Washington Times on the Kidnapping of FLDS children. GOOD READ!

Tell the Washington Times a great big THANK YOU for publishing this editorial, and you might as well click the link and send some traffic their way.

Article published May 4, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/4aplvl

FLDS raid ripples

By Jacob Sullum - I'm not quite as old-fashioned as
the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), which hews to the
early-marriage customs of the 19th century and the
polygamous practices of biblical times. But I'm
old-fashioned enough to believe the government needs a
good reason to pull a crying, clinging child away from
her mother and hand her over to the care of strangers.

The possibility that the child might marry an older
man 10, 12 or 14 years from now does not cut it.
Citing that long-term, speculative danger to justify
the certain, immediate damage it has done by forcibly
separating hundreds of children from their parents,
the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services
has violated its duty to take such extreme measures
only when there's no other way to prevent imminent
harm.

The department took custody of 463 minors who were
living at the FLDS church's Yearning for Zion (YFZ)
Ranch in Eldorado after an April 3 raid that was based
on an abuse report police believe was a hoax. On
Monday, state officials said the children, now living
in group homes or shelters, include 53 girls between
the ages of 14 and 17, of whom 31 are pregnant or have
children.

I don't know whether to believe that. Texas
officials have proven unreliable even on such basic
questions as the justification for the raid, which was
a report of physical abuse from a 16-year-old YFZ
resident who apparently does not exist, and the number
of children seized, a figure that was revised yet
again this week. Just a few days ago, the number of
underage mothers was said to be 20.

It's not clear how the government determined the
ages of these girls. It says many who claimed to be
adults were in fact minors, while FLDS members say
many of the girls the state describes as minors are in
fact adults.

Furthermore, the age of consent for sex in Texas is
17, while the minimum age for marriage, with parental
approval, is 16 (raised in 2005 from 14 with the FLDS
in mind). Hence a pregnant 16- or 17-year-old is not
necessarily evidence that any laws have been broken.

Even by the government's account, 463 children were
forcibly removed from their homes because 7 percent of
them may have been victims of sexual abuse. Although
there's no evidence that boys or prepubescent girls
were abused at YFZ, the minors in state custody
include 213 boys and about 130 children under the age
of 5.

What is the state's rationale for taking girls who
were not pregnant or mothers along with those who
were, for taking boys along with girls, and for taking
infants, toddlers and preschoolers along with
teenagers? In an affidavit, it asserts "a pervasive
pattern and practice of indoctrinating and grooming
minor female children to accept spiritual marriages to
adult male members of the YFZ Ranch resulting in them
being abused." As for the boys, "after they become
adults, [they] are spiritually married to minor female
children and engage in sexual relationships with them
resulting in them becoming sexually [sic]
perpetrators."

In short, [the state alleges that] the whole FLDS culture is sick and
corrupt, so anyone raised in that environment is ipso
facto a victim of abuse. This collective guilt theory,
accepted by Judge Barbara Walther at a chaotic and
cursory mass hearing April 17, is the antithesis of
the individualized risk assessment that is supposed to
justify taking a child from his parents.
Some YFZ residents say they do not approve of
marriage before the legal age of consent, while others
say they do not practice polygamy at all [the official bishop's records from the YFZ ranch indicates that fully 1/3 of the households on the ranch are monogamous]. Yet all were
tarred with the same broad brush, based on a principle
that church attorney Rod Parker aptly summed up this
way: "If you're a member of this religious group, then
you're not allowed to have children."

Jacob Sullum is a nationally syndicated columnist.