Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Via McClatchy,

"A Senate committee on Thursday heard appeals for the creation of a federal task force to combat polygamist sects that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid described as sophisticated organized crime rings.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, whose office has received nationwide attention for its investigation of a sect in Texas, was among those backing legislation sponsored by Reid, D-Nev. The bill would establish a task force in the U.S. Department of Justice and assist victims of polygamist groups.  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Via the Independent:

"They call it the prairie look: big hair, long dresses, and any colour you like, so long as it’s pastel. Now the women of a Texas polygamist sect are cashing in on their recent infamy by launching a children’s fashion label. The austere clothes, first showcased when inhabitants of the Yearning for Zion ranch flounced up Eldorado’s courtroom steps in an attempt to regain custody of 463 of their children, yesterday became available to the public through the organisation’s online shop.  Read more 

“because her client doesn’t like her.”
A grand jury in Schleicher County is hearing evidence regarding adult members — and possible further sexual misconduct charges against Warren Jeffs — of the YFZ “Ranch.” Cult mouthpiece “Thug Willie” Jessop told reporters today the lawyer for a 16-year-old girl “spiritually sealed” to an older man in the FLDS, a Dallas attorney working pro bono, was mislaying the blame for her client’s intransigence. The lawyer sought a restraining order to keep Jessop away from the minor, alleging he intimidated her. The girl has avoided service of a subpoena to appear before the Schleicher County grand jury.  Read more 

Barack Obama has crossed Focus on the Family’s radar. Perhaps it’s their increasing irrelevance, but the Religious Reich is after the Dem presumptive nominee. Dobson says Obama’s trying to misdirect believers away from “traditional” interpretations of the Bible. How does that saw about one kitchen implement calling the other go again?

A 16-year-old girl has asked to have her pro-bono lawyer removed from her case after she was the only minor child not returned to the FLDS last month. The lawyer says FLDS Spokesman and “enforcer” Willie Jessop has intimidated her client. The nastiness in the name of God goes on forever.

Brooklyn, NY:

A 72-year-old pastor from the Original Church of God of Prophecy was convicted yesterday of sodomizing and sexually molesting a little girl on numerous occasions.

Dieuvais Surin was convicted on all 22 counts of sexual abuse that he faced. He began with taking the little girl into his van, where he fondled her in 1998. On subsequent occasions, he made her perform oral sex and various other perverted acts on him. These incidents occurred in the pastor’s van and apartment, and in the basement of the church.

Surin often waited outside the little girl’s middle school in Brooklyn, and on eight occasions, he then took her into his van and sodomized her.  Read more 

Once again, a church considers its “laws” and actual laws nonoverlapping magisteria:

The Church of Latter-day Saints knew its Sunday School teacher Raphael Caccioppoli had a history of sexual offending against boys but didn’t tell police because it did not think it legally had to.

Neither did the Mormon hierarchy tell the parents of the children he was left to supervise on his own.

Instead, it excommunicated the Justice Ministry judicial officer following a church court hearing in June last year.

Police become aware of his offending only after a tip-off from one of his associates in September.  Read more 

When you’re living on hope, what could possibly go wrong?

Through the years, convicted swindler Val E. Southwick had many things going for him as he convinced investors to part with their money, not the least of which was his standing in the LDS Church.

Yes, he was a convincing speaker, had 20 years of investment experience, controlled a web of 150 companies collectively known as VesCor and drove expensive cars to flaunt his wealth. But it was Southwick’s ability to tout his faith to the faithful that cleared the way for him to make some of the deals that eventually cheated more than 800 investors out of as much as $180 million.  Read more 

Ever wonder how they use those collection-plate dollars?

A former pastor in Spokane has been convicted of attempted rape.

The Rev. Herman Lewis was convicted Wednesday for an April 30, 2007, incident when he offered a woman $50 to have sex with him and then attempted to drag her out of a Shari’s restaurant when she refused.

Lewis was pastor of Morning Star Baptist Church, but lost his job after his arrest.

Why is our world so full of sinners?

If the woman had simply obeyed the word of God and prostituted herself with this holy man — as Jesus surely instructed his pious instrument to demand — this whole problem would have been averted.  Read more 

Greensboro, NC:

A church that suffered the death of one member in January learned this week that a former member has been accused of killing her….

Neighbors in Newell’s Lovett Street neighborhood were shocked to find out that the man they knew as a kind and spiritual neighbor had been arrested in connection with the murder.

Mary Givens was stunned, reflecting on a conversation she had with Newell in April as he prepared to leave the state for a mission trip. He told her that his girlfriend had recently been murdered and her strangled body had been found by her mother.  Read more 

Demons among us:

A 27-year-old grocery store worker who police say punched and kicked his 2-year-old son to death on a country road calmly told motorists who stopped at the scene that he had to “get the demons” out of the boy, two witnesses said Monday.

