For the past couple of months, I have been following the case at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas religiously – slight pun intended. My fascination with the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or the FLDS began years ago when I learned about Warren Jeffs, the leader and self-proclaimed profit of the court.
When Jeffs was finally apprehended in August of 2006, I nearly threw a party to celebrate. And it felt like Christmas when Utah courts sentenced Jeffs for 10 years to life for his numerous crimes, including accomplice to rape, incest and molestation.
There are few people on the face of this planet that I would attribute as purely evil –Warren Jeffs in one of them.
But the recent events with the YFZ Ranch have left me somewhat disturbed. I hate the unspeakable horrors the children, girls and boys, face as a part of the FLDS – rape, underage marriage, excommunication and abandonment. But it is equally despicable to see a mother’s anguish at having her child forcefully taken away from her.
In a nutshell, the series of events began in March, after Texas Child Protective Services received a phone call from a 16-year-old girl claiming to have been sexually abused at the ranch. The phone call resulted in a raid of the compound on April 3.
The raid itself resulted in Child Protective Services removing over 500 women and children from the ranch over the next five days. On April 17, a Texas court ruled that the children would remain in state custody and were to be split between 16 various foster home and CPS facilities.
On May 22, an appellate court overturned the original decision, claiming that CPS had no right to remove the children from their homes. Seven days later, the Texas Supreme Court concurred with the appellate decision and ordered that all the children be returned.
“The child custody issues and other court proceedings do not impact the ongoing criminal investigation,” said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas attorney general’s office in the Los Angeles Times. “The evidence collected from the polygamist compound and reviewed by investigators will dictate the direction of this investigation.”
Thank goodness the Texas CPS doesn’t give up so easily. The most frequently used argument about the entire situation is that this is somehow an attack on religious freedom or polygamy.
Seriously, who cares if someone chooses to be a polygamist for religious reasons? If having multiple spouses and a pack of children is your passion, then more power to you. If a person can keep all of his wives or her husbands happy and safe; if all the children are developing in a healthy, stable environment, then there is no reason that family should be judged because their views on familiar structure are different from the mainstream.
The problem isn’t polygamy.
The problem is girls being forced into marriage and sexual relations at 14-years-old.
The problem is young men being disowned or run out of their communities because they are “competition” for the older men, who require more wives.
The problem is women being raped for the cause of procreation because some dirty, old man named Warren Jeffs declared that his libido-driven, middle-aged male followers need to sleep with a different woman every night.
The problem has escalated out of control.
“Let’s say you’re a 6-month-old girl, no evidence whatsoever of any abuse,” said Mark Shurtleff, a Utah Attorney General, to the Salt Lake City Deseret News. “They’re simply saying, ‘You, in this culture, may grow up to be a child bride when you’re 14. Therefore we’re going to remove you now when you’re 6 months old.’ Or, ‘You’re a 6-month-old boy; 25, 30 years, 40 years from now you’re going to be a predator, so we’re going to take you away now.’”
Shurtleff disagreed with the removal of the women and children on a very good principle – thought crime. Despite the constant unease of a 1984-esc society, thankfully thoughts, at least in the United States, are not a crime.
However, premeditation and thought are two very different things. If the investigation turns up any evidence to suggest premeditated rape, as in the arrangement of a 12-year-old to a 22-year-old, the perpetrators better immediately end up behind bars.
This might result in another chaotic attempt to rescue women and children from the FLDS, a venture that, once again, might be fruitless.
So the real question, the fact that has left me disturbed, is this: is it better to save a child’s future based on circumstantial evidence of what might happen or honor the rights of the parents charged with the safety of that child?
Mark Shurtleff says no. Texas Child Protective Services says yes. Once again, the country is divided over the welfare of its youngest citizens – excuse the jab at the abortion issue.
The only conceivable possibility for solving the problem is to follow the red-taped, bureaucratic trail of case-by-case examination, investigation, prosecution and resolve. But by the time that happens, Warren Jeffs will have probably been released from his lifetime sentence and marrying his next child-bride.
