FLDS, thank God there is some justice...

Wow. I'm glad this AP article summed up all the blunders. There are more details on many blogs, but for crying out loud, I've never heard of such a LARGE blunder.

By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer 18 minutes ago

In a crushing blow to the state's massive seizure of children from a polygamist sect's ranch, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Thursday that child welfare officials overstepped their authority and the children should go back to their parents.

The high court affirmed a decision by an appellate court last week, saying Child Protective Services failed to show an immediate danger to the more than 400 children swept up from the Yearning For Zion Ranch nearly two months ago.

"On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted," the justices said in their ruling issued in Austin.

The high court let stand the appellate court's order that Texas District Judge Barbara Walther return the children from foster care to their parents. It's not clear how soon that may happen, but the appellate court ordered her to do it within a reasonable time period.

The ruling shatters one of the largest child-custody cases in U.S. history. State officials said the removals were necessary to end a cycle of sexual abuse at the ranch in which teenage girls were forced to marry and have sex with older men, but parents denied any abuse and said they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Every child at the ranch in the west Texas town of Eldorado was removed; half were 5 or younger.

"The moms are clearly very happy at the news that it looks like they're going to get their kids a lot sooner than expected," said Cynthia Martinez, a spokeswoman for legal aid attorneys representing 38 mothers who filed the complaint that prompted the ruling. "It's definitely an emotional day."

The case before the court technically only applies to the 124 children of those mothers, but it significantly affects nearly all the children since they were removed under identical circumstances.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled last week that the state failed to show that any more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and had offered no evidence of sexual or physical abuse against the other children.

The ranch is run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which teaches that polygamy brings glorification in heaven. It is a breakaway sect of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.

Roughly 430 children from the ranch are in foster care after two births, numerous reclassifications of adult women initially held as minors and a handful of agreements allowing parents to keep custody while the Supreme Court considered the case.

Texas officials claimed at one point that there were 31 teenage girls at the ranch who were pregnant or had been pregnant, but later conceded that about half of those mothers, if not more, were adults. One was 27.

Under Texas law, children can be taken from their parents if there's a danger to their physical safety, an urgent need for protection and if officials made a reasonable effort to keep the children in their homes. The high court agreed with the appellate court that the seizures fell short of that standard.

CPS lawyers had argued that parents could remove their children from state jurisdiction if they regain custody, that DNA tests needed to confirm parentage are still pending and that the lower-court judge had discretion in the case.

The justices said child welfare officials can take numerous actions to protect children short of separating them from their parents and placing them in foster care, and that Walther may still put restrictions on the children and parents to address concerns that they may flee once reunited.

Papers!

I am so swamped. I just want to whine for a minute, and this is a good place to do it. So if you don't really care, don't bother reading this one.

I have at least 100 papers to go through, I'm sure. I've been making really good progress, but then I downloaded all the new work sent to me yesterday, and it's like I made no progress at all. The best thing I can say is that I'm not late or behind, because everything sent to me has been sent since May 15, and it's only May 28 now. That's completely reasonable. I just want to be caught up before my trip, and still have time to prepare for that!

Two more days of homeschooling. And today, AFTER homeschooling, I will...

go to the bank to put money in it
get Grace some normal, well-fitting, athletic shoes for the massive amount of walking we'll be doing
get the books I put on hold at the library
go to Prospector for picnic supplies, like a water container thingy
go to Joyce's house to trade project completion time around 4pm
eat dinner there
have Rosary with them, Savoys and Ramirez's
Hooray! Day over.

I'd better correct some papers now while it's quiet.

Why I'm not correcting papers right now

Correcting papers is what I mean to be doing all day some days. I have a pile the size of Mt. Everest that I plan to have done by June 1. Really. My phone calls with said students are almost over, in many cases, sadly. I have some students that make me want to continue just so I can have them back, because it's a delight to grade their papers. Even the ones that made me cringe at the beginning of the year have come around! Hooray!

