23 April 2008
Foster Care for the Children
Posted by Roy Bischoff under: Constitution in Peril; Judaeo-Christian Values Under Attack .
Placing the children in foster care is acknowledging that there will not be any quick solution to this situation. Hopefully the good people of Texas will be compassionate with these children as they come into their homes.
FLDS children being moved into foster homes as DNA testing continues
Ben Winslow Deseret News
SAN ANGELO, Texas — Busloads of children taken from the FLDS Church’s YFZ Ranch during a police raid earlier this month left the San Angelo Coliseum this afternoon headed for foster homes.
Judge Barbara Walther’s order places the children in 16 foster-care facilities scattered across Texas.
The judge’s order states that teenage mothers will be placed with their babies. Teenage pregnant girls will be placed alongside those young mothers.
Children under 12 months will be placed in foster homes with their siblings who are under 5 years. Boys 8 years and older will be in the same setting as older boys.
“Every attempt will be made to place siblings together,” the order states.
A spokesman for the Fundamentalist LDS Church was outraged by the judge’s decision.
“Every step in this proceeding the court has acted without regard to the rights or wishes of the people whose lives are affected here,” said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney who is speaking on behalf of the FLDS people.
At least two requests for a temporary restraining order were filed in court in San Angelo, trying to stop the removal of the children from the coliseum.
The judge has not even heard the motions in court, said an attorney who filed them.
“My clients are absolutely distraught,” said Julie Balovich, with the Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, who represents a group of FLDS mothers.
Balovich questioned whether the children will truly be placed with siblings, noting that one of her clients has five children and three of those children will be going to different homes.
The first bus filled with children left the coliseum just before 1 p.m. Tuesday, escorted by police cars and ambulances. About half a dozen charter buses — some filled with children, some not — left the coliseum at various intervals for the next hour. Children seen inside some of the buses waved at reporters and cameras as they drove off.
The coliseum, where 437 children taken from the FLDS Church’s YFZ Ranch were being held, was locked down as the children were bused away. Attorneys were kept locked inside. The lockdown was lifted about 2:15 p.m. Central time. Moments afterward, a Tom Green County sheriff’s van drove out of the coliseum parking lot with two FLDS women inside who looked visibly upset.
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695272825,00.html
8 Comments so far...
jobob911 Says:
23 April 2008 at 11:28 am.
It is sad and scary that the constitution is being trampled on like this.
Benjamin Says:
23 April 2008 at 1:16 pm.
I can’t even imagine how hard it is for those kids being put in such a drastically different environment. They will have to go to public school now and eat and dress differently. They will be lucky enough to get to watch all kinds of smut on television and listen to rap music that the other foster kids will be playing. This will ruin those children. With no transition it will scare them emotionally.
Nalvy Says:
25 April 2008 at 12:29 am.
I am upset that each individual case is not being looked at…the abuse allegations have been blanket swept over every family on the compound. If they were not polygamists each individual family would be investigated for abuse. No chile should be stripped away from their parents without any solid evidence.
avatar Says:
25 April 2008 at 11:15 pm.
It’s obviously a very traumatic thing for these children to be taken away from their parents this way–and something that should happen only if absolutely necessary to protect the children from greater harm. I have no problem with the Texas authorities investigating suspicions of child abuse or rape. They should. But, I still haven’t heard a very good rationale for why every single child had to be seized and placed in child care during the investigation. The boys obviously were not in immediate danger of being forced into marriages with older men, and that also seems true of at least the younger girls. Sure, we don’t approve of polygamy, but living in polygamous families, weird as that may sound to most of us, does not automatically mean that all four hundred children were being abused. As for being indoctrinated with strange religious and social beliefs, well, there are other strange religious groups around, and we don’t seize their children.
On the plus side, legal scrutiny of the situation is increasing. We’re probably going to see a very vigorous debate over the necessity of the state’s action.
Cavetrollhead Says:
26 April 2008 at 12:29 am.
I am probably going on some list for saying this, but If I were those parents, I would be thinking war against the state. I am utterly shocked by how this has shaken down. This is the most totalitarian thing I have seen from our government in my lifetime. I am almost ashamed of my country right now.
Cavetrollhead Says:
26 April 2008 at 12:31 am.
. . . And I have to add, that I am disappointed that the real “Mormon” church has remained so silent on this. Does this make me an apostate Mormon?
Cavetrollhead Says:
26 April 2008 at 12:33 am.
Where is your soul Texas? Shame on you!! Did I mention that I am outraged by this?
Ghost Says:
26 April 2008 at 12:47 am.
Sometimes I wonder why other people don’t freak out about what we are witnessing so Cavetrollhead, I am glad you feel it so deeply. I do too. I feel it for those people and I feel it for the whole country because most people don’t realize what this means. Trampling constitutional rights to this degree is shocking.
I’m a Mormon too and I don’t think it makes anyone an apostate to have an opinion. I think part of the problem is that so much of the country is tying the two groups together. I think our leaders know that it is just a matter of time before this kind of totalitarian action extends to our church. That will make a lot of anti-Mormons happy…until it happens to them too.
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