment. Public schools are where kids learn about sex,drugs,disbelief in GOD,foul language,evolution theory(not fact)& disrespect. WTG for the american way. Change those FLDS kids to be good american kids. I say this is America..the land of the not so free!

Thanks, good humor if it wasn't so true. Watch out, your neighborhood can be next...

As for me I am done with anything that has to do with the F letter in front of LDS or without the F. These blogs have cured me completely of all the deception of these religions. Polygamy is evil! There is nothing religious about this evil practice.

I hope the raids go well. More power to TEXAS!

for reality check: I suppose that only htese folks lie about religion. How about catholics where you could go to no other churech..not marry out of faith unless you sign for kids to be raised in the church..letting a mom die if she has a health issue when pregnant. The list goes on and then a priest tells you you are a sinner. And then you have to go to him for forgiveness. Abuse and worse are the way of life but no one arrested the pope. You all know it is one huge family. Go FLDS I may not like your views but I like freedom better.

If this were about polygamy, then the state of TX would not have stated that they will NOT prosecute for polygamy. They have made this statement.

As it appears that CPS is looking for children gone missing from foster care, does anyone know how long they can legally keep this a secret? (Though I know they don't feel bound by mere legalities.)

Your argument can (and has) been made regarding all religions in general (not just FLDS). A few years back there was somebody at the University of New Hampshire doing post-doc work claiming that ALL religion is abusive (although his particular beef was with the Catholics), and was devoting his life to "freeing children from the tyranny of the religions of their parents." Though a PhD, he got a job teaching elementary school (my son's elementary school, actually) for the sole purpose of saving children from religion. (I was disturbed about THAT, too.)

Freedom is a messy thing. Allowing parents to train their children in their belief systems means that most kids will be trained in a religion that I believe is incorrect. (I will wait until they are older and try to teach them the Gospel as a member-missionary...) Freedom requires that we allow basic liberties (such as teaching your children in the way you see fit) without governmental intervention. Personally, I view freedom to teach our children as more fundamental than freedom of speech or freedom of religion. I disagree with the FLDS, but the government must not muck with religious training. That is why I am “Angry.”