The Texas Polygamy Cult: Concern for Children Must Come First
From: Casting Stones
Friday May 2, 2008
On April 3, 2008, Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) authorities raided the Eldorado, Texas compound (known as the Yearning for Zion ranch) of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) polygamist sect. The authorities raided the compound based on...
Filed Under: casting stones, Richard Land
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About Casting Stones
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Diana Butler Bass is a religion scholar and author of Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith. She blogs at God’s Politics.
Tony Campolo is Professor Emeritus at Eastern University and author of The God of Intimacy and Action: Reconnecting Ancient Spiritual Practices, Evangelism, and Justice, with Mary Darling. He blogs at God’s Politics.
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Dr. Richard Land is president of The Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and author of The Divided States of America? What Liberals AND Conservatives are missing in the God-and-country shouting match!
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I find the actions of Texas authorities to be excessive. Clearly there was need for action but the male adults should have been taken into custody not the children. As a spiritual or religious blog proporting concern for the children first, the response should be heart centered not head-centered. The children would have been much better served by removing the men while the investigation proceded and then caring for abused individuals.
To imagine that individuals can depend upon their elected representatives or judges to protect their rights is to ignore present realities of institutionalized authoritatian bias on the part those very same public officials. I believe church and spiritual leaders should be publically advocating for a swift return of all the children to their mothers and extended caregivers. The communal nature of this sect should have no bearing upon the restoration of normalcy in the lives of the children. That means accepting each child version of who their mothers are, however many that may be.
The female adults WERE allowed to stay with their kids. All they had to do was to NOT go back to the men.
The men weren't taken into custody pending the investigation. But given the sort of investigation, the children were removed from the source of potential abuse as a protective matter. ALL the women were given the option of remaining with the children, or returning to Zion ranch to be with the men.
They chose the ranch over their kids.
Oh, and as for 'accepting who each one's mother is'.. that is also a matter for Social Services because the mothers are receiving financial assistance. (Do you think the children were taught to not identify their parents only because of their communal lifestyle?)
The women lied to social services, claiming paternal abandonment of their children in order to receive aid payments for absent fathers who were, rather, living right in the compound with them.
The children were taught not to say who their parents were so their parents could continue to perpetrate welfare fraud.
For people who seem to hate that nanny state interferin' government so much, they sure seemed willing to take its filthy lucre.
It is sad to see a Giant Loope Hole, that should be used for the actual suffering and most needy, be used in such a way as deception,to fullfill the needs of any religious, and or political group to keep people suppressed without them even knowing it, as children they were taught to accept the ways, without even kwnowing their is a whole world out their full of blessings and accomplishments to catch. Fraud in our own system that we created to maybe needs to be updated and revised, why not we pick new political leaders, nothing is infallible, theirs always a need for growth and change due to the high demand of what society has created, our support to this cause is never ending and how can we control the abuse, once we controlled it, they find another loop whole in society to achieve their goal. So in saying this the lives that havn't been lived to express their opinions, as a yound adult, nor given the right to choose their believe has become only what is wriiten for those who will never know the truth due to suppression and of not gaining the true meaning of live.(Another Loop Hole for orginizations to create thier own world) Ignorance cannot be ignored, in the social, and political areana of life. We can only hope for some kind of practice where maybe society can some day control where our funds are directed by maybe hot spots of communities, and or towns, to reconize maybe we as a country or community can jump in and have some kind of program to see problems for the needy.(Although what do we do, about having the goverment control us we also need freedom this is a win loose situation I think). The goverment should have noticed thousands of funds going out to the same address, and or community, as a hot spot as a flagged area of great need. As the high paying goverment officials are paid daily as they go to their jobs, maybe if they actually looked at some reports or figures, and not just sign here theory, or hire and fire as we do in the real world when someone is not doing what is expected we would'nt be saying know, oh by the way numerous checks (Funds) have went out. If we can throw stones only when problems arise, and they will, due to politics and by the news, (Affairs) slander or transportation of funds to other countries, we seem to forget we have needs here to resolve as a country.
