Rather than removing the women and children and leaving the men, the MEN should have been rounded up and taken to jail. In most states you can hold someone for 48 hours on suspicion alone. They got the call . Yes, now a Hoax, but good enough for the raid. The caller said a MAN was being abusive and hurting is underage wife. They could have picked up all the men on suspicion of committing a crime, witnessing a crime, being party to a crime. etc. They would have them all fingerprinted, pictures taken, etc.

They could have left the women and children at the Ranch. CPS could have had a presence there. Plain-clothed Law enforcement could have stayed there. They are spending over a million dollars on the rounding up and caring for the kids. They could have paid for people to remain at the Ranch to oversea it.

Doing it the way they did... now they have older children even MORE upset and convinced the "outsiders" are evil. They have women who might need help seeing the state as the enemy. And the men, well, the men who most likely did wrong are gone with the wind.

Well, they filed their appeal a little late, as more dirt keeps filtering out about the abuse of these children. Why, oh why, God, did it take four years to uncover this great evil and rescue the children?!

The women themselves are incapable of protecting the children from the abuse. Yea give them back and some FLDS boogeyman shows up saying he's there on behalf of the Prophet and the children are once again at risk.

Ms Voss is right... their belief system is a big danger.

At last, a flicker of sanity: do as little harm as possible to innocents caught in the crossfire. Minimize trauma to the innocent.

In addition to removing all the adult males, a previous offer from the FLDS included stationing any number of monitors on the ranch that CPS felt were necessary to ensure safety of the children.

Investigate thoroughly.

Calmly take whatever measures the investigation determines are required.

Far better than the current CPS approach, which I believe was originated with Humpty Dumpty: "First the sentence, then the trial."

Since I believe that the real goal of CPS is the permanent removal and "deprogramming" of all the kids, I expect the court to shoot this down. Will be a shame, though --

"The only proof of the first criteria was a report of five teenagers under 18 who were or had been pregnant and several other women who had first had children when they were 16 or 17 years old, the court document states. That information came from testimony and a "bishop's record" that listed the names of residents of 37 households, seven of which listed a "wife" at the age of 16 or 17."

Texas law until 2005 said 14 year olds could marry w/parent permission - now it is 16.

"When asked whether Voss would consider allowing mothers to stay with their children if they agreed to leave the ranch, she said it wouldn't be acceptable unless they disavowed their belief, according to the petition."

There is no proof of abuse the CPS raid was directed at their RELIGION ONLY. From these 2 paragraphs no other explanation is possible - This is in direct conflict with the First Amendment to the Constitution.

I believe this petition would be good for the children and the mothers. They are agreeing to do everything but give up their religious beliefs and you will tell me that you would give up your belief just because the state said so. They are offering to get the supposed abusers out of there so they can be with their children. Doesn't this seem like enough for any of you hypocrites out there? My belief is not the way they believe but there are many systems around even in the churches claiming to belong to God. God gives them the same choice that he gives us and he gave those children to them. I actually have nothing against their hair-style or clothes which people should leave alone. These mothers and children have caught the worst end of this whole deal. Just because they still cover up doesn't make it wrong. Only the harlots uncovered in the Bible... There is nothing wrong with modesty in women! This is a complete travesty in their treatment.

Why do some people refer to the children as being arrested?
They were or will not be arrested.
They were taken away from home because no one would claim them as theirs. In other words the adults lied.
Now just where are the children supposed to "go home" to, if no one knows where "home" is?
To the adults that are lying. You will go to hell just as quick for lying as you do stealing.
Oh, I forgot. You have been stealing from the government you hate for years.

The mothers cannot be with their children because they intimidate them into lying and not telling the CPS workers what is really going on down there in Texas. Even when CPS DID let the mothers stay with the kids ( which is far more then the average family involved with CPS would get) the mothers intimidated the children into lying about their ages, their names, their parentage. Heck, Texas doesnt even know who the REAL parents are because of all the lies. I say keep the kids together but leave their lying parents on the ranch.

How can the kids be returned when their names and parental identities keep changing? This is a great lesson on the consequences of lying.

