Shocking Supreme Court of Texas decision

[WolverineDG]

CPS has to follow the law & Constitution. Go figure.

http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/historical/052908.asp

dg

[sonias]

1. DG can you give us the details in non-legalese, please

What is the gist of the opinion? The FLDS families get to keep their kids?

Inquiring, non-legalese minds want to know.


Sonia

[sonias]

2. Court: Polygamist sect’s children must go home

Got it!

Postcards from the Lege blog 5/29/08
Court: Polygamist sect’s children must go home

Child Protective Services should not have seized more than 450 children from the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Thursday, moving families from the polygamist sect a large step closer to reunification.

The almost unanimous decision — three judges filed a separate opinion disagreeing with part of the ruling — is a blow to CPS efforts to keep the children in foster care.

CPS removed the children in April, alleging that the brand of polygamy practiced at the West Texas ranch meant that underage girls are groomed to become brides, and sex partners, to much older men.

"Removal of the children was not warranted," the court opinion states.

Supreme Court justices brushed aside CPS objections that reunited families would flee to towns in Arizona and Utah where the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect that owns the ranch, is based.

Well there you go!


Sonia

[WolverineDG]

3. Basically, the SCOT told CPS to pound sand

:evilgrin:

The Family Code requires CPS to show 3 specific things before children can be removed in their homes. They didn't prove their case, on ANY of those things, so the SCOT has upheld the Court of Appeals decision ordering the district court to vacate the temporary orders granting the CPS custody of the children & placing them in foster care. There are other things CPS can do, but they can't just up & remove children without justification & without following the law.

dg

[sonias]

4. That is shocking - the Texas Supreme Court doing the right thing

I think most of these kids are better off with their families.


Sonia

[WolverineDG]

5. I know

I'm still stunned. We had no idea which way they were going when they asked for a response to the State's response by 9a.m. :crazy:

dg

[mbperrin]

7. Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center list these folks

as a hate group.


The Southern Poverty Law Center placed the FLDS on its hate group list in 2005 for its racist beliefs, including the notion that black people have been cursed by the devil and are an inferior race. The FLDS is a breakaway sect from the 13-million member Mormon Church based in Salt Lake City, which disavowed polygamy in 1890 as a condition of Utah gaining statehood, and which began allowing blacks to become priests in 1978 ¬— a move that Jeffs called a victory for the devil.

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2008/05/14/racist-flds-cult-surfaces-in-new-location/


So maybe I won't be quite so thrilled to have these kids back "where they belong."

[WolverineDG]

8. Since when is having allegedly "racist views" child abuse?

I thought that was covered under the First Amendment. I might not agree with them on that point (which they state is a corruption of the actual teaching of the church), but it's not child abuse to be a bigot & in fact, being a bigot is protected under the 1st Amendment. As long as they are not out committing race crimes (and they aren't), they've violated no law.

dg

[mbperrin]

9. OK, so the videos of Warren Jeffs reviling blacks are not indicative of where

the sect stands?

Polygamy is not actually protected, is it? Or do they get a pass on that, too?

[WolverineDG]

10. What was your stance on sodomy prior to the Lawrence decision?

Because really, what business is it of yours what consenting adults (emphasis on adults) do in the privacy of their own homes?

If Texas wants to go after bigamy charges, I predict it's going to wind up at the USSC.

dg

[tammywammy]

6. Shocking

I can't believe this actually came from Texas.



edited to add: Meaning it's the right decision. I can't believe they did something right.

[DuaneBidoux]

12. Yea, put those little girls back to be raped...real good decision.

[tammywammy]

15. The State cannot prove it's case

The State needs to be careful when they remove children from their parents, even if I disagree with their religion and lifestyle.

[DuaneBidoux]

16. The head of this cult is in prison. A girl who escaped from this group will tell you

that it is going on en masse in this cult.

The adults don't deserve the benefit of the doubt, the girls do. Numerous girls over numerous cults (related to this sect) have come out and said that it always happens (and why wouldn't it if the core belief is that you oppress girls, keep them illiterate and uneducated,give them no contact with the outside world, and marry them off to old men?).

Again, if these were only consenting adults of age then I would say fine, but in view of this cults history I simply do not believe we can take a chance with these children (although obviously, that was not the courts ruling).

Spend a little time studying how polygamy has ALWAYS worked in all cultures--women will not marry, willfully, a man who is 35 years their senior when he has many other wives unless it is done young, usually before the child has become an adult, and with extremely heavy coercion. Very early in life it is a rare girl that voluntarily marries into a polygamous relationship, and again, even if it is "voluntary," a child cannot give consent.

[DuaneBidoux]

11. I still don't get it. Isn't polygamy illegal? Isn't simply having that family situation for kids

enough to justify removal of these children?

How many underage girls have to be "married off" (i.e., raped) before the state can do something?

[WolverineDG]

13. Sodomy was illegal too.

Did you demand that gays lose custody of their children, prior to the Lawrence decision?

What is your stance on married people having affairs & children outside their marital relationships? Should they also lose custody of their children to CPS? Are you advocating that we prosecute adultery again?

And please explain to me why is is more immoral to engage in polygamy (with consenting adults) & have everyone live under one roof so all the children are loved & supported, as opposed to having children with a mistress & then dumping her & the children & not supporting them at all?

dg

[DuaneBidoux]

14. My stance is plain and simple that underage children should not have sex with old men.

I actually have nothing against polygamy as long as it is practiced between consenting adults. But in case you have not studied these cults (and in my opinion only they are that) these girls are raised without outside contact with the world, they receive no education and develop no ability to take care of themselves, and raised to believe that they must have sex with men (their "husband") when they are still children.

The problem isn't polygamy as a concept (at least not for me). The problem is how it has tended to actually be practiced.

When I said it was against the law I was mostly meaning a "legal" way to keep these girls from being raped. If 20 underage girls are in one household and even one or two of them who have the same father/husband are having sex I am in favor of removing all children from that environment.

Sorry, whether it is gay, straight, or anything else, every child has a right to be raised in a safe secure household and not forced to have sex.