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Morning Edition, May 23, 2008 A Texas appeals court ruled Thursday that the state had no right to take more than 400 children from a polygamist ranch. The court conceded that some underage teens may have been sexually abused, but that the state did not prove that all the removals of children from their parents were justified.
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Child welfare officials said they were mystified by the appeals court’s ruling, saying that the department had “removed children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch after finding a pervasive pattern of sexual abuse.”
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Child welfare officials who visited the ranch “revealed a pattern of underage girls being ‘spiritually united’ with older men and having children with the men,” the agency said.
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In the world of the FLDS, “spiritual marriage” between older men and underage girls — what the law defines as rape — is given the stamp of religious approval. Of 53 girls believed to be between 14 and 17, more than 30 have children or are pregnant, including one who gave birth to her second child in custody. Among the boys, too, there is suspicion of widespread physical abuse. Indeed, many teenage boys are routinely banished to preserve the odds of polygamy.
Nevertheless, what do we make of an entire sect that has sexual abuse at its very heart? That believes plural “marriages” between older men and underage women are not an aberration but a pathway to heaven?
Nobody can prosecute the FLDS for what they believe, says Marci Hamilton, author of God vs. the Gavel. “They can stay together and believe what they want into eternity. What they can’t do is illegal action.”
In the end, what we have on that ranch in Eldorado is not a lifestyle. It’s a pedophile ring.
Thoughts and views as seen from the resident raptor. Reflecting on life and the world as I see it.
