Biblical Family

What do you tell a person who has been living happily in a polygynous relationship as the second wife, has two small children, and now all of a sudden has to separate from her husband and sister wife because the hitherto happy family has realized, no doubt with the help of their Christian friends, that polygamy is wrong ?   The family wonders about moving to a place where wife #2 can live in a house or apartment of her own yet close to her former husband and sister wife so that the children still have both parents to grow up with and the poor second wife does not lose her husband’s and sister wife’s friendship because they are all really close.  But doing this of course would still pose a danger in their Christian friends’ opinion because who knows, they might be falling back into their terribly sinful polygamous lifestyle if the second wife does not take her children and move away and have her husband pay to support her and the kids from afar.

What would you tell wife #2 ?  What would you tell her husband ?  What would you tell the Christian “friends” who advise them ?

Well, I have advice for them all.

To the wife I would say:  Rejoice, there is nothing wrong with your marriage.  Return to your husband and sister wife and be happy and may Yahweh bless you with many more children.

To the husband I would say: Rejoice, take your two wives and be happy, and repent from the sinful idea of putting away your second wife.  Also, get rid of those so called friends who told you polygamy was wrong. They are of their father, the devil.

To the Christan friends I would say: Leave the poor family alone !  Your advice is wicked and ungodly, it creates pain rather than relieving it, it robs a wife of her rightful husband, and children of their father.  Keep your false teaching to yourselves and stop looking for biblical wisdom that helps you to argue against polygamy – there is no such thing because the bible tells you that polygamy is marriage, nothing more, nothing less.  Stay out of other people’s lives since you do not have biblical wisdom to offer, but only the adversary’s lies.

I set up a new blog today titled “Sister, Where Art Thou ?”.  If you are interested in  knowing more about us, possibly thinking about joining our family even, Sister, Where Art Thou ? is the place to go.  You will find information about us, like what is most important for us, what life looks like, what our goals are.  Enjoy your stay, and come back often

FOXNews.com

More than two months after being forced to return children from a polygamist sect to their parents, Texas child welfare authorities want eight youngsters put back in foster care.

Individual hearings for the four mothers of the children, who range in age from 5 to 17, are set to begin Monday.

Child Protective Services has asked a judge to return the children to foster care because their mothers have allegedly refused to limit their contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.

“We continue to have concerns in particular for these eight children, which is why we have asked the judge to review the case,” said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

None of the children live at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, from where authorities took roughly 440 children into foster care in April. Officials said the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which established the ranch, was forcing girls into underage marriages and grooming boys to be adult abusers.
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Source: Deseret News

Lawyers for a member of the Fundamentalist LDS Church may be trying to prevent that person from testifying before a grand jury investigating crimes within the polygamous sect.

A hearing on a motion to quash a subpoena was held behind closed doors here on Friday. Little else is known about what happened at the hearing or why there is concern about anyone’s testimony.

A Deseret News reporter was not allowed inside the courtroom on Friday afternoon because the hearing involved matters of grand-jury secrecy, a bailiff said. Texas 51st District Judge Barbara Walther also would not release a copy of the motion to quash that was filed with the court.

As they left the courthouse, lawyers for both the FLDS and the Texas Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.

“I can’t talk about it,” said Michael Gross, a San Antonio attorney who represents FLDS members.

He said he could not even say whom he is representing.

“It’s confidential,” said Angela Goodwin, Texas assistant attorney general.

The grand jury is expected to meet in nearby Eldorado again next week, where more FLDS members may be called to testify. Six members of the church already have been indicted, including FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.

Source: Houston Chronicle

A West Texas judge on Friday agreed to end court oversight of 34 children from a polyamist group.

Child Protective Services indicated last week that it would no longer pursue legal action against the parents of 34 children because the agency felt they were not in immediate danger. On Friday, State District Judge Barbara Walther agreed to the motion, without comment.

Friday’s court action doesn’t mean CPS ends its involvement with the 10 families of the 34 children, all members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a group that allegedly practices underage marriage.

CPS may still investigate the families or deliver services.

The child protective agency typically drops custody cases either when a thorough investigation leads them to believe no abuse occurred, or when they conclude that despite past abuse, a caregiver can now protect a child without the court’s help, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

Meisner said she could not discuss the specific reasons for CPS’s decision to ask for an end to court oversight, nor the ages or gender of the 34 children.
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Source: News Radio 1200 WOAI San Antonio Texas

A judge in San Angelo ruled this afternoon that a 14 year old girl who was ’spiritually married’ to Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ‘prophet’ Warren Jeffs when she was 12 must be taken away from her mother and placed into foster care, 1200 WOAI news reports.

Merrianne Jessop, the daughter of sect leaders Merril and Barbara Jessop, is believed to be one of the two girls what Jeffs was shown kissing in a photograph seized from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in west Texas during a raid by police in April.

