Christian Leftist

The Texas Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the polygamous ranch of the FLDS Yearning for Zion anch and its mothers today in a decision that stated that Texas child custody services did not have the right to take boys or any children under age 12 from their parents without evidence of an imminent risk of abuse. The state is likely to appeal the decision, meaning the case would likely end up in the Texas Supreme Court.

Appeals Court Rules Against Texas in Polygamy Case

There are now 462 children, some of whom are young mothers in their teens and others no older than five, who are in temporary foster care in Texas today after acourt in San Angelo ruled that their parents cannot have the children back until DNA tests are done.

The Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a breakaway Mormon sect that practices polygamy and marrying off its girls when they are underage or barely legal, has its own batch of lawyers. What sounds like a “class-action child removal” may bring about legal challenges to the state’s right to remove children based solely on the treatment of a smaller number of girls and women from the Yearning for Zion Ranch.

The Washington post has an article about the Constitutional challenges Texas may face when the case splits into individual child-custody hearings. There is no question that were the children to be returned to their parents, they would be forced to conform to the sect’s religious and sexual practices. What is not so clear is whether or not the government has the right to take children away from their parents if the abuse has no yet occured. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld the freedom of religious expression in previous cases.

In my opinion, practising your religious freedoms is one thing; forcing a teenage girl to conform to them is not. Hoever, it sn’t difficult to say that there is no clear line in the sand as to how much religion one is allowed to insert into a child’s life.

[*I say hunting because he married off adolescent girls to older men without their conesnt.]

I find it more than a little ironic that the most religious of zealots call things like AIDS, cancer and Hurricane Katrina “signs from God” or “God’s wrath” as punishment of sinful people, but when an extremely rare genetic disorder blights a closed population who practice a blatantly illegal and immoral act, it’s blamed on “the drinking water.”

The residents of Colorado City, AZ and Hildale, CO are all closely related. And when I say closely, I mean they’re doing more than playing ping pong with their cousins. Few people escape the clutches of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints and even fewer join up for a life of poverty, tyranny and fifteen kids, so the gene pool has suffered from a limited number of people all intermarrying.

Hence the problem reported by Yahoo News. Many residents marry their first cousins (or worse). Now the towns are paying the price: at least 15 children have had fumarase deficiency, a disease where brain cells starve for nutrients and fail to grow properly, resulting in retardation, nervous system functions and facial features. Often victims suffer an early death.

I cannot believe the sheer irresponsibility of marrying another person who shares recent ancestors with me. I would say that they deserve what they get, but the genes aren’t punishing the parents; they’re punishing the children who had no choice in being born.

Logic would say bring in fresh blood. Reason would say have them all sterilized. Kidding! Seriously though, what morons. But at least the young ones will fit right in.