The Texas Children; A Comment on Parents' Rights

I am not a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints or any of its sects or sub-groups. I don't believe the way they believe and I know of no friends or relatives of mine who do. What I do believe in is parents' rights. The right to bring a child up in the traditions and beliefs that have been held dear by those parents.

I have been following this story as it has progressed and I find that I am more and more inclined to believe that the Child Protective Services in that area grossly over-stepped the authority that was given to them. Based on a phone call, maybe more than one, from some person who claimed to be a teen-aged girl this agency marched into what amounts to a small town and took away anyone who, in their judgment, might have been a child. At this point it's beginning to look like the phone call(s) may have been a hoax; the girl has not been found, if indeed she really is a girl. Once the dust began to settle it was found that at least half of the potential victims are not children; they're legal aged women and at least one of them is reported as being 27 years old. I should also note that I don't recall seeing anything reported that would indicate that any of the girls in custody have claimed to have been abused, sexually or otherwise.

What I see here is rather scary. I agree that there are times when the state should intervene on behalf of a child, but to remove every child from a town based on a report that one child may have been abused? What if that town was the one you live in? Don't say this is not the same thing. This is a group of people who are self-sufficient. They have their own church, their own school, their own businesses. They have everything that any small town has. The big difference here seems to be that they share a common belief. Even though I don't agree with that belief doesn't mean I disagree with their right to hold onto it and pass it on to their children and grandchildren. I submit to you that, if this is allowed to go forward, we'll one day see similar actions in other small towns, and then large towns. I know it seems far-fetched but, taken to its logical conclusion, you may someday be told that only the state can be trusted to raise your children. That may not seem possible now, but when have you ever seen something like this in your lifetime?

I know a man who asks, "How do you eat an elephant?" The answer is: One bite at a time. Maybe this was the first little nibble. Try it here with these people whose way of life is somewhat strange and unpopular with most of the population. If it works here then we can move on to bigger things. I'm not saying that this must be, just that it might be, and it's that 'might be' that scares me.

Something else that bothers me about this is that I haven't heard a lot of people asking questions about this. I'm fairly certain that, if this had been a community of Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists we would have heard a lot by now. If it had been a community of Vietnamese, Mexicans or Samoans we would have heard something. If it had been a community of homosexuals or nudists or any of a great many other minority groups I'm sure that some civil liberty group or another would have organized a march on the capital of Texas, at the very least, and maybe there would have been rioting in the streets. But for these people, hardy a ripple is seen.

So we don't happen to agree with them; so what? I keep hearing them being referred to as a 'polygamist sect', but I don't remember that anyone has been charged with polygamy. After having tried and failed, more than once, I'm convinced that even one wife is too many for some of us. The thing that was used here is that in Texas a girl can't be legally married until a certain age. An age, by the way, that would have put my own parents at odds with Texas law; they were married and happy with each other for more than 50 years before my dad died, and they raised six healthy children. In some states, a girl can be married a year or two younger than some of these were, with their parent's consent. Does that mean that if a couple is legally married in one state and then they move to Texas there is a danger that this wife and mother, along with her children, may be carted off by the Texas CPS storm troopers? Oh, I agree that there should be some lower limit on the age of consent, but I'm sure that anyone reading this knows more than one couple where the girl is under-aged and is living without the benefit of marriage. In fact, I know of some people living together with more than one man or woman in the group home, but since they're not married nobody acts like there's anything wrong with it. Maybe the State of Texas should stay out of its citizens' love life.