TO THE PERSON WHO SAID THESE WOMEN CHOSE THE RANCH OVER THEIR CHILDREN, REMEMBER ONE THING THEY TO HAVE BEEN ABUSED, BRAIN WASHED, AND ONLY GOD KNOWS WHAT ELSE. THE MAJORITY OF THEM HAVE ALSO BEEN BORN INTO THIS CULT AND HAVE BEEN THROUGH THE EXACT THINGS THESE CHILDREN MAY HAVE GONE THROUGH. SO DO NOT CAST STONES ON THEM BECAUSE YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN THROUGH. THEY ARE TAUGHT FROM YOUNG NOT TO FEEL EMOTIONS. NOW UNDER KNOW CIRCUMSTANCES DO I AGREE WITH WHAT THEM CHILDREN ARE GOING THROUGH. I AGREE WITH THE PERSON WHO SAID THEY SHOULD HAVE MADE THE MEN LEAVE. WHY TAKE THEM CHILDREN OUT OF THEIR COMFORT ZONE.
I'm not 'casting stones'. I'm saying that they were given a choice, and they made it. If they were 'brainwashed and abused', is that the group you want to give the CHILDREN to? Is that the environment in which you want children RAISED?
There are things that perhaps children shouldn't be comfortable with, and there are things more important than their immediate comfort. And if that is what their mothers are like, then removing the men won't matter.. until the women are treated, they will only find other men to replace the ones who are taken.
Goodness knows there's plenty out there, including FLDS men who simply don't live in the ranch.
There's legal reasons why the men couldn't be made to leave. You know, like due process. There's legal reasons why the children could and should have been taken, like fear of abuse and coerced testimony.
Is the comfort zone more important than their safety?
Children can become 'comfortable' with a lot of things that aren't good for them.
Don't people have the Freedom of Religion,
even if it includes having .....wives.
Absolutely. Not to get a civil marriage, but do we really want to get into who gets to have a civil marriage or not?
Nobody was being arrested for polygamy. For that to happen, a man would have to be LEGALLY married to more than one woman. None of them did that.
What the legal issue was.. underaged sex, consent, coercion, and welfare fraud.
Now, I don't know, maybe that's part of their religious beliefs too?
To the person who wrote this - Don't people have the Freedom of Religion,
even if it includes having .....wives.
The polygamous sect is not a religion so religious freedom does not apply here. This is more akin to slavery that was outlawed by the 13th amendment. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the united Sates or any place subject to their jurisdiciton."
Karen Brown asked a very important question:
"but do we really want to get into who gets to have a civil marriage or not?"
Mr. Land, based on his writings and public utterances, sure as heck DOES want to get into that very debate. He's been trying to prevent gays from having civil (OR religious) marriages for eons now.
Jody, you said the FLDS "is not a religion". I'm pretty sure its adherents would vehemently disagree. And YOU don't get to decide that for others.
Are there any children from the Short Creek incident of 1953 that are interested in starting institutions like children's homes to help these people? It seems like those adults could be great foster parents if foster parenting is going to be part of the solution.
Is abject poverty and white slavery a part of their experience?
I forgot to list my favorite charity - Mercy Ships.
I agree with Mr. Land and everyone else who says polygamy is a matter of religious liberty.
I think polygamy should be legal for all religions - Muslim, Christian, Jews, you name it.
We should put a cap on it, though, only four wives/hubands and a handful of concubines for each polygamist.
It's people like this who give my religion a bad name.
They're interpertating the religion how they want so they can get. Once the evil religion is destroyed, Chirstanity has to take all the negativtiy.
i think its nasty to make ur daughter marry her brother or cousin or step brother nasty having sex with little girls and boys nasty how u make ur son marry his sister or the father marrying his daughter or nice nasty i think we as americans need to step in and distroy the cults all of them your or not God theres only one God and his lives up stairsall cults are evil
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