Removing 460 children from a polygamist sect compound and then reuniting them with their families will cost Texas $7 million.
The children were ordered returned to their families this week after the Texas Supreme Court found that the state did not have enough evidence to show that abuse was happening at the Yearning for Zion ranch near Eldorado.
Most of that burden falls on Tom Green County, where the district court hearings were taking place, and Schleicher County, where the ranch is located, said Judge Ben Woodward, according to a Senate statement.
Neither county, Woodward said, has the money to cover the legal costs. “We’re at a point now where we’re going to start limping along pretty badly,” he said…
“I said from the word go, if there’s sex with underage girls, nail their butt,” Curtis Griffin, owner of the local fuel depot, told the Los Angeles Times. “But nail the right people. We’re going to wind up with a $30 million bill here in this little county because these people didn’t have their ducks in a row.”
Politics has been part of every move leading up to these arrests. Even the state law raising the age of consent was premised on getting arrests and convictions at the YFZ Ranch. And the local yokel cops and prosecutors haven’t yet accomplished diddly-squat.
There is another secluded cult like this nearer my home in British Columbia. The big story here is the trafficking of minors from here to the ranch in Texas and vice versa. It is a difficult problem to solve. How could you proceed with arrests and prosecution, when nearly all the girls vouch for the older fellows and all the boys are banished when they grow up. These stories really tug at the heart strings.
I think Texas has enough wacky stuff going on to deserve it own banner … like Florida.
Well, I don’t get it.
Weren’t there 5-6 pregnant 16 yo girls? Aren’t there a whole passel of 17-18-19 yo girls with kiddies aged 3-4-5 year old?
You would have to be from Oklahoma not to be able to establish child abuse in a few of the cases? ALL the kiddies go back?
I thought between two extremes there was a happy medium? Texas!
The child issue aside, I find it interesting that our society feels it can ban polygamous arrangements and both government-approved & religious marriages between multiples of free-thinking, consenting adults. Usually on the grounds that there is the possibility of abuse present in such a relationship.
With respect to the child issue, I think the polygamous group of parents should hang separately.
RBG
@#2 NO. Wisconsin FIRST. We haven’t seen a story from here in a bit but give it time…
#1–Noel==what is pulling at your heart if nothing is sacred?
#4–RBG==polygamy is outlawed because marriage is defined as one man and one woman. It has/had nothing to do with harm to anyone.
In fact, I don’t think any harm is happening to anyone here except to the observers who are offended. When your mind is besotted by religion, you get that zombie emotionless cantation of dogma we all saw in the interviews. That affected presentation was all about religion and lack of viewpoints rather than any other lifestyle.
The great bane of being human is we adapt to just about anything and without counter example, anything is normal and good.
who cares about polygamy? if you can deal with the multiple people nagging at you to cut the grass, and you can afford it, then you go hef!
but molesting little girls is just sick and they should take the men who do it out behind the barn and shoot them.
#4 bobbo,
While I am not religious, I do pride myself on my sterling moral compass, sense of values and sympathetic nature. The story inducing a slight chemical imbalance in my brain causing an emotional response does not have the same ring to it as the only moderately cliched figure of speech that I put forward in the comment #1.
#8–Noel==empathy correlates positively with intelligence. Intelligence correlates negatively with religious belief. It all fits together as if intelligently designed.
@bobbo
I don’t know Bobbo, Mr. Mustard is quite intelligent except on religion were he has a blind spot the size and shape of a cross.
#6, “polygamy is outlawed because marriage is defined as one man and one woman. It has/had nothing to do with harm to anyone.”
The only problem I have with this is what you call yourselves in a particular social circle doesn’t necessarily need to be in sync with an actual legal status. Most states these days have overridden common law marriage through statutes, but that doesn’t mean two people can’t still consider each other to be husband and wife outside of a legal marriage. The only problem I could see is if you attempt to fraudulently claim privileges dependent on a legal status which you don’t actually qualify for; or in the case of bigamy where you attempt to become legally married to somebody while already legally married to another.
