The Voice Of One Crying Out In Suburbia

Finally some sanity in Texas

Let me say first that I find the entire FLDS cult in Texas to be reprehensible. They are both a modern reflection of the very ugliest aspects of the early, non-sanitized mormon church of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young as well as a sect of false teachers led by false prophet Warren Jeffs. Theologically they are as false a religion as Islam, mainstream mormonism, Buddhism or atheism. But the idea that based on some assumptions and what turns to likely be a hoax phone call the authorities seized 400+ children from their families is a perversion of justice and a stain on our national identity. You would think that the government would have learned from Waco and Ruby Ridge. So today's decision that Texas officials overstepped their authority in seizing every child from the FLDS compound is a welcome note of justice in an otherwise entirely unjust event.

SAN ANGELO, Texas — In a ruling that could torpedo the case against the West Texas polygamist sect, a state appeals court Thursday said authorities had no right to seize more than 440 children in a raid on the splinter group's compound last month.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.

Try to take this event and overlay it on a more familiar setting. What if someone at Willow Creek or some other mega-church was accused of abusing children, so the cops came in and took away all of the children of every family that were members of the church? What if the cops showed up in Dearborn, Michigan based on an anonymous phone call that Muslim parents were raising up children as terrorists, so the police took all of the children from their parents in the assumption that if one Muslim family was raising a child to be a terrorist, they all must be. The probable cause the police used here would never hold up in any court for any sort of offense. I have no idea what possessed the authorities in Texas to assume that they were free to round up whole families of children. It was certainly made easier because of the odd temple, the closed nature of the sect, the fact that they dress like extras on Little House on the Prairie. But being an oddball is not a crime in this country, at least not yet.

This whole episode is an example of the nanny state gone malevolent. The assumption is that parents, especially parents with strongly held religious beliefs, really especially when those religious beliefs are a bit out of the mainstream, are not to be trusted to raise their own children or make decisions based on those beliefs. There are people in this country who believe that every parent who holds deeply felt religious beliefs and teaches those beliefs to their children is inherently unfit. Some no doubt believe that teaching children old fashioned religion is tantamount to child abuse. Whether or not you agree with the FLDS doctrines and practice (which I don't), whether or not you think that it is probable that young girls are being wed to creep old guys and abused in this community (which I do), without proof that a crime is being committed these people have the same rights as any other America citizens, rights that have been grossly violated by authorities who have flaunted their authority. It is easy to brush this aside in the belief that because these people are kooks, it has no real impact on regular old Christians. But it is a slippery slope, and a pretty short one, between rounding up the kids of the FLDS and rounding up Baptist kids at a Vacation Bible School. Think that is extreme, think that could never happen in America?

Think again.