Good or Bad? What say we?

[Momoffor]

Donita,

Polygamy IS illegal, and the Morman church denounces it, and polygamists are excommunicated from the Mormon church.

These are sects of individuals who decided to do things their way and call it religion. Just like Jim Jones did that Kats brought up.

This isnt a case of people who bought house and moved into the commune because they found a great deal on a fixer upper.

You are comparing apples and oranges, and jumping to conclusions that these poor defensless people were targeted just because of the church they go to. That was not at all the case.

You live in a neighborhood and community where people go about their lives in many different ways.

This was a COMPOUND where everyone who lived there was living in the SAME giant household.EVERYONE there lived in unity in their own little world.
[/u]

[donita]

So what you are saying is that every person on that ranch are guilty by association and therefore deserve to be swept up in a blanket raid. I think history shows that that is not the best way to go about things. Nothing good has ever come from sweeping up a whole society (which this country has allowed to exist for hundreds of years) . We are a nation of laws and I beleive that the law officials could find a constiutional way to get the job done.

donita

[debbiescalese]

momoffor,
Back in wwII being a Jew was illigal and denounced by government in Germany. Thier religious practices were viewed much the same way we are viewing this sect of mormans. Thier childern were taken away and put in consentraition camps much like how they have taken this groups children and placed them in a "safe place" a collisum, with the notion they are going to deprogram them. Only real diferance is they aren't cooking them in gas chambers. sorry but here lately I am seeing tooo many parrells between this an natzi Germany.
Yeah bottom line I don't think a child like a 13-17 year old should be forced to marry an old man and breed but then again it is an excepted parctice all over the word should we go out and take thier kids as well...after all we did as a country help stop WWII persecution of the Jews.

[Queenie08]

I agree with Debbie...

And you know the relation seems the same... Do Jesus!

However, those with Jewish ancestory in WWII were not doing anything illegal other than practicing a religon that was disliked. These individuals in Texas are doing something illegal. I also keep pointing to the fact that there are several teenagers in the group who had already given birth to children... example... at 16 you already have four children. Hmmm.... pregnancy last how long?

This discussion is so warranted because we are able to see the situation as it unflods. Perhaps if more individuals who have cases, would logon during their investigation and discuss some aspects, read the FAMILY CODE which differs greatly from CRIMINAL.

On that note as well, I would like to point out that CPS needs no actual evidence. Just the perponderance.

K... Tootleloo!

[Marina]

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http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/famplan/pdf ... 021505.pdf

While Texas teen birth rate declined in 2002, thebirth rate in Texas is high compared to the nationalbirth rate. Texas was the highest among all states inthe nation in teen birth rate for ages 15-17 in 2002.

There were 19,730 births to teens 17 and under in Texas in 2002 (5.3% of 372,369 total births).
-Texas Vital Statistics 2002

[Marina]

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http://www.obgyn.net/newsheadlines/wome ... 129-52.asp

Texas Report: Teen pregnancy problem worse in Rio Grande Valley

Health Statistics
January 29, 2004
2004 JAN 29 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

Teenage pregnancy rates in Texas' Rio Grande Valley have been higher than rates in other parts of the state and the rest of the United States in recent years...

"We've seen a lot of girls who are very young who have repeat pregnancies," said Monica Salinas, program director at Buckner Children & Family Services.

"If it happens once, [we say]: 'Let's everybody work together to help this child make better life choices,' and then it happens all over again," Salinas told the newspaper....

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[Marina]

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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... daddb.html

Texas teens lead nation in birth rate

Experts questioning abstinence-only education approach


12:17 PM CST on Monday, November 5, 2007
By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]

While the national teen birth rate has slowed, Texas has made far less headway, alarming public health officials and child advocates.

Texas teens lead the nation in having babies. Last month, the nonprofit group Child Trends conferred another No. 1 ranking on Texas. In the latest statistics available, 24 percent of the state's teen births in 2004 were not the girl's first delivery. ..

Erandy Gonzalez, 17, of Oak Cliff, could almost be the poster girl for Texas' challenges. She is Hispanic, and Hispanics by far have the highest teen birth rates of any ethnic group. She is the mother of a 15-month-old girl and is pregnant again.

In 2004, Hispanic girls ages 15 to 19 accounted for 61 percent of teen births even though only 39 percent of Texas adolescents were Hispanic, according to the federal National Center for Health Statistics.

