Stop marrying teenagers and this never would have happened in the first place. You are thinking yourselves very blessed right now since the appeals court has seen through some of the CPS craziness. You probably feel that God is on your side and has heard your prayers, but you do not have your children back, yet. Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Just because it is legal to marry a 16 year old, does not make it right. The children are the real losers, no matter how you look at the FLDS situation. If there are young girls pregnant, arrest the men. If the women are allowing the young girls to marry, arrest the women.

I hope all of the YFZ children can return home soon while this is sorted out. If laws have been broken then guilty parties should be prosecuted.

I hope the FLDS and the YFZ residents in particular can make a simple goal: live within the law. In particular this means that where there is a legal monogamous marriage, the parents must approve and the bride must be 16 or older.

If there is no legal marriage (polyg household), the young women must be 17 or older to have sex.

That is Texas law (as I understand it) and if they abide by this I think much of the harrassment will come to an end.

I shudder to imagine what these 430 children are going through in their state custody.

Dad

To commentor at 5:53:
Few people here have argued marrying 16 year-olds is right. More people have argued or seemed to argue 13-year-olds having sex with each other is OK. These people consistently ignore the strong evidence that most pregnant 13 and 14 year olds in this country were inpregnated by men who were at least 20.
However my only point is, you can not punish someone for doing something that is not right but is legal. Also, you can not violate people's rights for a higher good. This is why deprogramming was discredited and this is why Texas is failing in the courts. Two wrongs do not make a right.

So there is one 17 year old with a baby. My son in Texas nearly adopted a baby a couple of years ago--second child of an unmarried 16 year old--and she didn't even know the last name of the father, let alone how old he was.
Also interesting that I got married at barely 17 to a man 23--that's 6 years older than I was. And I am not and never have been FLDS. Had my first child at 18. I was a high school graduate who completed a 2 year college degree while I was still 17 and I certainly considered myself grown-up. I wouldn't recommend such early marriage, but I don't know that I would consider my husband a sexual predator either.

With colossal blunders like this and the even worse fiasco at Waco about 15 years ago, I hope the Texas "justice" system will learn some lessons about the meaning of the saying, "Discretion is the better part of valor."

Or the even more common saying from hard lessons learned in carpentry, “Measure twice, cut once.”

The basic idea is that taking one’s time to get it right is often, in fact almost always better than charging into situations that are poorly understood. Especially when the situation involves 462 children.

hopefully some lessons have been learned (by both sides) and the kids will be ok. that, after all, is the most important thing.