The Polygamy Case
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:10pm Mark Noonan
As I’m sure everyone has heard:
A Texas appeals court ruled Thursday that state authorities and a lower court judge abused their authority by illegally seizing up to 468 children from their homes at a polygamist ranch in West Texas last month.
The rebuke threw the largest custody case in American history into turmoil, with some lawyers saying the children could soon be reunited with their families. Many of the mothers have been criss-crossing Texas visiting their children in foster homes.
According to the court, the state did not establish proper grounds to remove the children from their families, who belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or F.L.D.S. The F.L.D.S. broke off from the mainstream Mormon church after it had disavowed polygamy in 1890.
Polygamy is, of course, illegal throughout the United States, so I can see an easy prosecution of any of the FLDS men who are married to multiple women - but the fact that a man might have three wives is, in my view, insufficient justification for any assumption that the children of those unions are in danger. Given this, I fully understood any effort to separate the fathers from the families until it was all sorted out, but I failed to see why all of the children had to be taken from all the parents - this, to me, was a gross usurpation by the State, and I am glad this appellate court has acted.
The solution here is to de-certify FLDS as a body who’s ministers and officials can perform legal marriages until such time as they give assurances that they will actually follow the laws, all of which ban polygamy. What particular home arrangements adults choose to make - ie, if three women choose to be with one man who “married” them in legally invalid marriages - then that is none of anyone’s business. As long as there is no abuse of children or any other criminal activity going on, then the State must step back and allow this peculiar sect - which, as far as I can tell, doesn’t bother anyone outside their group - to live their strange lives unfettered.
Entry Filed under: Religion, Social Issues
15 Comments
1. js | May 22nd, 2008 at 11:35 pm
this is a violation of basic rights…when law enforcement kidnaps your children…because some judge doesnt like what someone said about your beliefs…be they right or wrong…so they snatch your kids because they might get abused someday…
but every child is in the same position…homosexuals prowl in the halls of our schools…predators…wanting to pervert the beliefs and values of our children….while we remain unaware…that recruit children to induce other children…into deviant beliefs…unGodly behavior that neither benefits society nor education…yet these same courts uphold thier rights to prey upon our children who are already sexually active by the time they are 12 or 13….and teach them to use contracetpives…and teach them to get abortions…and lobby for laws to allow those same children to get abortions whilst parents remain unaware…teaching our own children that the laws say its ok to lie to your parents…because truely, omission is a lie….
just like in this case in Texas….family protective services omitted any evidence that the children were actually in danger…but moved to snatch the kids because they might be victims of predators….as if the parents would actually hurt thier children…the bond of love so casually cast aside…and some of the children, as they called them….were actually in thier mid twenties…held without thier consent….kidnapped from thier own homes…
yup…this one is a real doozey it is…Texans are gonna lose thier shirts for this one….the right against unreasonable search and siezure….where were the writs of habaeus corpus in Federal Court?….were those attorneys stupid or what….Texas had no right…to do this….just like they would have no right to sieze every child that goes to school where they have gay and lesbian clubs….none at all….
2. phnx | May 23rd, 2008 at 12:41 am
I am curious to learn the position of the leftist trolls who frequent this blog.
Was the State justified? Or was this an unconstitutional abuse of power?
3. Dennis | May 23rd, 2008 at 2:02 am
Deleted - off topic.
4. winnowhead | May 23rd, 2008 at 2:05 am
phnx, this is hardly a left/right issue. Most people see lots of shades of gray. In fact, Mark pretty much described the ACLU’s position.
And speaking of shades of gray, it’s not as simple as Mark lays it out. It should go without saying that it’s more complex than Texas authorities putting these children into foster care because of plural marriage. There were accusations of abuse - underage girls raped and forced into marriage. Which is a separate matter from whether or not authorities overreacted, but considering it’s the crux of the matter, should at least be mentioned, don’t you think?
5. Dennis | May 23rd, 2008 at 2:18 am
Deleted - off topic.
6. kjstrouble1 | May 23rd, 2008 at 3:05 am
Mark I think you have missed it on this one. There was a call from a sixteen year old girl (or that is what the authorities thought) claiming abuse. There were other young girls who have been “married” to much older men (a violation of Texas law, even if they are the only wife) and having babies. Now comes the word that some of the children seized were not even with any parents according to the DNA tests.
These children need to be kept away from those parents who are raising them to accept this abuse. And any mother who is not sheilding her children from abuse, emotional or physical, should not get a pass because the original complaint was bogus. The police acted in good faith.