Though low-income teens have a federally protected right to get birth control without parents' consent under Medicaid and family planning grants, many teenage girls in Texas don't learn that until it's too late. ..

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[katgotsteve]

i would like to take a step back...and this is just an opinion.

over the last 15-20 years over country has become obessed with the age of our children having sex, but all see in tv, movies, even our white house is sex, sex, sex. so what do we do to keep these children from having sex...no one has come up with that answer.

another obession in our community is with the age of consent. i personally think the law is funny. in most states, it is stated like this, no one under the age of 16 (this is georgia) can consent to any sexual activity, but minors with less than a 4 year age difference can consent and it not be criminal. so basically the law means, an 11 and 15 y/o or a 9 and 13 y/o can consent, but a 17 and 14 year old can nor a 18 and 15 year old can. i think our country has gone on this tangent and has ruined a lot of young men's life. i personally do not think a 16 and 20 year old should have sex, but i do not think someone should have to go to prison and live with the stigmatism of being a sexual offender.
another problem i have with our country is this, we have 18 year olds fighting in a war and we do not award them priviledges like have a legal drink before they go and die for us. we choose to make 17 y/o no longer juvenile to charge them with a crime, yet we want to treat them like children. we cant have it both ways....

now that i am through my tangent, i personally feel that pologamy is wrong morally and legally, but people have performed this practice for years. what we have at this compound and again this is just my opinion, is a group of men playing GOD. these men have what i call the "little man complex", they can not make it out in the real world so they create their own. men who rape women do it for power, they need to control. i feel that this what is has happened here, these men want to control the world, so they made their own. there are probably alot of benefits of living in world like this, but also alot of sacrifice. our society no longer condones marriage at 12-14, it is just not the norm. really there is no need to do it, back in the early 1900's it was considered something to do, most families were large and it was hard to feed all the mouths and the boys were expected to work on the farm until they got married and started their own families and most women only married and had children. alot of young girls married men who where older becuase his first wife had passed on and he need someone to care for his children and have more. some of the age gaps were as much as 30 years, but that was then and this is now.
i have done alot of research in my family and found this, but this is no longer the normal.
i personally do not believe that anyone could not have known this was going on. i feel as though it was just a practice that is done and some of the mother condone it becuase that is what they did. it can be compared with female circumcision. it is not practice that looked very favorably upon now a days, but alot of people still practice this. there are even families here in the US who still do this.

[Kenneth2816]

Please make no mistake. This is not about religion or religious freedom. it is about sytematic, ritualistic abuse perpetrated by adults on minors.

it is a fact that in "third world" countries, female genital mutlation is widely practiced for "cultural and religious" reasons. it is also a fact that it is the WOMEN and the MOTHERS who perform this act, not the men.

But the men hold all the power and subjugate the women. This is the case here. The MEN should be the ones to leave and the mothers and children should remain. Legally, the mothers are guilty. Legally.

It isn't about polygamy, it is about rape and incest, both of which are horrific crimes.

It is about power and control.

It is about male privilege and domination.

Yeah, in some cultures "honor killings" are acceptable when a female had "dishonored" the family name.

But we don't live there and neither do these froot loops on that compound. The adult women are likley too far enmeshed, having been born into this...but the kids.....

maybe, just maybe...they will now have a chance at a normal life "IF" CPS does it right. I am talking about the small kids...some of whom, I can only hope and pray, will end up with blood relatives if not with "rehabilitated" mothers.

it is a nightmare, no question about it. I wish they'd raid the other compounds too.

The worst form of evil is that which masks itself as a form of good.

Using religion to abuse people isn;t anything new.

[donita]

The Rio Grande is a place that I lived for several years. So I am telling you from first hand knowledge.

The Rio Grande is next to the Mexican border. For years it has been a huge social issue that Mexican citizens, young women, come across the border by the hundred to have their babies. By doing so the babies gain dual citizenship and are automatically elligable for US government assistance. Those numbers need to be figured into the statistics.

donita

[donita]

Personally, I'm questioning whether or not we really know what these people are like. CPS and society, it seems, like to lump judge groups of people befor they really know what they are all about.

My question is this, Can that many people just overcome their biological make up to protect their own children. As a survivor of incest I can tell you that you don't need someone to teach you that it is wrong to be sexually handled by an adult relative. I just find it hard to believe that ANY society no matter how closed,
could brainwash away something that is biologically encoded into us. I do not think that this society was totally close, they say anyway, that they could come and go as they please and I've seen ladies dressed as they dress in town myself. I just don't trust everything I hear on the news.

