Eldorado . . . El Dorado
I’m sure the higher ups at the Mormon Church wish this story of the FLDS sect in Eldorado, Texas would go away. It keeps reminding people of how extremely late and under what great pressure the church finally distanced itself from the widespread polygamist practices.
The stories are horrific. It’s a little peek into a world of high control and absolute patriarchy.
Women are there for the men. The Prophet decides whom they marry and when. If they are meek, faithful, sweet wives — obedient to their husbands and to the Prophet — then they have a chance that the husbands will invite them to join them in the celestial kingdom someday. The choice of clothing and hairstyle for the women helps keep them estranged from the world around them and dependent on one another.
Here’s one woman’s story of living in a similar environment.
El Dorado was the mythical city of gold the Spanish explorers sought. This compound in Eldorado, Texas, is a place of great sadness.
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Do you feel like you can actually see the price of gas changing before your eyes as you drive past the gas station?
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I recently went to a Wednesday night class on “A Theology of Ugly.” It was looking at the brokenness of our world and glimpses of God’s grace. The teacher that night, a good friend of ours, pointed us to one of her favorite poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Enjoy:
Glory be to God for dappled things
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscapes plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.
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I’m not supposed to be running anymore. But I’ve been cheating in small amounts lately. Cycling has been a wonderful replacement, but a cool, crisp spring morning just calls for a little jog.
Kirk: Did you see the CPS said “if the mothers leave the flds, leave their husbands, consent to CPS monitoring, pledge not to let their children marry until 18″ that CPS still would not give the mothers custody. This implies the mothers could leave and kidnapping or unlawful imprisonment are not mentioned in the search warrant. I If a 2 year old hasn’t been abused and no one is alleging the have, then CPS is not removing them for criminal conduct via the sexual assault of a child. CPS is removing these younger children because of what the flds teaches or beleives, a clear violation of free speech and freedom of religion. I agree the leaders of the group are evil. Bill Maher calls the leader of Catholicism evil and what Catholic Priest have done to their Flocks worse then the flds, what if Bill was in control of CPS? Would you support the removal of every Catholic child from their homes because Bill says the Catholics are evil? It is not the ones who have been abused nor the ones who have done any abuse I am talking about. I have said now for the 5th time “In regard to the girls,if there has been abuse, prosecute the abusers. If someone has been abused, remove them.
You say “This is not about polygamy, this is about sexual assault of a child.” That is not the reason CPS or the State of Texas gives for holding these Children. The State of Texas alleges criminal abuse in only 5 cases so why has CPS Kidnapped over 400 children? Either for what might happen or for what one thinks. How is that not a violation of our constitution?
My Analogy was not to say the circumstances were the same and you know that. My analogy was to say what,except the constitution, keeps an overzealous CPS agent from doing the same thing in those 2 situations that are being done with the flds?
Julie, Kirk and others
I feel you think I’m voicing my opinion because I agree with polygamy and what is taught by the FLDS. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I abhor what they teach and stand for. As a Christian I say they are wrong. However, with the history of perseqution that christianity has undergone, are you willing to turn over our constitutional rights to free thought, free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association etc to todays CPS when you don’t know what tomorrows CPS may define as doing Irreparable psycological harm. You can’t mention a husband and wife as the norm for raising a family in California Public Schools. How far is it from that law (which would have seemed ludicrous to all just 50 years ago) to one that says if your religion teaches _________ you are doing psycological harm to your children and big brother may steal them from you with no due process at all.
Our religious differences with the FLDS and our revulsion at their teaching does not change the fact that their constitutional rights have been violated. That more then 400 children have been ripped from their homes not for any criminal activity but because as CPS agent Voss says ” In fact, she testified that she could see no situation where these people should get their children back- not if their mothers divorce their husbands and leave the ranch and live apart forever and promise never to let their daughters marry before 18. Her stated reasons for that are not their practices but their belief that children are a blessing, that birth control is wrong, and in male leadership.”
With the history of perseqution that Christianity has undergone that comment ought to scare the bejeebers out of you.
Mark, first of all Ms. Voss did not say this–”Her stated reasons for that are not their practices but their belief that children are a blessing, that birth control is wrong, and in male leadership.”
She said that she did not believe that it would be safe for any of the children to go back to the ranch while the case is pending–not forever–and it had nothing to do with the fact that children are a blessing, birth control, or male leadership.
It sounds to me like you would be willing to allow people to do whatever they want to–legal or illegal, criminal or not–as long as the word “religion” is somehow attached to it.
This slippery slope argument you are making–that we better permit the FLDS to do whatever they want because, if we let CPS take the children, we will be next–is simply fallacious.
Look, we’re not talking about some victim-free crime that is being committed here. It’s not like the FLDS are guilty of smoking peyote as part of their worship services. They tell these mothers and girls that they must marry men three times their ages (contrary to the laws of the State of Texas) or else: 1) they will be eternally da.mn.ed to hell; and 2) they will be kicked out on the street without.
These children and mothers are not free actors who willingly decide to wear frontier clothes and play the game. (Not that it would make a difference if it was a willing decision. By law, a girl under 17 years old does not have legal capacity to consent to sexual relations.)
