chelidon | some sanity

Court: Texas had no right to remove FLDS children

and

Court grants appeal by FLDS mothers

This eases my mind a bit. I have no knowledge of what was or was not going on in the FLDS compound, and if there was child abuse happening, in isolated cases or systematically, it should be prosecuted, no question.

But to sweep in, and, from what I have heard via the media, with no or little specific evidence of any wrong-doing, forcibly remove hundreds of children from their parents is a serious and egregious breach of state authority. And of course breaking up families who follow a minority religion and are living a non-mainstream lifestyle hits close to home. For the State to split up families, the legal bar should be high, and require credible and specific allegations backed up by concrete evidence.

Just as catching one terrorist does not justify diminishing or removing the civil rights of thousands or millions of innocent people, so investigating and putting a stop to possible child abuse does not justify infringing and eliminating fundamental civil rights for hundreds of families. We are all presumed innocent unless proven guilty, even (perhaps especially) when the stakes are high.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From: (Anonymous)

It's fortunate that we have a judicial system in place for matters like these where if there hadn't been any checks and balances applied, this action (seizure) would surely repreat itself.

For a country which boasts it's human rights record across the globe, this police action could easily be viewed as a terrorist act if it had been reported from another country.

I'm opposed to this entire "we'll tell you how you can raise your kid" mentality which has slowly permeated our society. To back it up with armed men and separate familes causing untold scarring in the bonds between children and parents is unconscionable!

I hope the authorities are punished for their illegal actions.

From: (Anonymous)

wrong decision by the court. kids are having life in the real world, and now they have to go back to the dungeon?? shame, shame.

From:

snakey.livejournal.com

Woah, two anonymice? You're bringing them out of the woodwork with this one....

ETA: four now....

Edited Date: 2008-05-22 06:57 pm (UTC)

From:

trimixdiver.livejournal.com

Having practiced law in Texas for nearly twenty years, I can attest to the generally capricious and arbitrary nature of Child Protective Services. The action taken in this case was clearly beyond the scope of that agency's authority and based more on whim than fact or law. Merely being different should not be enough- though it is more often than not. It is unfortunate that those responsible will likely not be penalized for their clear abuse of power. Reliance on an unsubstantiated anonymous telephone call by CPS as grounds for forced removal of even one child without due process violates the most basic rights we hold dear. Rights which seem to exist in theory only these days.

While not as egregious as the Waco murders, this incident clearly demonstrates a government out of control.

I suppose justice late is better than no justice at all.....

JR

From: (Anonymous)

No matter what we think of each other in America, we cannot allow any state to come in and take hundreds of children from their parents especially when one unknown person falsly accusses a religious community. As a liberal democrat, and I cannot accept the state deciding to seperate children from their parents especially in a kind and loving environment. Surely, someone can SUSPECT that the Church is preaching something different than their Church. However, America cannot be about the business of stealing children away from their parents and shutting down churches even if we don't agree with what they preach. They are a Church. That stands for something in America. Thank you to the Texas court system.

From: (Anonymous)

Forcing young girls to marry their elder cousins, relatives, family friends is not child abuse?? Are you kidding? This is the practice of the sect, not an anomaly.

From: (Anonymous)

This is appalling. The mothers have been lying about whose children were whose. The court should have at least waited until all the genetic tests were back so that it knew which children really belonged to those 38 mothers. There was no way they would get the testing done in the compound without mass confusion created by the parents. I believe they should have removed all the children and then held the hearings as they are proceeding now, and then made their decision. I think training children to be sexually abused or be abusers is worth the effort. All the children went to the same school where this was taught. No parents tried to stop their training that we know of. I felt from the beginning the real perpetrators will get off - the fathers and then the mothers. Why aren't the fathers being prosecuted for polygamy? We have selective laws these days.

From: (Anonymous)

Do all Texans have the shoot-em-up mentality that George Bush has? These children should not have been taken en mass from there loving parents. These children are scarred for life and will never trust authorities. Authorities have abused their powers and can never correct their wrongs.

From:

chelidon.livejournal.com

I respectfully and vigorously disagree with your opinion. Were you there, in the school? Do you know for a certain fact that abuse (literal and legal abuse, not just beliefs and practices one may disagree with) was going on? Because our legal system is based on facts, not just what one fears or suspects, or has been told by others might be happening.

Innocent unless proven guilty. That is one of the most important and fundamental foundations of our American legal system, and I believe in it. If there is abuse, it should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and those found guilty should rot in jail. But you can't tear families apart based on a fear of what might be happening, possibly, maybe. You have to be able to prove it, or at least have legitimate, credible concrete evidence of wrong-doing and imminent danger.

There's no law I know of that says mothers have to cooperate with the courts in this case. What gives the courts the right to compel genetic tests on someone else's children? Where is the compelling state need to force someone else's children to undergo genetic testing? There are slippery slopes aplenty here, and I say again, the legal bar must be kept appropriately high.

I don't have to agree with the social structure and beliefs of the FLDS to believe that they deserve the same protection under the law that every American receives. There are many churches, communities, and organizations in this country I radically disagree with, and where I feel sorry that the children in those groups are, in my opinion, being led down a path that is not healthy or ideal for them. But that's not my decision to make. And it's not the State's either, thank goodness. For we are free to believe we we choose in this country, still, and to raise our children in accordance with those beliefs, as long as they do not cross the line into literal abuse. Such is the right, responsibility, and cost, of freedom.