Sergio Casian Aguiar of Turlock told people who urged him to stop late Saturday that the boy was “trash,” the witnesses said.

Regular readers here will know that for my money the best thing about the Texas governor is that he isn’t W. Molly Ivins used to say the best thing about Rick Perry is his hair. Well, Governor Goodhair took a stand last night, while in France (proof he’s not W. He voluntarily went somewhere overseas!) that actually had me nodding my head and agreeing with him — and his stand is on the FLDS raid in Eldorado, and what he said was,

“I still think that the state of Texas has an obligation to young women who are forced into marriage and underage sex – to protect them. That’s my bottom line on this,” Mr. Perry said during a visit to France.

.

He also offered to take personal responsibility if the raid had “crossed a line.” Texas is out about $7 million, and if you don’t think that had anything to do with the rulings of the appeals court and the state supremes, you don’t know Texas politics.

And maybe Rick Perry’s tired enough of business as usual to defy the conventional wisdom in Texas politics. The rest of what he said is at the link, but this bit bears repeating.

Mr. Perry, speaking in La Baule, France, where he gave the keynote address at a European business conference, was asked if he will fire or discipline any state officials because of the way the case was handled.

“I think that with the knowledge that the CPS had at the time they acted, that they acted with the best interest of those children,” he said.  Read more 

Texas authorities collected Warren Jeffs’ DNA as part of the State’s investigation into four child rapes the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints celebrated as “spiritual marriages” while Jeffs, convicted of conspiracy to commit rape in a separate incident, stayed at the Yearning For Zion ranch near Eldorado . The female children were not born in Texas but were residents of the state when the “spiritual marriages” — recognized by the church but not legal in Texas — took place.

According to the CNN story, The criminal investigation moved to the forefront Friday as a Texas judge refused to sign an order returning to their homes more than 300 children seized last month from the polygamist sect’s ranch. Judge Barbara Walther said she wanted all the mothers involved to sign the order first.

Jeffs is believed to have “committed the felony offense of sexual assault of a child,” the affidavit says. One of the 12-year-olds, who was believed to have married Jeffs on July 27, 2006, allegedly was sexually assaulted by him that day, the affidavit states.

San Angelo state district court judge Barbara Walther didn’t take the appeals’ court and Texas State Supreme Court decisions returning the children lightly, but she is acting to protect the children at risk  Read more 

John Taylor, the Mormons’ fourth president, defending the practice of polygamy: “God is greater than the United States, and when the Government conflicts with heaven we will be ranged under the banner of heaven against the Government. The United States says we cannot marry more than one wife. God says different…”

And apparently that’s enough for the State Supreme Court of Texas, too.

Voltaire famously said, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”I don’t think I’m prepared to go to that length to defend the statements made by the FLDS in custody hearings in San Angelo.

From the San Angelo Standard Times website, news that many of the FLDS children’s individual custody hearings — required under state statute — are now on hold pending the (indefinite) progress of the appeal to the Texas State Supreme Court, which wants the parents’ lawyers to present their evidence against Texas by 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Unlike most AP sources, though, the Standard-Times denies legitimacy to the “marriages” of the polygamous (oh, and in that CBS report last night, the next-door neighbor of YFZ reported that the people in the compound didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor when he asked whether their religion allowed a woman to have more than one husband at the same time) fundamentalists.

As the S-T puts it: Since the initial en masse custody hearing in which 51st District Judge Barbara Walther granted the state temporary custody of more than 450 sect children, CPS investigators have discovered more sect documents listing underage girls at its Schleicher County compound as “married” to adult men, Meisner said. “We were prepared to present evidence to the court today,” she said Tuesday. “We do not know if the parents or FLDS agreed to a quick solution in this case to avoid a public disclosure of that evidence.”

That evidence probably involved more pictures like the ones brought to court Friday in a custody case over an infant — photographs showing Warren Jeffs, then 52 and on the run from the law, lifting a girl who barely stood waist-high into his arms, and then kissing her — passionately, sexually, sensually, in the manner of a “you may kiss the bride” moment. The girl was twelve.

As Bringiton aptly notes in an earlier comment, the “religious freedom” of the FLDS has led to some mind-numbing comments from members of the cult.

The current hearing is in regard to the custody of an infant girl, the daughter of FLDS members. The infant’s mother, Louisa Bradford, was evasive and contradictory in her testimony but did concede that former FLDS Prophet and convicted felon Warren Jeffs had been at the YFZ compound while he was on the run and evading arrest for facilitating child rape. Watchers of the FLDS had speculated that Jeffs was using the YFZ compound as a part-time hideout, considered likely because the FLDS at YFZ are his hand-picked elite and most loyal disciples.

The infant’s father, Rulon Daniel Jessop, testified that he has no problem with his children being around and openly exposed to older men associating with underage child “brides,” including seeing them in close physical contact and deeply kissing. “Everyone has their free agency,” he stated; “It seemed a little wild to me, but you see a lot more wild things driving down the streets of the city at night. I do not consider a girl kissing a man sexual abuse.”