But the mountain includes biology, apologetics, health (they encyclical casti connubi questions and answers and a paper), natural history science, ancient history and lit, American government and Catholic doctrine. It's really not as bad as it's been other years, and all of my parents have been pleasant and reasonable, which is wonderful.

The reason I'm not correcting papers is because the baby won't let me. I put Grace to sleep in my room so she wouldn't wake up Dominic, but my laptop is in there, and if I sit there, he'll barge in and wake her up and press all the buttons or demand to be held or wander over to Gabe's computer and try to break the mouse. It's red and flashy, and attracts him like nobody's business. I could try at 5:30 am when Francis leaves, but Dom's awake by 6, and he'll wake people up if I try to look at a screen. So I did dishes and cooked two casseroles, and folded laundry, which puts me ahead on the domestic goddess side of things. But still behind on papers.

I am quitting this year, at least for a year but probably more. I did not handle well correcting, being a wonderful wife and mother, and trying to homeschool Brandon this year in addition to Gabe. We only got through half of kindergarten. On the other hand, Brandon finally is "getting it" in a lot of ways. His speech has improved greatly, partly because we started memorizing poetry with MODG, and he can actually do it. The sentence structure is sinking in because of the poetry! Isn't that wild? But now he's getting the idea with reading, too! I figured out he can point at the sound I ask for a lot better than pointing and saying it, because after all, he does need speech therapy (peech tewawee). So I say, "Where's "b"?", the sound, not the letter, and he can tell me by pointing. But if I give him a list of letters he knows (yes, he KNOWS them), he can't say them right because somewhere between his brain and his mouth, all of it gets mixed up. He even knows it came out wrong. But I think practice will improve things.

It teaches me patience, but I'm not sure I'm such a fast learner....

Don't ask me why the baby is letting me type. Maybe it's because I'm on my husband's computer. Urrr? Maybe it's the Motrin. He is teething like a madman. He's much happier now than he was this morning.

Oooh, another bright idea I came up with. Ah, those little white lies... but this one was hard to resist. Brandon's birthday is Sept. 10, which means that technically, he'd start kindergarten this upcoming Sept, at age just about 6, instead of last year. So, technically, he could be in either first grade or kindergarten, and for cub scouts, you have to be going into first grade. I know it's killing him to wait, but I'm putting it off for one more year, even if they did let him in. And then I told him he has to read and count to 100 first. It's not true, but I'm not telling him that, because...

It's working!

He's on a roll! He worked really hard and concentrated and wanted to do more reading practice! Which is in stark contrast to the several weeks in which he hid the book from me so he wouldn't have to... :)

There's also the frightening thought that Gabe is going into fourth grade. We sort of skipped a year this year. Funny that, it's a year before I skipped when I was a kid. Gabe just turned eight in May. Let's see, if he ends his fourth grade year by turning nine, that means he'll end his high school career at age... 17. Just barely 17. Which I was also, but I turned 18 in October of my freshman year of college. But wow. I have eight more years in which to raise my kid before I might be waving goodbye! Gabe won't be able to legally drink until the very night he graduates if he goes to Gonzaga. Har har!!

With how fast the years go by now, I know that's going to sneak up on me.

Another thing is that Brandon is 2 years ahead of Gabe in growth. How do I know? Because on our wall, where we measure them from time to time, Brandon's head is where Gabe's was last year. Brandon is now 5, and Gabe is now 8. So at 5, Brandon is as tall as Gabe was at 7. Yikes! Won't be long before I'm the shortest one around here.

The teething baby decided to take his third nap today. I think I will go grade some biology tests now, closely followed by Catholic doctrine.

Enjoy your weekend!

Texas court doing right thing...

HOORAY! At least one Texas court has ruled with the laws of the land. Now return those kids, already!

Court: Texas had no right to take polygamists' kids

9 minutes ago

A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children.

Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators.

The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not demonstrate the children were in any immediate danger, the only measure of taking children from their homes without court proceedings.