I think the real issue here is not what these people call each other, but whether or not individuals are being coerced into these arrangements against their wishes.
He He
>>I don’t know Bobbo, Mr. Mustard is quite intelligent
>>except on religion were he has a blind spot the size
>>and shape of a cross.
The Bobster has a flexible definition of intelligence. If you agree with his pretzel logic, you’re smart as a whip. If you disagree, you’re dumb as a fencepost.
Actually, I’d try and suck up to him, but most of the time I can’t figure out what the fuck he’s saying.
Maybe it’s just the weird punctuation.
I can’t believe the people at CNN didn’t catch this:
“I said from the word go, if there’s sex with underage girls, nail their butt,” Curtis Griffin, owner of the local fuel depot
What a horrible thing to miss.
#7
See..here’s what always gets me. There is nothing in any of this that triggers my “molesting little girls” response so far. They have been talking about marrying off 14 year old or so girls…something that is allowed in some states still (I think), or, if not, was not all that long ago changed. Maybe I’m too old, but I still heard about that kind of thing growing up (can we all say Jerry Lee Lewis?), it’s a prevalent age throughout the bible, if not a bit old…and..well..it just flies in the face of biological imperatives. It’s a purely cultural made up limit…and as such, doesn’t ring many good/evil bells in my mind, since it changes on the whim of the culture..as in, Texas changing it upwards just to try and “nail” these “evil bastards”. Age, once past puberty, is irrelevant Ask them if they were forced. If they say no, that’s the end of it. It doesn’t matter if you think the way the group went about “asking” or “suggesting” to them to do it was coercion or not. What matters is what the girls think. And if they were “forced”, it doesn’t matter what their age was either. Force is force.
Hey..why doesn’t Texas just pass a law saying all marriage is forced enslavement. Then they’d have 2 or 3 chances per guy of getting an indictment to stick..^_^
Well someone made seven million otherwise unspent.
Right?
@15, Shin:
“It’s a purely cultural made up limit…and as such, doesn’t ring many good/evil bells in my mind, since it changes on the whim of the culture..”
We have something called Science these days. It is scientifically proven that majority of humans reach mental capability of proper judgment about age of 18. “About” means that small minority of people do mature slightly earlier at 15-16 and some later at 20-21. Hence all the legal age limits centered about 18 and some departures as to 15,16 or 21…
If you are not able to make judgment and you are under someones control – there is no way to excuse any “cultural” aspects. And that is the reason they are marrying these girls so young: to brainwash and bind them with children before they are capable of proper decisions.
“What matters is what the girls think.” – as just explained, at that age they are easy target for manipulation and they think what they are told, which is easy to accomplish when they are separated from the society as completely as they are.
Problem I see is that TX allowed to deal only with mothers… Without genetically proven mother and father children shouldn’t have been released to anyone. And than, children born to underage girls would have had known rapist fathers/partners who could have been prosecuted. TX allowed males to hide from the court (in majority).
Gee, and I thought they were going to rename Texas to Tex, because the other part was in the White House. I guess I was wrong!
Sometimes, the cost of justice is expensive. What bothers me the most is that while the “church” will pay for their own lawyers, they also have to pay for the prosecution through their taxes.
A good part of that $7 million is for lawyers for all the kids. Many of whom never even got to meet their clients.
I have always found that its funny, they can find a value to a Case.
The folks working on the case, were working BEFORE and being paid..
This amount of money would have been Spent with them SITTING AROUND, or working other cases..
to #19 Mr.Catshit…
Churches pay taxes? I thought they were tax exempt.
#3 – The accounts of minors being pregnant or having children was discovered to be a gross exageration. I can’t confirm with any certainty from reports I’ve read, that there wasn’t anybody in that age range, but the fact that the state was blatantly wrong in many details in its depiction of the sect certainly didn’t help its case.