Just everyday living with the FLDS at the YFZ compound according to Jessup even, if the underage girl who has been “spiritually married” to a man 40 years her senior is his little sister. He identified the young girl shown in the pictures below as his sister Merrianne. The photos introduced into evidence are among several showing Jeffs embracing underage girls that were distributed throughout the FLDS community, as announcements celebrating their “spiritual” marriages.

Spiritual marriages, by the way, have no validity in the State of Texas. Bigamy is a crime here. Religiosity is no defense against charges of rape,  Read more 

I often wonder if it is my strict fundamentalist upbringing that allows me more skepticism when someone is trying to sell me swampland in Florida.

I have seen this comment before, I started this campaign pro-Hillary, I loved her since the Clinton era.

I knew that the attacks on her were on her because she was a moderate female. It is a rare thing to have a moderate “equalist” woman anywhere. The top 50 pundits had 7 women only one was a feminist and she was also a moderate.

I am tired of obama supporters, really tired of them.

I will not be blogging as much as I start back to the grind next week.  Read more 

St HOPE is one of private companies Michelle Rhee wants to have take over some DC public schools. She was formerly on the board of St HOPE:

SACRAMENTO BEEAfter a Sacramento High School teacher’s report last year that a 17-year-old student told him she was inappropriately touched by Kevin Johnson, Johnson’s personal attorney and business partner investigated the complaint for the campus.  Read more 

Texas’ DFPS officials say they have evidence that children taken from the Eldorado FLDS compound had broken bones, and that based on interviews with the kids and journals found at the ranch, some of the boys were sexually abused.
A lawyer for the church denies the claims, saying it’s the result of a disease among the sect’s children.  Read more 

and although perhaps one, or maybe two, of these young women might be actually legally married to the men who fathered their children, Texas law suggests NONE had a legal marriage.

State officials took custody of all 463 children at the ranch controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, saying a pattern of teen girls forced into underage “spiritual” marriages and sex with much older men created an unsafe environment for the sect’s children.

Under Texas law, children under the age of 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult. A girl can get married with parental permission at 16, but none of these girls is believed to have a legal marriage under state law.

Under Texas law — or any other state law in the US — only the first non-divorced female partner in a marital relationship is a wife, legally.

So even if you don’t want to call this child abuse, and I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to call it that,  Read more 

According to a 2003 article, the FLDS’ “Bleeding the Beast” strategy extends to keeping school-district posts, with the attendant salaries and control of the schools’ budgets, at least in Arizona, even after the FLDS withdrew its own children from the “apostate” schools. In a session of the Texas legislature about that same time, at least one Eldorado lawmaker was paying attention:

Rep. Harvey Hilderbran of Kerrville, alarmed by reports from Eldorado, the Utah attorney general and sect members who had fled the group, helped push new legislation into law in 2005 that raised the legal age of consent to marry in Texas from 14 to 16, that made it illegal for stepparents to marry their children and made officiates liable for performing illegal wedding ceremonies.

“We didn’t want to facilitate the things we knew they had been involved in before, including child abuse, sexual abuse, forced marriages, that were clearly detrimental to the safety and welfare of children,” Hilderbran tells NEWSWEEK.

“It’s not in the best interest of a 14-year-old girl to be forced to marry her uncle or stepfather or any other man in this cult, because the men are being rewarded for their obedience with these child brides.”

That, right there, is the key to it all —  Read more 

The when the news is bad, don’t they? More than 4000 GIs dead in Iraq, and now 462 minors in foster care after that FLDS raid in Eldorado. That’s right — CPS determined today that among the more than 100 mothers who had stayed with their young children, at least 25 are themselves minors.

Harry Reid thinks the Feds aren’t doing enough to investigate and prevent child abuse among polygamous communities. In San Angelo, meanwhile, the DNA testing and foster placement continue.

Responding to a question arising from the FLDS raid about Texas’ rules on home-schooling, the Houston Democrat said this today:

Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, a House Public Education Committee member who has served in the House since 1993, said the issue is a legal one.
“In all the years I’ve been in the Legislature, nobody has come to me with anything near a compelling case, or even a suggested case, that we should make a priority of greater inspection or regulation of home schools or private schools,” he said.

Y’all wonder how W got away with so much in Texas,  Read more 

In the words of the old joke…

AP:

Christians clash at Jesus’ tomb on Orthodox Palm Sunday
Dozens of Greek and Armenian priests and worshippers exchanged blows at one of Christianity’s holiest shrines on Orthodox Palm Sunday, and used palm fronds to pummel police who tried to break up the brawl.

The fight came amid growing rivalry over religious rights at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built over the site in Jerusalem where tradition says Jesus was buried and resurrected.

“Palm fronds to pummel the police…”  Read more