Be patient, I’m going to RANT

A lot of us in Texas, and I suppose, around the world are shocked and amazed at the public turnaround on the decision to remove the 440 children from the FLDS compound in West Texas.  I mean, I am glad that if CPS acted without proper authority the Supreme Court overruled them.  CPS in my experience has seldom done things correctly.  I have seen them remove children from parents who loved them because their spouses or boyfriends who were then incarcerated had abused their children. I have even had cases where bruised and battered adolescents were told to “Go home and mind your parents”.  I’ve seen them investigate cases where kids were clearly being abused and send the child to treatment and let the parent remain in the home to have the child rejoin them with no consequence or follow up after returning from treatment. I’ve seldom seen CPS do the right thing, so it is no real surprise to me that they screwed this one up, too. 

What about the kids?

My dismay is that these poor kids have had such an awful ordeal. First, they are brought up in a culture that cuts them off from any knowledge or exposure to the modern world.  Then they are taught obedience to an authority that dictates to them who and when they shall marry and have children, no matter their tender years. I understand there were dozens of children under the age of 17 who were “married” mothers. The boys were taught that they, too, were to grow up and marry someone the “authority’ selected for them and to have sex with their “underage wives.” 

These kids have been yanked from everything they knew, exposed to the “outside world” and given sanctity and safety for a month or so and now they are being returned to the world they were torn from.  I suppose it is hard to know who the abusers are since the members of the sect deny any “abuse”.  Oh, I suppose girls get pregnant by divine intervention.  At least that must be how the Texas Supreme Court sees it since I have never seen more clear evidence that SOMEONE is abusing a child than that they are under age and pregnant in a cult where the BOYS never marry under age 17. 

This is the biggest mess I’ve ever seen and I don’t understand what in the world is going to protect those kids from further abuse. 

The New FLDS Policy

The newest thing is that they say they no longer will have a policy of letting under age girls marry. HELLO they were NEVER legally married in the FIRST PLACE. What is to prevent them from continuing an illegal practice that was never overtly practiced???

Don’t misunderstand, I don’t think these cult members who have been practicing their perverted version of Mormonism for over a hundred years.  This is NOT a matter of “Religious Freedom”.  It is a matter of CHILD SAFETY.  Oh, and of course, polygamy itself is illegal in Texas, too. 

Maybe the authorities are just stepping back to make a better case later, but in the meantime these children continue to be exposed to further abuse.  What of the girls who are under age and “married” to their older cousins and uncles? Wont they go right back into the subjection of forces sexual relations with their “husband”? What is to prevent it? It is what they “believe” to be their rightful place.

What other abuse situation would we let this happen in?

In other situations where children are in a home where abuse is clearly taking place the child is NOT RETURNED because the odds are that they will be abused again. WHAT IS DIFFEREN HERE????

It is our job as a community to protect these children.  We have let them down.  I am disappointed and grieved that these poor kids don’t have anyone who will protect them. Their mothers and their grandmothers and their aunts and uncles all grew up believing that it is right for them to be subjected to this kind of treatment.  Clearly none of them are going to protect their kids, boys or girls.

Man o’ man that CPS

CPS, “bless their hearts” are “doing the best they can”.  They are going to “teach” these parents to parent??? How can they pretend that this somehow will protect these children. As long as the “husbands” have access to their “wives” the kids will be abused.  It’s their “God given right” according to the FLDS beliefs. 

A better solution?

From the beginning of this mess I have thought it was all handled badly.  CPS went in with guns, armed to remove the kids from their “dangerous” family.  It was heavy handed and frightening to participants and viewers alike.  What I believe should have been done is that a number of CPS workers, social workers and psychologist should have gone in and taken charge of the kids on the compound itself. They should have separated the men and the women and began teaching them about child development, the law, and parenting.  This would take months and they could continue to practice their religious beliefs while being taught a more humane way to treat children.  Prosecuting the “polygamist’ marriages as they were discovered through financial penalties and incarceration only in the most hardened cases.  In cases of men who have developed pedophilia as a result (we do have tests for this) remove them from access to any child (as we do in the case of other child abuse offenders) and even incarcerating those most likely to re-offend in the greater community. 

What do you think?

Any other approach denies children protection, and traumatizes all the individuals involved without helping anyone only criminalizing the whole bunch as we did that fateful day we went in armed and bussed their children away from them.

What do you think? Was it right that we sent them back? What should we do? Comment below.