The latest turn of events in the YFZ affair

I join a host of people with rather mixed feelings about the court ruling yesterday saying that CPS had overstepped their authority when they removed over 400 children from the YFZ compound outside Eldorado, Texas some weeks ago.

Baptists have numerous children's homes around the state and it is worrisome that one call (now proved bogus) could cause such an action. Suppose CPS showed up at one of our children's homes on the basis of one call and took ALL the children away. One might think this would never happen. But then one is left with the question, "Why could it not happen to us, but it did happen to them?" When you deal with an agency such as CPS that is autonomous (or until yesterday, thought it was autonomous) one anti-religious supervisor could trigger such a reaction.

For CPS, this slap at their authority has been long overdue. In my 34 years of being a pastor and working with CPS (by law not by choice) I have seen their work up close and personal. It is a boondoggle at best, and at worst, an out of place agency functioning in a police state when no such state exists. Their actions are absolute, without question, beyond intervention, and backed up by rubber-stamping judges who generally give them what they want no matter how flimsy the evidence is. Contracted counselors are ignored when they cannot produce the evidence that was the occasion for intrusion and removal. Every outcry is treated the same whether made by a 4 year old or a sulky 16 year old. That changes when these children are adopted where outcries are treated as malicious and untrue. Yea, I cannot help but cheer for all the families that have been stripped of their dignity and their children because CPS said something was going on.

While speaking of CPS, how was it possible for CPS to conjure up 400+ beds for children taken into care, when every night, somewhere in Texas, children are sleeping in the case worker's office because they cannot be placed in a foster home because there are not enough beds?

I am also profoundly puzzled over why other agencies in the State of Texas have done so little against this cult. The last time I noticed polygamy was against the law in Texas. Why weren't some men arrested instead of the children removed? Children were not the ones who wrote the rules of the cult.

The last time I noticed, the Texas Department of Health had to approve the sewer, septic, and water system before a compound like the YFZ ranch could open. I remember the misery the Health Department gave one of our encampments over it's septic system. We had an open air conference center with bathrooms (big mistake). The State came in and wanted us to have a septic system that would accommodate the maximum number of people as if they were living there seven days a week 24 hours a day. No amount of talking, explaining, cajoling, would dissuade the Health Department. It had to be this way. When we were finished, we had put in place a septic system for a community of 300 people just to satisfy the state. So where were they when all this construction was going on? I guess they were too busy harassing Baptist camps.

I feel deeply for the children. However, Texas has once again ignored many opportunities to intervene before it came to this. It makes one wonder exactly what does go on in Austin?