State: FLDS raid about abuse, not religion
Posted by: joshuah in FLDS, YFZ, polygamous sectsWhat a complete load of horse crap…
Grab the report and see for yourself: Eldorado Investigation Report
Source: mysanantonio.com
Texas child protective services officials in a report today defended this year’s raid on a West Texas polygamous compound as being about child abuse, not religion.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services was criticized by officials with the Yearning for Zion Ranch outside of Eldorado as being overzealous in its raid on the compound because the group believes in polygamous marriages and leaders held that “spiritual marriages” for underage girls were Godly.
“The Yearning for Zion case is about sexual abuse of girls and children who were taught that underage marriages are a way of life. It is about parents who condoned illegal underage marriages and adults who failed to protect young girls — it has never been about religion,” said the final investigative report on the April raid outside of Eldorado.
The raid by protective services and other state agencies became one of the largest child abuse investigations in U.S. history, with 439 children being removed from the ranch. The report was issued by protective services Commissioner Anne Heiligenstein to Health and Human Services Commissioner Albert Hawkins.
The Yearning for Zion Ranch was a settlement of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church.
The raid may have been prompted by a hoax telephone call to a San Angelo women’s shelter from a Colorado woman.State officials did not directly address that in the report, but stated that state law requires Child Protective Services to investigate all allegations of abuse.
“A family violence shelter in San Angelo called the hotline after taking a call from someone who said she was a 16-year-old girl who had suffered sexual and physical abuse by her husband while at the ranch,” the report said. “The report met the statutory definition of abuse; therefore, DFPS was required to act.”
The report said there were 91 families where there was reason to believe one or both parents abused or neglected a child in the family by entering into an underage marriage. The agency ruled out 12 families and was unable to determine what might or might not have occurred in 39 families. The agency was unable to complete the investigation of one family, and administratively closed the cases involving three families.
The agency said 12 girls ranging in ages from 12 to 15 were “victims of sexual abuse at the YFZ ranch with the knowledge of their parents” by being placed in “spiritual marriages.”
The earliest marriage occurred in 2004, and the most recent known marriage was in 2006. Seven of the girls had children after the marriage.
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These numbers reported by CPS are obviously inflated. Other evidence indocates that the number of underage marriages are much lower. it streches the limits of credulity to say that religion had nothing to do with it.