Homeschoolers are not open-minded?

I like this post from DHM. If we are such misfits, why are we doing stuff like this? Besides, I went to school and was still a "misfit", so how did school help me so much? Maybe I don't want to do it everyone else's way. Maybe lots of people don't. Usually they are the ones who invent something cool. Ben Franklin and especially Thomas Edison did NOT fit in. Mandela and Gates didn't either. Heck, even Bill Cosby made people think he was headed to juvie, but you know what? The man brings me great joy, as he does to many others.
Enjoy!

In which it's not that small of a world, after all...

A while ago, I posted an excerpt from a magazine column where the author stated that she couldn't homeschool because she liked having her kids "exposed to a bigger world and other ideas." In an article on the NEA website, one teacher writes that without the social mingling in public schools, children will not be permitted to "trade ideas and thoughts with others" and thus will become "social misfits." One blogger wrote last year that "the insular bubble of homeschooling creates people who can't deal with differences." You get the idea, and for the veteran homeschooling readers, it's not a new one. Opponents of homeschooling insist that it will create narrow-minded graduates with dysfunctional attitudes about diversity .

Please take a moment and consider this list with me...
* J. is completing a two year stint working in Germany
* H. is heading to Europe for a trip this summer. She's already been to Kenya and India.
* B. will be spending time in Europe with his company, an overseas assignment he asked for specifically.
* E. has been on several trips to Africa (both for humanitarian and other purposes). She's also been to India.
* M. has taken a group of students to England for a school trip.
* B. has been to El Salvador (for humanitarian purposes) and intends to go again.
* J. has studied abroad in Europe.
* A. has been to Vietnam.

These are all friends or acquaintances of mine and all are homeschool graduates. It's anecdotal evidence, I know, and not documented in a strictly scientific fashion. It just seems like rather a strong indicator that homeschooling made these people less insular rather than more so. They seem to have no problem trading ideas with people from other cultures. There is nothing insular about leaving your country to travel, work, or live in another one.

Posted by TheHeadGirl at 5/19/2008 08:42:00 PM 4 comments Links to this post

FLDS fiasco in Texas

Here is a sample of many posts over at The Common Room (www.heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com), and the DHM has been posting for a while now about the FLDS compound in Texas. 400 children were taken into CPS custody, on a prank call from a lady who has a beef with them. These are polygamous mormons, but the point is that no crime was actually committed, and yet they are ruining these people's lives. If the men need punishing, why is it only women and children who've been arrested and separated? Why do they not have lawyers, and in some cases, no social workers? There are NO broken laws at this point, but there is a lot of ass-covering going on.

They should return them all and start over, since they screwed it up and it's totally unconstitutional. There are lots of people who think like they do. Lots of people are passing judgement on these flds folks, but before you do, make sure you go to The Common Room and type in flds for the labels box, and then look up her posts. Luckily Texas is being sued by some of them, but that won't fix the psychological harm their children have come to.

See below. It makes me really mad.

And if you which government officials we can write to, would you kindly supply that information?

FROM DHM:

Friday, May 16, 2008

I Despair of this Country, I really Do.

These are the sorts of defenses for CPS actions in Texas that people seriously put forth:

fact 1: authorities found something (not yet made public) heinous enough to take all the children from their sick families.

fact 2: fact 1 is all that's relevant, and the rest will be revealed as the investigation continues.

The fact that they took away the children is proof that they had evidence enough to justify taking away the children. And how do we know that? Why, because they took away the children, of course. But how do we know they acted within the law in so doing? Why, obviously because they did it. And they wouldn't have done it if weren't illegal. Because we all know every government agency is always and ever above board and competent and perfectly within legal boundaries. How do we know this? Well, aren't they government? If they did it, it must be legal.

This was America, and I thought secret tribunals were right out.

