Here is a link to my “Give em back” #1 Post
And the stimulating and interesting chat that resulted from this blog post over at Free Republic.
Sweep of polygamists’ kids raises legal questions
“The move has the appearance of “a class-action child removal,” said Jessica Dixon, director of the child advocacy center at Southern Methodist University’s law school in Dallas.
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” she said.
Rod Parker, a spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, contends that the state has essentially said, “If you’re a member of this religious group, then you’re not allowed to have children.”
Attorneys for the families and civil-liberties groups also are crying foul. They say the state should not have taken children away from all church members living at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado.
Church members said that not all of them practice polygamy, and some form traditional nuclear families. One sect member whose teenage son is now in foster care testified that she is a divorced single mother.
“Of course, we condemn child abuse and we don’t stand up for the perpetration of that,” said Lisa Graybill, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. But “what the state has done has offended a pretty wide swath of the American people with what appears to be an overreaching action to sweep up all these children.”
Cultural Guide for Poligamists kids
Go here to read the excellent and timely coverage of this story at the Salt Lake Tribunes poligamy blog by Brooke Adams.
Jenny Hatch