17
Yes..we do have something called “science” these days…and if you think any of our age based laws are based upon it..pull the other one, it’s got bells on. No age decides when someone is capable of “proper” judgement.. whatever that is. I’ve certainly met as many 14 year olds capable of making a proper decision, given a set of facts, as I have 41 year olds making the same decision. (..and seen just as many in both age ranges make unbelievably stupid ones..^_^)
I said..force is force. I agree with you, almost certainly there was what you or I would call coercion….but….where we might diverge is that I would say that about almost any decision made by almost anyone..to one degree or another. Social coercion, religious coercion, “peer pressure”. It’s called “culture”. You can’t, from outside (at least not without a great degree of hubris), tell someone “I know you think you made a choice..but you were really forced.” Not unless you like the idea of someone doing the same to you…. (come to that, from a “scientific” basis, we probably made our “decision” based upon the level of different chemicals in our brains and bodies anyway..^_^)
I understand you think that they were coerced, but, from my point of view say, if you believe in any religious dogma at all, I feel the same about you…and since I have to allow you your “decision”, I have to allow them theirs. Now, if their decision involves going out and causing harm in the society at large.., another set of rules comes into play…but as long as what they are doing falls short of that, and is confined basically to within the group, and the people in the group do not see it as force, our hands are (or should be, unless we are complete hypocrites), tied.
#22–Ben==I agree facts are relevant and discussion of a topic is difficult without agreeing on what those facts are==even if just for discussion.
An issue not so limited is raised by Shin at #23–the nature of coercion and the role of culture therein. An act of coercion is not avoided because the source of the coercion is religion or culture. Its still coercion.
So the issue becomes is society better off/ or should it allow or prosecute religious based coercion? People can have their views on that always coming down to the degree of coercion used?????? Again showing that force is force, coercion is coercion, religion is religion===all tautologies remain unaffected.
Ripping 400 kids away from their parents on the basis of innuendo is insane and lacks due process.
Certainly 400 kids weren’t in imminent danger.
A proper investigation would have been the appropriate route.
What is it with Texas and overreacting?
#25 – Hmeyers – What is it with Texas and overreacting?
Perhaps the breed of leaders?
#25–Hmeyers–insane? Maybe not well done but when kiddies are involved with cult religions is it better err on the side of intervention, or to let 1-2=3 underage kiddies get pregnant while the investigation continues? The harm here was that the prosecutors did not assemble the evidence that I have to assume is there?
Its a matter of judgment==where to allow errors to fall. In being ripped away from parents, its more likely the parents that get traumatized rather than the kiddies if the rippers know what they are doing?==so,,, OK-lots of potential for harm: granted.
As I stated when this first whole circus first happened, this entire police action was an affront to unreasonable search and seizure.
I agree entirely with #25 -Hmeyers. Texas should be sued dry for stomping on the 4th amendment.
On this very point, CNN reported that they found only 5 – 6 underage mothers. That amounts to 1% of the children. Only 1%!!
The national average is 7.5%, over 7 times greater!
http://tinyurl.com/5duxpr
http://tinyurl.com/6husc7
Now do you see the problem? If the government can remove the children from a group which has a 1% (5/463) pregnancy rate, then why not take all the kids out of Chicago, LA, or New York where the underage pregnancy rate is so much higher? Why not out of your own home? If one daughter in your home gets pregnant, why not take all your kids?
So, the assertion that the FLDS ranch is full of peach-bustin’ perverts isn’t holding up to the facts, and the only reason that Texas is continuing to pursue this is to try gather enough evidence to avoid one hairy-ass lawsuit.
Ah Yea–those graphs include girls that are 17-18-19 years old—in other words, totally irrelevant.
Facts are important. I have stated I’m assuming mine which is pretty weak, but falsifying yours is even worse.
Also, I don’t think all the citizens of New York have declared in their religion to keep their kiddies in isolation and wed them off against their will. Thats should make a difference don’t you think?
Bobbo, you need to review some critical thinking skills. While the graphs did include 17, 18, and 19 year olds, they did not include 12, 13, and 14 year olds while the state of Texas did.
In fact, it seems the state of Texas included just about anything and everything to justify it’s actions.
And, to take a broader view, one could very easily state that New York fosters an environment which promotes pre-teen pregnancy.
So, no it doesn’t make much difference.