What I'm questioning is, Are all these men pedifiles or is the whole religion being attacked based on a few bad men? And by what means is it that you really know their religion? Do you really believe everything the media presents?

I fear that I see a social trend against all male religious leaders, (from all religions,) being suspected as child abusers. For instance what about the comments about the Pope and priests of the Catholic faith, in the news this morning.

That is why I think we need to stay with the US constitution and give every individual family protection under the constitution to due process as individuals not as a lump group. Otherwise we could see a witch hunt against all male religious leaders. However if destroying all religious leadership is the gaol, then this is a good plan.

donita

[mommie]

Let us not forget that the news reports also state that some of the women chose to go to a shelter and not return to the Ranch. Some of the women are being fully cooperative and giving vivid detail of what life is like on the Ranch. Bet you won't hear that though in the news... oh no all we here is Mary... whose babies are at the fort, and they want to come home.

Always more than TWO sides to every story... there is ALWAYS the THIRD side which is the side that is not told.

Tootles

Queen B

Maybe the mothers only "wanted" to stay because it was the only way to remain with their children.

[donita]

As messed up as this system is. They better do anything to stay with thier kids. To bad some of them did'nt get a choice.

donita

[Marina]

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Many mothers first went to the shelters to be with their children. Then most of the mothers had to leave in order for the verbal children to be interviewed. Some mothers went home and some went to a 'domestic violence shelter.'

Some could conclude that these mothers considered themselves to be victims of domestic violence.

On the other hand, they may have been told that they would have a better chance of getting their children back if they left home. This is what happened in a famous New York case - - there was a pattern of re-victimizing victims of domestic violence.

Nicholson v. Scoppetta

http://www.law.cornell.edu/nyctap/I04_0119.htm

This court case is similar in a lot of ways to the current case.

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[Queenie08]

To Mommie,

No. By first hand account, CPS gathered all of the mothers and told them they could either return to the Ranch, or go to a women's shelter. Some of the mothers went to the shelter with full knowledge that they would be leaving their children, and their home. Some of the women actually admitted to being raped, beaten, and abused by not only their husbands, but by the other wives that were higher than them.

Some of the mothers even admitted that they were child brides themselves!

[Marina]

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It's good to get more information like this, in order to know how to view it. The more information we get, the better we can evaluate the situation.

Because of traditional confidentiality in these types of cases, only the judge and a few others can see both sides.

This shows the importance of parents having the opportunity to be heard in the judicial system.

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[donita]

If the goverment and CPS are such saviors wouldn't they be saving the children to something, not just away from something.

They have a responsibility to those families to at least give those children something more than what they had.

In my experience with CPS, they horribly failed to protect my children. I couldn't have hurt them more if I had actually been trying to hurt them. My children would have been better off left with me.

donita

[Momof31995]

To me its not a question of whether the children should be taken or not...Thats an obvious yes but the question is what is CPS going to do with 416 children now? Send them to long term foster care because in most cases to send them back to the mothers would mean putting them at risk once again.CPS needs a clear plan on how to help these children to become productive members of society. and so far i have not heard what this plan could be but in my experience whatever the plan it will most likely be the one that brings in the most money for CPS with the least amount of work involved. Did that make sense?

Out of 416 children how many of them will be lost in the system?

[yellernboyz]

What I see from experience, is this is a highly publicisized case. Watever the outcome, CPS will come out looking good. However they want to spin this is whatever they want the public to believe. Even if it is not true. They will fabricate or do whatever it takes to make them come out looking like what they did was "in the best interest of the children."

[Frustrated]

My opinion, that they have to prove this is Child Rape. They have to prove that it happened within underaged children and older men. In order to charge older men with Sexual Abuse or Rape, they have to prove this happened, and they will also prove that this was consensual sex between them. It's all about proving whether it is Rape or Consensual Sex.

There are many normal High School Children pregnant everywhere and it was consensual sex. I had seen one 13 years old with her boyfriend being pregnant, and 2 years later, she had a 2nd baby already. She is only 13! And she is fine and still have her 2 children regardless of the outcome.
My neice was 15 when she had hers, and years later, she has now 3 children.
My Mother was married at 16 years old.
It happens everywhere in normal society and I think the problem that the people are quick to judge is because of how brainwashed the children were and the conditions the way they were in a controlled Religion, in an isolated Compound. That's why people think Oh, it is sickening but think about this for a second....