7. Mark Noonan | May 23rd, 2008 at 4:22 am
kj,
Call it my stout wariness of State power and State interference in the lives of families - even odd families. I don’t like it, ever, when a State agency intervenes save when there is clear and present danger of actual physical harm. I’m also wary of deciding what a parent must shield their children from - obviously if a parent were routinely exposing a child to pornography, that would be something to stop…but a leftist can take the precedent here and take away children from Christian homes, too, if they can just get a law passed making it a hate crime to teach that homosexuality is other than a morally good thing. I’m going to err on the side of the family.
Also, the kids didn’t seem in any actual distress - well fed, well mannered and well cared for is how they appeared. Now, if there was a case of statutory rape, then the man in question should be prosecuted for that, and if any officials of the FLDS in any way assisted in carrying out a statutory rape, they need to see the inside of a jail (this, I believe, is what the sect’s leader - Warren Jeffs - is under indictment for right now). And, of course, any man married to plural wives needs to be prosecuted for that. But to just completely knock down their whole social structure and cast these children in to the foster care system is a terrible thing, in my view…its a crap shoot in the foster care system as to whether you’ll have a caring person or a cretin…and a cretin could do more damage to these unworldly children much faster than remaining in their social structure could.
I’m willing to have a full investigation here - but I don’t want anyone punished or even gravely disturbed until some one brings a conviction in open court.
8. Mark Noonan | May 23rd, 2008 at 4:24 am
winnow,
Accusations need to be investigated…but as I stated, I fail to see how an accusation justifies the complete overturn of a society…investigate, monitor and prosecute any lawbreaking…but don’t go in there like a bull in a china shop as if government is the actual parent and the parents are just agents of the State.
9. DM | May 23rd, 2008 at 10:02 am
I wonder if the laws that ban polygamy are in contention with the constitution that guarantees freedom of religion, particularly a long established practice in a religion that’s been around for some time.
10. hermie | May 23rd, 2008 at 10:48 am
The raid was based on an anonymous call, supposedly by a girl who was in the compound. The call could not be verified, and no names of the abused or abusers were provided. Later, after the raid, the source was discovered to have been a former member and living in Colorado.
There are some who say that the protection of the children was more important than the parents’ rights to due process. However, you cannot make a broad claim that there is widespread abuse, without at least one victim being identified. The state of Texas took over 400 children away from their parents, based not only on the weakest of accusations, but they proclaimed an entire community guilty of crimes.
The state also compounded this by screwing up the ages, and identities of the children and parents; identifying legal aged parents as being minors, and they traumatized both parents and children by their tactics.
The parents now have to prove themselves innocent of abuse. Hiring attorneys and having to be put through the process. Their rights were also violated by the state taking DNA samples without justification other than an broad accusation from someone who was not entirely reliable.
This would not have been done so ham-handedly to any other community in Texas. The FLDS was treated this way because they were different. You can argue about their beliefs, but if this was some small suburb near Austin where an anonymous caller accused the entire town of child abuse, you would not see all of the residents of that suburb having their children taken away by the state.
11. phnx | May 23rd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
hermie has it right, this was egregious abuse of power by the state. And contrary to the view from winnow, this is a left/right issue. The parallels to Waco (Branch Davidian) and Ruby Ridge are striking. Fortunately no one was killed here. But be sure that the emotional scars of this event will be permanent, for parents and children alike, all because of some over zealous government officials imposing their opinions on the situation.
12. OhioOrrin | May 23rd, 2008 at 2:18 pm
due respect, but this pales in comparison to the govt abuse of power at Ruby Ridge & Waco where men, women, & children were murdered by agents of the Federal, State, & Local govts.
Janet Reno should still be in jail for criminally negilent homicide.
that’s not 2 say this isn’t abuse either. but in potential child abuse cases the state must immediately intervene, then sort in out in court.
the threshold of probable cause must be lower w children.
13. se7en | May 23rd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Amen to that, Mark. Thank you!
14. JS | May 23rd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
this is America….everyone is innocent until proven guilty…the government can not persecute you for your religious beliefs…out of over 400 children arbitrarily taken from thier parents…not one bit of evidence (besides heresay) was presented to prove abuse or to prove the endagerment of 1 of these children by his/her parents….the is no legal foundation for them to have taken this action without having solid, factual evidence to present before a court..thats what the court said….and an anonymous phone call that was unconfirmed is “NOT” evidence and is “NOT” a legal basis to deprive a family of it children….
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