State District Judge Barbara Walther ruled that by allowing her daughter to participate in underage marriage, Jessop was not a suitable parent for the girl.

She allowed another of the Jessop’s children, an 11 year old boy named Benjamin to remain in her care. Texas Child Protective Services dropped custody motions against a third Jessop child, Samson, 17, because he is of legal age.

“We were able to present our evidence to Judge Walther, and she agreed that there were serious concerns,” CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins told reporters after the hearing.

In the case of Merrianne Jessop, she ordered the child back to foster care. Benjamin can stay with his mother, but with some very specific conditions which will allow Child protective Services to monitor his safety.”

Crimmins said Judge Walther also ordered that both of the children not have any contact with Merril Jessop.

Crimmins said Walther ordered that Merrianne Jessop be turned over to state care immediately. He didn’t know if the girl has actually been turned over.

He says the state is prepared to present its evidence in the other children involved in motions to remove, although he said it two of the cases, an out of court settlement is possible.

The two children are among eight which Texas Child Protective Services officials have asked be taken away from their parents because the parents declined to adhere to a court approved conditions forbidding the children from having any contact with men involved in ‘underage marriage.’

The two children involved in today’s court proceeding are among the 460 children who were removed from the YFZ Ranch by state officials during a raid in April, and then returned to their parents by order of the Texas Supreme Court in June. Crimmins says motions to reclaim custody of dozens more FLDS children are likely to be field as the investigation continues.

Source: CNN.com

The mother of a girl allegedly given in marriage at age 12 to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs refused to answer questions Monday from attorneys for the state.
Warren Jeffs and four followers were indicted in Texas last month for sexual assault of a child.

Warren Jeffs and four followers were indicted in Texas last month for sexual assault of a child.

The state wants to remove the girl, now 14, and an 11-year-old brother from the mother’s care, saying she has refused to guarantee the girl won’t have contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.

The girl’s father allegedly blessed her marriage to Jeffs and the underage marriages of at least two sisters.

The hearing was initially delayed while lawyers in the girl’s case and three others tried to negotiate settlements. Later, Texas Ranger Nick Hannah helped Child Protective Services introduce into record dozens of marriage records, photos and church records outlining family relationships that were seized from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado.

The girl’s mother refused to answer roughly 50 questions asked by attorneys for the child welfare agency, including what constituted abuse, the names of her children and her relationship with their father.

“I stand on the Fifth (Amendment),” she said repeatedly in a flat tone.

Her attorney, Gonzalo Rios, said Jessop, 55, was exercising her right against self-incrimination because of the continuing investigation.

In documents submitted with the state’s custody petition, the 14-year-old girl is quoted as telling a caseworker that a young teenage girl marrying an older man “can’t be a crime because Heavenly Father is the one that tells Warren when a girl is ready to get married.”
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Source: KXAN.com

The ex-husband of a teen bride who helped convict polygamous church leader Warren Jeffs on counts of rape by accomplice — could face trial.

Allen Glade Steed is charged in Utah with one count of first-degree felony rape for his sexual relationship with Elissa Wall after the couple married in a 2001 religious ceremony.

She was 14 and he was 19, and both were members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Steed attorney Jim Bradshaw says plea negotiations recently ended with no agreement.

A hearing is October 22nd to determine if prosecutors have enough evidence for a trial.

If convicted, Steed could spend the rest of his life in prison.

He didn’t immediately comment.

Jeffs has also been indicted in Texas on sexual assault charges for an alleged relationship with an underage bride in 2006.

The Associated Press does not generally identify people who say they were sexually assaulted, but Wall has spoken publicly and published a nationally distributed book, “Stolen Innocence.”

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

While Texas authorities were initially investigating 20 cases of sexual assault and 50 bigamy cases involving FLDS members, it is unclear how many of those cases remain open four months later.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange confirmed the number of cases – outlined in an April e-mail – was accurate in the month officials raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado.

But she said she can’t confirm the current number of cases still being investigated. And Salt Lake City attorney Rod Parker, a spokesman for the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, thinks that more than likely the numbers have drastically changed as the investigation has progressed.
So far, the Schleicher County grand jury hearing evidence against sect members has indicted six men, including sect leader Warren S. Jeffs, on charges of sexual assault, bigamy and failure to report child abuse.

Parker said he wonders in particular about the volume of bigamy charges that had been predicted back in April.

Based on the number of men on the ranch in plural marriages, prosecutors likely would need to charge women in order to file 50 bigamy charges, he said – a departure from the typical bigamy suspect. He said women typically have been viewed as victims of bigamy, not perpetrators.
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The modern Pharisee had a few words to say about all of this…check it out.

