Texas Legislator: FLDS Law Violators Will Be Prosecuted (moral, homosexuals)

[zippythepinhead]

He states that this is "no Shortcreek".

Deseret News | This won't be 'another Short Creek'

[idea]

Here is another article on it - worth reading:
Inside private world of polygamist ranch - Crime reports - MSNBC.com

or better yet, go here:
Captive FLDS Children

please, please, read these articles and find out what is really going on here.

This story originally aired Dateline NBC on April 27, 2008.


Keith Morrison
Correspondent
• Profile








ELDORADO, TEXAS - There is a place, here in the heart of Texas, where the pain runs very deep just now.

Lorene: Clinging to my skirt. My baby's sick.

Keith Morrison, Dateline NBC: How old is your baby?

Lorene: Seventeen months -- and he's so sick.

Keith Morrison: Who has him?

Lorene: I don't know, some woman has him, I don't know who it is.

Here they were, coming home in clumps of threes or fours, minus their children -- who had just been taken from them and bused away to foster homes, shelters, and group homes.
But where? How far? They do not know...







They are carrying in their hands envelopes they were given when authorities took their children, with little pamphlets inside: parenting guides.

Mother: As if we don't know how to be parents.

This clip shows families asking in vain to see a warrant and get an explanation.

(FLDS video)

The attorney does have the search warrant.

FLDS woman: But we don't get to see it?

No ma'am.

Richard Jessop says his family was in the midst of a nightly gathering of storytelling, praying and singing.

Richard Jessop: When they knocked on the door, I just told the family, "Keep singing."

Keith Morrison: Did you feel like you were being treated like a criminal?

Richard Jessop: Oh yes. What's all this manpower and these two SWAT teams standing here? Why do these men have machine guns?

The women and children were held first at the complex of Fort Concho, an hour away, then taken to this sports coliseum. Three weeks elapsed. During which the mothers said they were offered a choice.

Keith Morrison: Were you allowed to leave at all?

Mother: If we left, we couldn't come back to our children.

So here they stayed. The media, and even their own lawyers, were refused entry. While the state raised serious questions about the welfare of their children.

Marleigh Meisner, Texas CPS spokesperson: This is not about religion, this is about children, keeping children safe from abuse and neglect.

In the process of getting his DNA tested, one male FLDS member was asked if he found the process humiliating. “You ever read about a concentration camp?” he asked. “You're getting it pretty close.”
And then, this past Thursday, they bused the children off to foster homes and left the mothers behind. The women thought they had more time, they said. They'd hoped the state would allow them to at least stay in the same place as their children, they said.






Then, for the second time, they were offered a choice, the women told us: allow the state to bus them to a women's shelter, or go back to the ranch. But authorities told them, said these women, if they chose the ranch, they might never see their children again.

Lorene: They wouldn't let us say goodbye. But I gathered him up anyway. I didn't care what they said.

The state issued a press release saying 40 women chose to be transported to a "safe location."
But these mothers returned to the ranch. They decided they'd had enough. They no longer believed the child services people. It was time to fight back.
And intensely private though they are, and with great trepidation, they invited us inside their homes for an intimate tour. You're about to get a look at a way of life they say is just different -- and grossly misunderstood.

"This is a classroom that hasn't been cleaned up after the state people did their search."
We have been given unprecedented access inside.
“These are the lower grade classrooms.”
People, schools, homes. To tell their side of the story.
Five years ago this land – 1,700 acres in all -- was utterly empty, and exotic animals wandered. It was a hunting preserve.
And now? For 700 people, it's home.






They've wrenched untold tons of rock from the soil they've enriched for farming.

Richard: We try to focus on the natural foods, whole foods, organic foods.

There's a fleet of trucks over the horizon that way, shops for fabricating wood and metal.






A school. A meeting hall. A temple -- and annex. Every single limestone block from which these buildings were made was cut from the ground right here.

Rich: Yeah, I like it up here.

But as we look at it all from the summit of the limestone mountain they've made, Richard Jessop’s heart is not really in the tour.

Richard: They've wronged a whole community here. And we're a peaceful people.

He's alone as we speak, his family – including his seven kids -- taken.
He wanders the empty house and shows us the poster his kids used to divvy up bathroom cleaning chores.
"This is where those four older boys live."






The school's empty classrooms. It all confirms, he says, what he's known, himself, for years.

Richard: We've got enemies. There are people that have been associated with our religion for years and years. And they get disaffected, disinterested, bad feelings. And it’s just a bunch of lies. But the bad part about it is we've got officials that have believed it.

The whole place has the feel of life interrupted.

Keith Morrison: Still got their jackets hanging on…

Rich: Well, yes. Of course it’s not like it happened easy. It was an uprooting.

Rich says evidence was seized from every home, every building, every classroom.






Every family lost precious photos, paperwork, computers.

Rich: Any locked doors, they just blasted through them.

And then we understand his bottom line when he tells us the community lost its temple.