There is no free exercise of religion here–there’s just not. And you will see, once the spell is broken after the passage of a few months, these women and children will not want to go back. Right now they are afraid of what will become of them if they do not obey the leader.
Kirk: This will be my last reply. I have since my first post said if someone has broken the law file charges and prosequte them so where do you get off saying “It sounds to me like you would be willing to allow people to do whatever they want to–legal or illegal, criminal or not–as long as the word “religion” is somehow attached to it.” I have consistently said Charge the abusers with a crime. I am glad you have been appointed the arbiter of what is or isn’t religion. I had’t realized that position existed but now that I know I will defer to your superior wisdom and once again ignore the Constitution as you seem to argue for. You make various statements about this religion that I to beleive will be proven true. My problem and the constitutional issue here is might happen is not the same as has happened. I don’t know how to link but if you will look at News reports in the Salt Lake City Paper you will find the exact quote I posted. I am not saying it is just a slippery slope issue. I said “You say “This is not about polygamy, this is about sexual assault of a child.” That is not the reason CPS or the State of Texas gives for holding these Children. The State of Texas alleges criminal abuse in only 5 cases so why has CPS Kidnapped over 400 children? Either for what might happen or for what one thinks. How is that not a violation of our constitution? You have not answered that other then to proclaim that as the arbiter of religion you declare this one isn’t. You do not wish to address my clear questions so i will cease to pose them.
Kidnapped?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Perhaps CPS removed all the children because they determined their was a very high potential for abuse against all of these children.
My question is where are the men? Where are the men of this compound while all of the women sit in court day after day and face reporters. I think these women are guilty of allowing abuse; and they are guilty of being cult members first, and mothers last;
but why are these men hiding behind them? Why are these men allowing the women and children in their lives to take all the heat?If they so adamently believe that why they are doing is right, why are they locking themelves inside their compound and hiding from it all?
HW, the men are hiding because any and all of them face felony charges for sexual assault to a child, and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. These men would rather not be cellmates with their leader Warren Jeffs, who is now serving 10 years to life in Utah for being an accomplice to rape.
It will be interesting to see how many men appear for the DNA testing, and how many assert their privilege against self-incrimination.
From the LA Times April 22
Texas authorities confronted with the question of what to do with the 416 children removed from a polygamist compound earlier this month face an unenviable choice, one brought home to outsiders by the wrenching media images of the youngsters’ weeping mothers. Anachronistic hairdos and prairie dresses notwithstanding, their pain at being cut off from contact with their children is apparent. Yet should the children be returned to a family environment in which underage girls are sometimes sent to live with older men who have multiple wives, or should they be placed in foster homes?
Last week, state District Judge Barbara L. Walther ruled that the children should stay in state custody for the moment. They are undergoing DNA testing to untangle the complex family ties in a community where children identify all the women in a household as their mothers, and where wives are sometimes reassigned to new husbands. Once the testing is completed, the children’s fates will be decided in individual hearings running through June.
At the heart of many of the cases will be determining whether children at the Yearning for Zion ranch are in danger even if they don’t live in households in which physical or sexual abuse has taken place. Walther found enough evidence of such danger to keep all the children away from their parents, at least for the short term. But if that kind of logic guides permanent custody decisions, it could set a very dangerous precedent, and ultimately harm the very children the state is trying to protect.
The DNA test results should make it easier for authorities to identify those responsible for abuse. If it’s clear that an underage girl gave birth, the father, the church elders who arranged the marriage and the girl’s parents (if it can be found that they were complicit in statutory rape) could be subject to criminal charges. But presumably there will be many families in which there is no such evidence of abuse.
The polygamist lifestyle is deeply distasteful on many levels, but society’s disgust matters far less than the welfare of the sect’s children. Does anybody believe they’d be better off inthe foster system than returned to loving, nonabusive parents who are fully capable of caring for them? If the courts are worried that the parents will train their children to perpetuate and accept sexual abuse, they can appoint child welfare officials to monitor individual families.
The alternative is to punish families for their religious ideology, not their behavior. That could well run afoul of the 1st Amendment and other protections, and it’s a legal can of worms that Texas would be wise not to open.
More news about CPS
“When Texas child welfare authorities released statistics showing nearly 60 percent of the teen girls taken from a polygamist sect’s ranch were pregnant or had children, they seemed to prove what was alleged all along: The sect commonly pushed girls into marriage and sex. But in the past week, the state has twice been forced to admit “girls” who gave birth while in state custody are actually adults. One was 22 and said she showed state officials a Utah birth certificate shortly after she and more than 400 minors were seized from the West Texas ranch in an April raid….
Child Protective Services has complained that sect members refused to cooperate with their investigation, constantly changing answers or refusing answers to questions about age and parentage. Parker said the state ignored evidence the young mothers presented, including birth certificates and Social Security cards. He said that with their long braided hair, makeup-free faces and pioneer dresses, the women look very young.”
For those of you who think this was such a great idea for CPS to kidnap these children you may look very foolish very soon. By the way, you home schoolers out there-you’re next.