What if these Children were normal amongst our society like these High School Teen being pregenancy and I bet we would not be discussing this issue today if that was the case. But this is about underaged being married and pregnant in an isolated, PROGRAMMED RELIGIOUS SECT> COMPOUND, they see this as Child Abuse. But with Teen Pregnancy out there, they don't think this is Child abuse because it was consensual sex.

It all goes back having to PROVE WHETHER this is Child Rape or Consensual Sex?????
We look at High School Teens being pregnancy as being the norm, but looking at the brainwashed sect. with Religion, we think differently thinking...oh they must be forced and brainwashed being forced into marriage and having sex.
Again back we have to PROVE THAT THEY WERE BEING FORCED INTO MARRIAGE AND PREGNANCY with Child Rape. If the Girls said "no they consented."
\
Then what?
Six Women went to Safe Houses may be being Raped by 50 years old Man. Who knows? We have to have them on the Stand to testify if we want to put away these Men for Rape!!! It is because they said "no", and that is Rape. But being "brainwashed" into thinking it is okay to have sex and they said "okay", and did it, then it is going to be a tough proof to prove that they knew what they are doing and not being confused into doing. Did they know ?

That's why it is a Special Case because Brainwashing occured in an isolated Religion Compound but we are looking for another brainwashing by CPS all over again, which in my opinon is:

Harmful.

It is also harmful to seperate children with their Mothers, it's enough anxiety for both sides. No mothers or any Children would want to seperate. would you want to seperate from your own child? It's harmful enough because the bond is broken, and they had that bond for a long time. It's like death.

Shaking up the whole Family Tree for a whole Century. It's one big mess. But a further bigger mess that CPS puts them into lost world of adoptions where they can't trace back their heritage. And years and years of deprogramming and indocirnation on these children.
If the doctrine is applied WRONG on the Children, it can be HARMFUL!!

[Frustrated]

I agree 100% with Mrs. Mac. The outcome for these Children is overwhelming. I, too have very mixed feelings about this but I am suspicious of their TIMING to Raid that Compound. Let's take a minute to read the whole article that is posted under "Websites" on this Board, and you will see the title "All about Fundamental Jesus Latter Day Saints".

If you read the whole thing, the timing is very, very very suspspicious. They did "carefully" time their plan and seize/raid that compound for various reasons.

Look at the Dates, Warren Jeffs are now in Prison for conspiracy to Rape, and build the Compound Zion around 2002 or 2004 I forget...and he was in Prison November 2007. They are not sure who the LEADER FOR FDLS is....it was disputed it may be Jessop or still Warren Jeffs. Then lo' and behold, with no Leaders in place for FDLS....Zion Compound is seized and raided and the children are gone.

You see? The timing of the whole thing was planned. from 2000 to 2008. They had their eyes fixed on Warren Jeffs and now he is in Jail....perfect time to attack and take the children out and seize the property. Understand that the article mentioned that the Government been wanting that Land for a long time. But Warren Jeffs had that property and ordered the Men Leaders of FDLS to build Zion on that Property. Millions of dollars of American Citizens PAID For this Compound!!! The Government didn't like that very much so when they see that Warren Jeffs is gone...they had the reason and opportunity to attack...just like a lone wolf with no cubs. Just like that. When no one is there and not looking.....perfect time to attack with CPS help!! and Government is trigger happy and everybody is being paid on all sides....CPS, Government, Court Judges...Medical Staff...etc...and lengthy services....$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

They want to shut down FDLS for a long time, they tried in Utah, but failed then tried Warren Jeffs, the president leader of FDLS, he is in Jail....perfect time to attack when he is down. Because currently there are NO LEADERS for that Compound. Just the right time for the Government.

And the Poor Children had suffered because their clever plan was in place for years and years in advance!!! Read that article very carefully and WATCH THE DATES!!!! From year 2000 to 2008 right up to the Raid.

[Marina]

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http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,5143,700225591,00.html

Chairman says Texas CPS workers mistreated FLDS

By Brian West
Deseret News
Published: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 4:28 p.m. MDT

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 Next >

John Kight is determined to get the word out that Child Protective Services in Texas is out of control.

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