Rich: We pleaded with these people that there's nothing in there. Leave that building alone. It’s a sacred place.

It’s a place that has always been off limits to visitors, including media. The authorities used hydraulic tools to force the door open and seized documents.

Rich: We believe that the presence of God is in that building. And when its desecrated like it has been, it’s useless.

Keith Morrison: What are you going to do?

Rich: As far as I’m concerned, set fire to that building.

Inside, authorities took note of that bed, the one some imply is used for some sex ceremony as they deflower young brides. Police notes describe "bed linens disturbed," a strand of woman's hair on the pillow.

Rich: To me that's so disgusting that some immoral mind can apply their mentality to it. In temple work doing sacred ordinances, there's fasting and praying. And it’s just not that uncommon for someone to be fatigued and have to lay down.

But the big question in all this trouble has been about the sexual abuse of young girls and women, and illegal forced marriages. There are allegations that it has happened here -- things Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott says are simply unacceptable.

Attorney General Abbott: If it is a religious belief to sexually assault a girl once she reaches puberty, should we accept that? No.

The thing is, says Rich, nobody here would accept that either.

Rich: Well, I would just invite him to go right into his very own community and scoop up 400 people, pull them out of their homes, ransack their closets, take every record we can find, and scrutinize it to the letter, and you tell me what you're going to find.

Keith Morrison: They found a few problems here?

Rich: That's their allegation. There's no abuse, period. There's healthy, happy children. And they've all been snuffed away.

Captive FLDS Children

[idea]

As a mother, I cannot imagine a bunch of armed men breaking down my door and taking my children away from me. I would not impose that fate on anyone. At this point, I see no evidence against this group of people. One phone call and 2 pregnant teenagers does not merit storm troopers taking away 460 kids. Innocent until proven guilty, it has been a month, they have not been proven guilty, so give the kids back already. It is about pride, they can’t admit to being wrong, they have to justify the horrors they have inflicted on these poor people. They need to be held accountable for what they have done to these families. I do not agree with FLDS practicing polygamy, but I do not agree with homosexuals or single parents, or many other so called families. The FLDS kids looked well taken care of to me.

[zippythepinhead]

Originally Posted by idea

As a mother, I cannot imagine a bunch of armed men breaking down my door and taking my children away from me. I would not impose that fate on anyone. At this point, I see no evidence against this group of people. One phone call and 2 pregnant teenagers does not merit storm troopers taking away 460 kids. Innocent until proven guilty, it has been a month, they have not been proven guilty, so give the kids back already. It is about pride, they can’t admit to being wrong, they have to justify the horrors they have inflicted on these poor people. They need to be held accountable for what they have done to these families. I do not agree with FLDS practicing polygamy, but I do not agree with homosexuals or single parents, or many other so called families. The FLDS kids looked well taken care of to me.

The sad thing Idea is they have found pregnant girls under age and some with children. I disagree that this is just another religious persecution. When underage girls are pregnant, regardless of religious affiliation, I am concerned. When it is taught or practiced as "doctrine" I am appauled. The FLDS are not just practicing polygamy, they are marrying off their children, allowing the young girls to get pregnant, kicking underage and undereducated boys with no idea how to relate to the real world out of the church fence. It is time to investigate, give due process of law and religious tolerance to those affected, and prosecute those who deflower the youth of this sect when they are barely old enough to reproduce, let alone get married.

[rheff78]

The children need to be given back to the mothers. I don't understand how anyone can see it any differently.

[texan1]

The children should not be raised in this cult. I hope they are able to return to their mothers but it is unacceptable to me that they should be raised in this environment. For anyone who is interested, "Escape" by Carolyn Jessop and "Under the Banner of Heaven" are great books that give a good inside view of this "religion". Pretty horrifying.

I don't know how accurate this number can be since many girls do not have birth certificates, but last count was that 31 of 53 girls between 14 an 17 have babies or are pregnant. Prior to the raid, hundreds of young men and boys had been kicked out on the street with little education or knowledge of the outside world because they are competition for the older men. People who have been born into this have no choice and have very little chance of escaping. They do not have the same civil liberties as the rest of the country - their community is run by a "prophet". The former prophet had over 100 wives and is now in prison for multiple charges of being an accomplice to rape and awaits trial for other charges. Does this not tell us anything? Prior to his capture he sent many children under the age of 6 to YFZ without their parents. He also excommunicated many male members and re-assigned their wives and children to other men in the community.

If these are just normal families, why is it that those who have escaped FLDS applaud Texas for what they are doing?

[texan1]

Originally Posted by idea

Rich: That's their allegation. There's no abuse, period. There's healthy, happy children. And they've all been snuffed away.

Captive FLDS Children

The key words being That's their allegation.

[Bishka]

I'm curious if y'all feel all the other groups of the FLDS groups scattered throughout the country.

[texan1]

I think once Warren Jeffs took over, things went very astray. From what little I know, the other groups are not nearly as bad as this Texas compound. But I could be wrong.