Thought Stew with Carrots and Peas too

 Earlier this month Texas Child Protective Services removed over 400 children from a religious sect at the YFZ ranch outside El dorado Texas by Force with SWAT. The ranch is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Latter-day Saints, a Mormon sect. The group lives peacably with their neighbors, and has remained private for several decades. This high regard for privacy has caused distrust by their neighbors and local officials. After CPS “determined that an immediate danger exists to the physical health and safety of the children who are residents of the YFZ Ranch,” it filed an affidavit in state court to permit the “rescue” of a teenage mother from the 1,700-acre property.

The raid was conducted in response to unconfirmed telephone calls on March 29 and 30 by a teenager who said that she and her 8-month-old infant were prisoners inside the sect .  The girl described many beatings she had endured from the older man to whom she was “spiritually married,” who “was also married to several other women” . The man has been named BUT, has not been arrested because it is a proven fact that he has not set a foot in Texas since 1977. At the end the caller “began crying and then stated that she is happy and fine and does not want to get in trouble and that everything she had previously said should be forgotten”. Although hundreds of other young girls, many of them pregnant, have now been taken into statee custody, Texas authorities have so far not located the girl who called for help.  Therefore her existance is unconfirmed and the story is believed by some to be fabricated.

Mothers within the group have appealed to media and hundreds of pro bono attorneys have come to the aid of these children who have in reality been kidnapped by the state of Texas.

As i have followed this story from the beginning it has smelled of religous bigotry of the highest order. As I sat and watched the news as the children ere huddled like cattle into buses , one thing stood out to me above all others. On the side of the buses carrying the kidnapped children was written “First Baptist Church”. It then began to sink in that the fundamentalist bible beating christian extremists are at it again. In the Bible belt of Texas there is a majority of white, baptists bigots that turn the wheels of government in small towns such as El Dorado. I suspect that religous extremism, greed and anti-mormon bigotry lies at the core of the motives behind this seige of the FLDS children ,  and eventually their land and assets.  The reader should understand that in the history of the Mormon people , the United States government, fueled by protestant fundamentalism has led the persecution of this religion. Under orders of the Govenor of illinois the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith was murdered and later in Missouri an extermination order was issued for the Mormon people. This drove the Mormons west to what is now Utah. Not soon after , the United States under orders of the president sent battallions to exterminate the Mormons because word had reached the capitol that they were building a Temple and a kingdom in Indian territory.  Some years later  Deseret as it was known sought for statehood as a part of the United states and were denied ; 1) Because mormons practiced their faith which included polygamy, 2) the name deseret was a word from the mormon scriptures and a congressman from the south was biased against it.  The result was that the mormon church rescinded the practice of polygamy. However what was to become of those who were already living this way? Were husbands suppose to abandon their wives and children? These families left the Utah territory and settled in areas such as Arizona, Idaho and Texas. Over generations they established a peaceful way of life and continued their faith as they always had.  Here we are almost a hundred years later and the stories of persecution that these sect members have only heard about from their grandparents and great-grandparents are becoming a reality; The United States government is coming to finish their extermination order.
 
Are we going to watch as Waco happens again?