You people don't get it. Regardless of what the women say, if the children remain with them they are automatically put in harms way. These mothers can't be trusted with their children.

To those that think Texas should have just gone in and arrested the men and that would have solved the problem forget the FLDS's practice of reassigning women and children to other men. If the men would have been arrested the women and children would have just been "married" to another dirty old man and the abuse would have continued.

Bottom line, Texas did the right thing to stop the cycle of abuse. Get over it people!

Liars, most certainly. But the mothers are also complicit. They failed to exercise sound judgment and were unwilling or unable to protect these underage girls from systemic abuse. I say give them supervised visitation ONLY.

It seems to me that a child living in a foster home would be much more likely to be abused than a child living its mother.

Anyone else find it ironic the these women say they are willing to live under court ordered circumstances when they supposedly believe the law given to them by God is above the laws of the land. Seems to me if they were as religiously devote as they claim to be they wouldn't give up their religious beliefs/lifestyle no matter the consequences. I thought they considered themselves victims of an evil society, yet now they are seeking help through the evil society's legal system and are willing to do what the evil society's legal system says.

Either they are once again lying, which they have proven very apt at or they actually don't believe in the FLDS teachings as strongly as they claim.

The people on the ranch could have stated these facts during the initial investigation. Instead they disrupted the investigation at every turn. According to the reports, they lied, they rotated homes, they gave false and numerous names, they removed or mutilated identification bracelets, they could not communicate their relationships. CPS knew there was massive abuse, it just couldn't determine who was involved because there was a lack of cooperation. Now these adults who showed no respect and behaved like little children want the state to find them fit enough to return some or all of the children.

To this date, no one knows who is related to whom, so no children can be returned. The FLDS appears to be listing young couples who have just started down the path to their polygamous adulthood. They just aren't old enough to take on a second wife. It isn't polygamy that is the problem anyway. It is the handing over of young girls to old men for sex and childbirth. Until the DNA test results, CPS doesn't know which families handed over their young daughters. Not to mention that there was testimony about male sex abuse, physical abuse and missing boys.

As I have commented before, if the members of the FLDS would simply tell the truth and identify family members and parents, we could get to the bottom of this quickly. But here is the problem; there is an awareness within the FLDS community that they are breaking the law and therefore we see mothers telling their children to lie and create confusion. Why is it so hard to realize what the issues are here? I am looking forward to the presentation of the DNA evidence and the response we will hear from the FLDS then. This should be interesting.

This travesty of justice and extraordinary overreach of government power may finally be confronted in a court of appeals. I am stunned that this horrific abuse of power by a state government agency is tolerated, winked at, or openly accepted "in this case."

I see that the State's/CPS's brainwashing is working.Maybe the Amish will be next,and then the Catholics .I hear that the Catholics serv wine to children ,along with inappropriate relationships with them.

You are exactly right about why it took 4 years to put a stop to this but think about Arizona and Utah that have allowed this to go on for over 100 years. I would assume this fine religion teaches the 10 commandments and I remember one that says "Thou Shalt Not Lie"

It is time to wonder if those who vehemently condemn the most here and elsewhere support abortion. While that might not seem relevant it could be. Jung recognized "projection" as the shifting of our own evil onto others. Everyone has a Shadow. Is it possible those who get or support abortion know it is child abuse, but rather than accept that possibility, maybe there is a fanatic effort to stop other child abuse. What other explanation can there be for rejecting a more calm and rational solution? There is even a call to round them all the men up and arrest them without probable cause despite a warrant based on an anonymous hoax! The next step would be to throw them on the train to concentration camps based on suspicions only. It is time to try to analyze the collective hysteria that is so dangerous to the Constitution.

You can't prosecute somebody's belief system just their actions. And evidence supporting the removal of the overwhelming majority of the children is non-existant.

Interesting how the world views polygamy as an immoral crime. Our second branch of the government in this case went ahead and signed off on gay marriages in California! However, I believe that the men should of been rounded up and thrown in Jail. I feel the children separated from their mothers in not in the best interest for the kids. Texas is famous for it's John Wayne approach to law enforcement...but the state of Texas has more wrongful convictions than all other states combined.