Source: Deseret News

Texas Rangers are investigating 20 cases of sexual assault and about 50 bigamy charges involving members of the FLDS Church, the Deseret News has learned.

Texas officials on Monday confirmed the number of open cases but would not say how many suspects were involved.

“We are working with several other agencies on this investigation, and I do not know what ultimately the team will decide to do as far as possible charges filed,” Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said.

The investigation has already prompted five indictments, including one against the church’s leader, Warren Jeffs. A Schleicher County grand jury will convene again next week and may consider further indictments.

Rod Parker, a Salt Lake attorney acting as spokesman for the Fundamentalist LDS Church, was surprised by the sheer number of sexual assault and bigamy cases.

And he insists there aren’t enough men practicing plural marriage at the Yearning For Zion ranch outside Eldorado, Texas, to come up with 50 bigamy investigations.

“I think they would have a problem coming up with 50 bigamy charges without charging the women,” Parker said.

Mange would not go into specifics on suspects.
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Read the full article at: Newsweek.com

When Flora Jessop answered her phone on the morning of March 30, a female caller spoke in a meek and frightened whisper. She said her name was Sarah, a child bride trapped on a polygamist compound in Texas. She had apparently sought out Jessop because of the woman’s work with abused kids as executive director of the Child Protection Project. Sarah claimed she had been assaulted by the older man she was assigned to marry and was often locked in a room with boarded windows. She described details, like names of elders, that only someone in the sect would likely know.

Around the same time, Sarah was also calling a shelter in San Angelo, Texas. After counselors there forwarded her abuse reports to law enforcement, authorities responded with a massive April 3 raid on the property where Sarah claimed to be held, the Yearning for Zion ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) in Eldorado, Texas. In the course of the operation, officials said they discovered such a troubling pattern of sexual and physical abuse that they forcibly removed more than 400 kids. (All of them have since been returned to their families by court order; last week sect leader Warren Jeffs and four of his followers were charged with sexually abusing underage girls.) But Sarah was never found.

The reason, according to law enforcement: Sarah was not the blond, blue-eyed teen bride she claimed to be, but rather a 33-year-old African-American woman living in Colorado Springs, Colo., named Rozita Swinton. It’s not the first time Swinton has been accused of duping authorities. She’s been arrested for false reporting in two separate cases in Colorado, allegedly setting off frantic manhunts by repeatedly impersonating abuse victims. But even as she now faces possible charges in Texas, Swinton remains an elusive and enigmatic figure. As one woman who cared for her believes, Swinton might well be a victim of sexual abuse who fractured into multiple personalities to cope with the trauma. Others who’ve known her view her as a masterful manipulator with an insatiable appetite for attention. In a brief conversation with NEWSWEEK, Swinton only added to the mystery. “There are so many lies about me that have been published,” she said without elaborating.

The daughter of a convicted murderer, Swinton had a turbulent upbringing in Nashville. By the age of 14, she had run away from home so many times that she became a ward of the state. In her senior year in high school, Rozita accused her father, Clarence Swinton, of sexually abusing her—an allegation she would repeat throughout her life. Though he was never charged with abuse, a restraining order against him—which cites Rozita’s allegations—was issued in 1992. In a recent conversation with NEWSWEEK, Clarence described Rozita as “the world’s greatest con artist,” and denied her accusations. “If there is any victim, it is me,” he said. (Rozita didn’t address the abuse allegations with NEWSWEEK, and her attorneys did not return repeated calls for comment.)

When Swinton was 19, she went to live with Mary Nelson, a social worker who gave shelter to foster kids. Writing under the pseudonym Kate Rosemary, Nelson authored two books that mention Swinton. In “After Disclosure,” Nelson wrote that the girl “had been tragically abused” and “had been diagnosed as having developed multiple personalities, each of which experienced part of her abuse.” When news of Swinton’s arrest broke, a newsletter put out by Nelson’s publisher featured a story meant to defend Swinton. Citing a “source very close to her,” the article claimed that “Rozita has flashbacks to a time when she was an abused child and teenager, and to times when she had been locked up and kept hostage.” (Nelson, who is exceedingly private, declined to comment.)

After leaving Nelson’s home, Swinton headed west, eventually settling in Colorado Springs in the mid-1990s. She became a Mormon and worked in the insurance industry, first as an agent and later in the claims department at State Farm.

Soon, Swinton came to the attention of authorities. Around 1997, she filed the first of some 15 police reports claiming that her father or some other man was sexually assaulting her (Clarence denies he ever visited Colorado). But “we could never corroborate information because she would never do any follow-up,” says Det. Terry Thrumston of the Colorado Springs Police Department.
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Source: Deseret News

Court hearings in Texas on whether to place eight children taken in the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church’s YFZ Ranch in foster care are now slated to begin later this month.

