FLDS

Trials in the sexual assault and child abuse cases will start soon. The 15-year-old girl who was the last of the YFZ Ranch children taken in last year's raid today stopped being a ward of the State of Texas. Read below the fold...

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 below the fold...

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 below the fold...

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. Read below the fold...

[Sarah, this is huge. If the FDLS is getting its twelve-year-old child brides airbrushed out of previously posted stories... We need to know that. Especially since it might happen to other stories, eh? Great Soviet Encyclopedia-style... --lambert] Read below the fold...

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. Read below the fold...

Legal standards and their arguability aside, voices round the world have heralded yesterday's triumph of the theocratic pedophilia cult over the State of Texas. Yet some courts in the state -- even in Austin -- and other voices advocating child welfare are holding out hope for the 400 minors found at YFZ ranch outside Eldorado, Texas, and calling for changes in the laws. Read below the fold...

Read below the fold...