At any rate, this guy's fact 1? It's not a fact. It's hogwash. Do he even realize that CPS is NOT allowed to remove 400 children from 35 homes without telling why they did it? Obviously not, nor does he care. Rhetorial question.

They can't say, "It's so heinous, we can't even tell you what it is." They have to tell. That's what the 14 day hearings are about. And at that hearing they did not say "It's so dirty we can't even tell you." If they had tried the "It's so heinous we can't tell" line, even Judge Walthiers would have thrown them out.

One hopes.

At any rate, that's not what they said. No. Instead, they said they found religious beliefs that made them unhappy. They found that girls are taught that a woman's highest calling is to be a wife and mother, and that made Angie Voss have heartburn.
They found that this people, like many religious and nonreligious folks believed that children were a blessing, and that gave the judge palpitations.
They found that this people did not use birth control, only Angie Voss couldn't bring herself to say those horrible words in court, and that gave her the vapours.
They found that this people believed in male spiritual leadership and that fathers were the head of the house, and that made the entire department of CPS swoon and plan to denounce and censor all copies of 'Father Knows Best' in the land.

They found pregnant teens, and that was proof of sexual abuse. As it turns out, sexual abuse IS one of the only four reasons CPS can remove a child from his home in the manner that they did, and it is the ONLY one of the four reasons they alleged.

For those who need reminders, these are the FOUR reasons they can remove children from the home in the fashion they did:

1. an immediate danger to the physical health or safety of the child,
2. the child has been the victim of sexual abuse.
3. the parent or person who has possession of the child is currently using a controlled substance,
4. the parent or person who has possession of the child has permitted the child to remain on premises used for the manufacture of methamphetamine.

Only, as it turns out, the only two pregnant teens they had (providing CPS was telling the truth when they said they had just 2 of them on April 29th) turned out to be ADULTS!!

You will not notice pregnant 22 year olds on that list. Nor do you see, "Well there's a 31 year old woman in one home who had a baby when she was 13 nearly 20 years ago in the 90s and in another state."
Polygamy or any other sleeping arrangements of the parents, providing they do not include sexual abuse of a minor child- not. on. the. list.
You don't see, "Has pictures on the wall of a prophet we think is a scoundrel and a skunk."
I might be missing it, but I also do not see, "Said prophet is a bigot and a racist, plus, he's in jail for something really bad." Nope. Cannot find it.
Nor do I see, "These are not a Christian people." It's totally missing. Surely just an oversight, I'm sure.
Wait, maybe I missed one. Could it be that somewhere up there it says, "they are members of a religious group where members don't wear red, watch television, have pictures on the walls, or read fairy tales?"

I know. I am sure it says "the state may remove all the members of a religious group in which former members of that religious sect who left it ten years ago say they were abused by their immediate family members while they were members, and that's why they left."

Well, no. It does not say that. It says immediate danger, and the child has been sexually abused.

How about that?


You know what else we do not see in that list of four items? "Anything so heinous you don't want to tell."

Sheesh. And that's a really strong word for me.

Posted by Headmistress, zookeeper at 5/16/2008 02:33:00 PM 5 comments Links to this post

My 100th Post!

What Dominic does to dr. kits


Grace, Cohen and Moira feeding the fire


Quinn gave Brandon a bow and arrow he made. Oh joy.


Showin' off video of silly kids


Gabe and his girls in the hammock. The favorite game was to tip all your friends out of the hammock and laugh your head off.


Two of our biggest kids with all the little ones. The Cross family needs their land cleared for horses anyway, right?

Wow! I am posting regularly! This is the first time I've ever really done so.

Here are some pictures of the party AFTER first communion for Gabe. The actual communion pics are still on my camera, but these are neat and our friends, the Ross's, have a mac website they upkeep rather well, and I'm allowed to get pics off of there. And that is actually less time consuming than my own pics. I'm so lazy.

The Cross's, Wieber's and del Rosario's had a party on Saturday at the Cross's house in the country, and we all loved every minute. See below! Thanks, Cross's!!!!