BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

The 400+ children taken from the Yearning for Zion Ranch have been ordered returned.  Apparently, the order came down as an Agreed Order, since some of the provisions seem to be more than most parents would willingly constent to.  Nevertheless, the parents are allowed to retrieve their children from across Texas.  It seems that the Child Protective Services, the group that removed the children and disbursed them across many of the southern Texas counties would have returned them.  Instead, it has been left to the parents to pick them up.  Some of the families have children in three or four different cities and towns.

Anyway, it seems that the Texas Supreme Court, followed by District Judge Barbara Walther, has brought some semblance of sanity to the Child Protective Services.  There were conditions to the return.

The order signed by Walther requires the parents to stay in Texas, to attend parenting classes and to allow the children to be examined as part of any ongoing child abuse investigation. It also requires that parents allow state workers to make unannounced visits to the families and that they notify the state if they plan to travel more than 100 miles from their homes.

But it does not put restrictions on the children’s fathers, require that polygamy be renounced or that parents live away from the Yearning For Zion Ranch.

The restrictions seem a bit harsh under the conditions.  But, sometimes it’s easier to compromise.

The state failed to show that any more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and had offered no evidence of sexual or physical abuse against the other children, the Third Court of Appeals ruled last week.

Five teenage girls having been sexually abused is most saddening.  But, in today’s society either inside the compound or not, the number is probably an average for approximately 450 children.  In fact, if we took 450 children from any neighborhood I would dare say at least five have been abused in some fashion.  Sad, but most probable.

As for the members of the sect,

The FDLS denies any abuse of the children and says they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Again, probably true.  Unfortunately, in our society, while we often don’t agree with what others teach, we… especially state authorities… have grown to feel that they have the right to dictate the lifestyle of the citizens.

As these past two months have unfolded, I have thought about a gated community not far from where I live.  It is a clean, upper middle-class suburban neighborhood, with far less acreage, but about the same number of residents as on the Yearning for Zion Ranch.  I would dare say that in that neighborhood there is as much child abuse or perhaps more than what CPS and the State of Texas was able to cite among the polygamist sect compound.  Yet, no one would dare to think of entering the community upon the report of an incidence of child abuse and remove all the children and minors.

Having been brought up Catholic in a Southern Baptist area, I am aware of the misconceptions, the misunderstandings and total lack of knowledge and subsequently lack of respect for beliefs that are contrary to one’s own… especially when the majority of citizens believe one thing and have no understanding of the other.  So it seems in this case.  It is always easy to persuade the unknowing that something sinister is going on among the unknown. 

Polygamy is not for me.  I, personally, could not lead that life, but then again, I was not brought up in that environment.  But, should these people be persecuted for those religious beliefs?  Apparently, the consensus is yes, since state laws have outlawed bigomy. 

Warren Jeffs, the leader and so-called prophet of the sect, is no angel and will probably never see the Pearly Gates unless he is released from jail and builds his own here on earth.  Yet, there are child sex offenders scattered throughout the country, forbidden to live in some neighborhoods due to the proximity of schools and childrens’ events.  In no means do I intend to defend or condone Mr. Jeffs or sex offenders.  But, it is all too easy to sterotype a group of people based on the actions of one or two.

We have seen that all to readily in our recent history as a nation.  After 9-11 everyone of mid-Eastern descent, even our neighbors with whom we had enjoyed a cookout just last summer became suspect.  And a prejudice grew against the Arabic world and the Muslim religion.  We lumped all Muslims into a single group of terrorists and we feared what we did not know about them.  For those of us uneducated in the religion of Islam, we became afraid… afraid of the unknown.  And, we remember the reports of Muslims and Arabic peoples in our country being taunted and attacked as if by osmosis they had overnight become a part of a terrorist cell.

We have seen deluded leaders of churches recently who have made outlandish claims in the name of religion… Hitler being sent to herd the Jews to Israel, Muslims here to take over our country and destroy us, and the rants go on.  Warren Jeffs created the religion he taught and practiced, just as many of these preachers have distorted and created a religion of their convenience.  We have seen Catholic priests abuse children, to fulfill the needs of their own sicknesses.  Yet, no one came and removed all Catholic children from their homes or churches.

I think back to the time when people boarded wooden ships in England and other countries, risked their lives to cross an ocean in the most horrid of conditions to reach a new land where they could enjoy freedom of religion.  Oh, I wonder what they would think today.