Clerks in a San Angelo court said Friday the hearings were rescheduled for Aug. 18, and could last the entire week. They were previously scheduled for Sept. 25.

“We will present evidence that we believe will justify the non-emergency removal of the children and the attorneys and parents will be represented and can plead their case to the court,” said Texas Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. “The judge ultimately decides if CPS gets temporary custody again.”

CPS filed court papers earlier this week seeking to place the six girls and two boys, ages 5 to 17, in foster care, claiming their mothers refused to limit the children’s contact with men involved in underage marriages. Included in their evidence were documents detailing child bride marriages, including a pair of 12-year-old girls sealed to FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.

An FLDS spokesman has said that CPS still hasn’t proven the eight children are in any immediate danger.

Source: clippertoday.com

For many, living a polygamist lifestyle seems almost impossible to comprehend. For former members of the Davis County-based Kingston clan, however, it was simply the structure on which most of their lives have been based. “You don’t just give up your religion all of a sudden,” said former Kingston member Christy Tucker, who left with her husband and children in 2001.

For members of the Kingston clan, which started in Bountiful in the 1930s and has since spread to other parts of the state, religion is the controlling force in everyone’s daily life. Behaviors are determined by what group leaders call heavenly “directions,” and can cover everything from marriage to schooling to the foods that members eat.

“You already know what you can and can’t do — it’s been ingrained in you since birth,” said Rowenna Erickson, a former Kingston member who is now leader of Tapestry Against Poly-gamy. “You struggle, but you think you’re sacrificing so you can gain eternal salvation.”

Money and food are common subjects of the directions that come from church leaders. According to Brian C. Hales, noted Davis County author of several LDS books and books on polygamy, the leaders retain tight control over their members’ finances.

“We all turned in money we’d earned, even if we were only five years old and it was only five cents or a penny,” remembers LuAnn Cooper, a former Kingston who left the group 10 years ago.

This financial focus is sometimes reflected in the cost-consciousness in the approved menus. An example of this is an emphasis on raw oats, which can be bought cheaply and in large quantities and can feed a large group of children for quite some time.

“The church leader’s favorite wife would get up in church and say that you can feed your children two meals of raw oats and one normal meal, and they’ll do just fine,” said Tucker with a laugh. “Now my kids won’t eat oats on principle.”
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Source: NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

Texas Child Protective Services has effectively admitted that 32 of the children torn from their families on the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado never needed to be thrown into foster care.

That’s not how they put it, of course. Rather, they say they dropped the cases because, according to news accounts, CPS found no evidence of underage marriages or the families “agreed to take appropriate actions to protect their children.”

This is a perfect illustration of why state laws generally say that one should not take a child first and ask questions later unless CPS has strong evidence of imminent danger – and why it is so tragic that such language routinely is ignored.

There never was any indication that if a child was not taken from the ranch today, she’d be married off tomorrow. And, it should be recalled, CPS took infants, toddlers, and other children nowhere near puberty. There was time to find out that these families were innocent without subjecting their children to the trauma of separation from everyone they know and love. There was time to find out these families were innocent and/or willing to “take appropriate steps…” without interning the children in their own private Guantanamo during the first days after the raid. There was time to find out that these families were innocent without inflicting emotional scars that may never heal.

“My little guy was just a baby,” the law guardian for a child believed to be among the 32 told the Deseret News. “There was no reason for them to be in the system.”

Unfortunately, this news was buried in stories that focused on the fact that CPS is trying to put eight FLDS children back into foster care. But those cases also illustrate how CPS got it wrong the first time. In these cases CPS took the refreshingly novel approach of doing the investigation first. In most cases, they zeroed in on specific instances where they allege mothers “allowed” underage marriages and declined to sign “safety plans.” The plans required the mothers to promise not to allow underage marriages and to limit children’s contact with men allegedly involved in such marriages.
… Full article at NCCPR Child Welfare Blog

Read the full story at: Deseret News

Texas child welfare authorities will not say if they plan to drop more cases involving children taken in the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church’s YFZ Ranch.

“Those decisions will be made as we complete individual investigations,” Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said Thursday.

CPS recently filed to nonsuit 32 cases involving children where it has either no evidence of abuse or it believes the parents have taken sufficient steps to protect children from abuse.

“We’re glad to see that CPS recognizes that these mothers are good parents who love their children and are going to do what they need to do to protect their children,” said Cynthia Martinez with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which represents four mothers whose cases have been nonsuited.

“This decision may come four months after the raid, but it proves that the courts were right — these mothers are good parents, and their children were never at risk.”

The decision to nonsuit means that the families are no longer under CPS jurisdiction, attorneys said. But roughly 400 children’s cases are yet to be decided. Court-ordered parenting classes are under way, with FLDS mothers involved and attending.
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