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New numbers have surfaced today as Texas officials released a report on their controversial raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints polygamy compound last spring.
The report says 12 teenage girls, and even preteens, were spiritually married to adult FLDS men. It also says the parents left 262 children without protection from sexual abuse.
To say Texas agencies are on the defensive is putting it mildly. Last summer, the Texas Supreme Court overruled the raid. Within weeks, the heads of the two Texas agencies involved announced retirement -- for other reasons, of course.
Now, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services is clearly hoping skeptical lawmakers will look at the data and conclude the raid was justified.
On one level, the data makes the April raid look like a failure. Texas authorities seized 439 children until a court order sent the kids back to their FLDS parents. State social workers currently maintain open cases on only 15 kids.
On another level, though, the agencies can argue that many kids are now protected who were at risk in a lifestyle, the agency says, where "underage marriages are a way of life."
To maintain custody of their kids, most FLDS parents signed agreements to protect their children and to live by certain conditions, including taking parenting classes. The agency says there's evidence that 12 girls aged 12 to 15, more than one-fourth of pubescent girls, were spiritually married to adult men. At least seven of the 12 bore children.
The agency listed 262 children as neglected. That's because the agency "confirmed" sex abuse in their households, the parents knew about it and did nothing to protect their kids. That abuse allegedly took place in 91 out of 146 families.
The Associated Press quoted FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop saying, "The department has made many allegations that it's never been able to back up, in an effort to justify their barbaric actions. They need to learn how to say we're sorry instead of trying to justify their actions."
In its report, the Texas agency says it has never been about religion; it's about sex abuse of girls and children and about parents who condone it and fail to protect their own kids.
E-mail: jhollenhorst@ksl.com
