San Angelo, USA - Both sides knew it was coming.
When a polygamous sect began building a secluded community in west Texas, state authorities went to work on ways to shut them down.
But no one predicted the clash would result in this: 416 children in state custody, authorities prepared to remake their lives and a long-silent people speaking out in a desperate bid for their children’s return.
Today, the Tom Green County Courthouse will be the setting for a historic hearing on the children’s welfare. The state will argue parents belonging to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints put them at risk through physical abuse and socializing them into accepting early, illegal marriages.
The parents will resist the state’s attempt to make a single argument that envelops all the families, and defend a lifestyle they say is aimed at raising moral, pure and beloved children.
“We want our families back and we want to be together again,” said Nancy, 19, who said she spent 11 days in the shelter with a diabetic younger sister. “We want our children home.”
The state raided the sect’s YFZ Ranch on April 3 after a 16-year-old girl called a family shelter for help. But authorities still say they have not found the girl, and the man she apparently accused of abuse remains free in Arizona, though authorities have not yet cleared him as a suspect.
On Wednesday, men and women on the ranch spoke in their own defense.
“I pray and pray for Heavenly Father to intervene,” said Lamar Johnson, whose five daughters are in custody. “My work needs to be within myself . . . to let him fight our battles.”
Utah and Arizona authorities are part of this chain of events. Beginning in the late 1990s, both states began prosecuting men who married, legally or otherwise, young girls and in ensuing years passed laws to curtail underage marriages.
Sect leaders looking for safe haven thought they had found it in Texas, which back in 2003 still let 14-year-olds get married with parental permission.
Texas also, unwittingly perhaps, engineered the landmark Lawrence v. Texas U.S. Supreme Court decision that said what adults do behind closed doors is no one’s business.
In 2003, Texas land was still affordable, so the FLDS bought a 1,700-acre spread outside Eldorado and began to build a small city where they hoped peace could reign and spiritual devotion increase. Its centerpiece: a limestone temple.
Members “yearn to be here,” said Janet, whose three children are in custody. “I want [people] to know we’re so happy here and want to be free here to love God with all our heart and strength.”
Soon after their arrival, ex-sect members and child advocates provided a group portrait that was anything but pastoral, claiming systematic abuse was the norm in the FLDS. And one ex-member began feeding information to Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran.
Pressure increased in the sect’s home base of Utah and Arizona, which seized its $110 million communal property trust and began prosecuting men who married underage girls.
Among those targeted: FLDS President Warren S. Jeffs, who is now in prison for rape as an accomplice for conducting such a marriage.
In 2005, the Texas Legislature passed child protection legislation that included provisions targeting FLDS marriage practices.
“The overwhelming majority of people in Texas want to prevent little girls from being forced to be married and forced into sexual relationships,” said sponsoring state Rep. Harvey Hilderbran. “Our laws needed to be updated even if this group hadn’t come to Texas.”
The changes raised the marriage age to 16, outlawed first cousin and stepparent marriages, made it a crime to officiate at illegal marriages and to enter a polygamous union.
“This isn’t a part of Texas values, having polygamy, bigamy and forcing marriage of teenage girls,” Hilderbran said. “We didn’t invite them to come here, but if they’re going to come here, they’ve got to obey Texas law.”
One law is key here: Are girls age 16 or younger assigned in marriage as a matter of course? It’s a question the FLDS deflect but that state authorities are determined to prove as fact.
Salt Lake City attorney Rod Parker, who represents the FLDS families, said Texas has deceived the FLDS at every turn since entering the ranch two weeks ago - most hurtfully when it separated mothers from children on Monday. Now, he said, Texas “has an obligation to treat their people fairly. This is not about winning, it is about reaching a proper resolution for all concerned.”
A state lawmaker says that’s the state’s aim.
“None of us like human misery,” Drew Darby, of San Angelo, said Tuesday. “Nor do we like abuse of our children.”
At the YFZ Ranch Wednesday, the schoolhouse was empty. A woman stood on a porch, head hanging. For the first time in days, men resumed building a new home.
“We’re still depending on the same Heavenly Father to deliver us,” said Gwendolyn, 80, who was 25 in 1953 when Arizona authorities conducted a similar raid aimed at wiping out the group. “I was numb the first time and I was numb this time, too.”
Lamar Johnson, her son, clutched copies of a letter written by his 8-year-old daughter, who is custody along with four older sisters.
Dear Father, I love you. I miss you. I am doing very well. We need you. And we are praying for you. I love you, Avalon.
“I miss my daughters,” said Johnson, his face a portrait of anguish and frustration.