Edited Date: 2008-05-22 07:37 pm (UTC)

From:

blue-sky-48220.livejournal.com

Dude, who's commenting so much?

Anyway... It was my understanding that the children were removed because it was suspected that the female children were being sexually abused? In fact, I suspect that the court still thinks this, as this line in the ruling indicates: "[the State] did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty." The state can only remove the children who are in immediate danger. So, if you have two childre, and regularly beat one child and not the other one, the state can only take the child you beat. The other child stays in the home.

Child welfare regulations are different than criminal law. Welfare laws are written to protect children, so the standard is different: It's not about "innocent until proved guilty." Even if the parent turns out to be innocent, the child's welfare comes before everything else: The continuity of the family, the parent's peace of mind, the family's reputation in the community, and so on.

I'm not saying that Texas didn't go crazy in this case. I think that the whole "religious cult" thing probably triggered a whole lot of unfair treatment, and we will probably hear more about it as this unfolds. But the state didn't go as crazy as one would think... Like I wrote above, the law is designed to err on the side of removing children unnecessarily than allowing even one child to remain in a home from which s/he should have been removed.

From:

chelidon.livejournal.com

Indeed, I almost never get anon comments, and when I do, it's almost always someone I know - I wonder where all those people are coming from, and how they found the page.

From: (Anonymous)

So, at what point do we as a society say that a belief or ritual (that will harm children) practiced by a KNOWN abusive group (even though it hasn't happend yet)must be stopped, or PREVENTED. Is it after that fact that the children become abused. Then what do we say ???? Well we should have?

From:

chelidon.livejournal.com

Yeah, I don't know who, and why, so many anonymous comments. Much more like this and I may turn anonymous commenting off. It's never been a problem before, though,

Well, sure, the State (or representatives of the State, like police), child welfare or not, can curtail civil rights to prevent a crime, or if they have a legitimate belief that a crime has occurred. They don't have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a crime occurred in order to take certain kinds of forceful actions (search, detainment, etc), but even there, the process is designed to try to balance individual (and collective, family, etc) rights with the need to enforce the laws and keep civil order.

What you said above says it all, I think: The state can only remove the children who are in immediate danger.

I don't know anywhere near all the facts in this case, and probably nobody does. But it sounds to me like the Appellate judge, who presumably had access to as much information as anyone currently has, believed that the State did not have adequate evidence or indication of immediate danger to the children, enough to engage in a massive, armed raid, pull hundreds of people from their homes, disrupt their lives, and break up hundreds of families. Having heard what was shown in the media, along with some of my prior background, that was my own personal suspicion and gut instinct.

I hope that if there was child abuse occurring (here and elsewhere), it is found and prosecuted. And I hope that the State is less hasty in the future to engage in massive raids of this type, unless they have clear and concrete evidence of actual crimes being committed.

It's always a balance, and there is always room for interpretation, but my own belief is that it is usually best to err on the side of restraint in use of State force towards families, *especially* where there are issues of cultural difference from the dominant beliefs in the region from which the State enforcement is drawn -- the potential for overreaction, and State abuse of authority is multiplied.

From: (Anonymous)

IM IN UR JURNEL BEIN A NONNYMOUSE.

sssssssssss-

From:

snakey.livejournal.com

Hey, it took the tongue of my sssss snake away! :O

ssssssssssss-< *tries again*

From:

contentlove.livejournal.com

Me, I don't turn off the anonymous posters, but I do screen them and log ip addresses, which occasionally reveals something interesting. I suspect that in this case, folks who post about this particularly topical and controversial topic will attract some interest from people who are googling for opinions/articles/etc. Whenever I do topical posts, I get some of that. When I posted about the Planned Parenthood/Wilma Mankiller issue in S Dakota a couple of years ago, I got ongoing comments from strangers who had clearly found me via search engine. It went on for months.

In this case, I am a little curious about the IP addresses of your anon peeps - it sure would be interesting if the two diametrically opposed anon viewpoints came from the same IP, eh? (No offense to any good faith posters who don't have LJ accounts - one way to deal with that is to sign your posts, of course - that's what my non-LJin' family does...

From: (Anonymous)

Yeah, I agree with you. I think that the State probably did go in too fast here. My point is just that the rule of "innocent until proved guilty" does not apply in child welfare. It may be right or wrong, but the presumption is not that the parents are guilty, but that the children need protection. In fact, most states have laws that protect over-zealous protective services workers and police who remove children hastily. (I know that my state has significant protections in place for social workers who report child abuse in good faith--we can completely wave confidentiality, for example, and magically become immune to malpractice lawsuits.)

I have a very particular perspective on this, I'm freely admitting. As a social worker, I do recognize that it's a very hard line to tread between cultural competence and protection of individuals. And, the reality is that more than a few of my colleagues have made honest mistakes and then been vilified for doing what they thought was best. Mistakes will be made whenever humans have to make a judgment call: That's why we have appeals courts, I suppose.

Thanks for highlighting this article. I'm noticing that this is getting a lot less coverage than the initial raid did.