I am disgusted by CPS – again. I am disgusted by the Media – again. I miss my children… again…
So, the saga continues… FLDS, CPS, ElDorado, Media, Rocky, Bullwinkle…. hrrrrm?
My day started out a little emotional with this post as I read the Dallas Morning News Opinion Blog – where Sharon Grigsby posted CPS vs FLDS: 0 for 10 yesterday –and i quote:
A lawyer for a 14-year-old girl that is on a list of so-called “disputed minors” said this morning she is not pregnant as Texas child welfare authorities have alleged. “My client does not have children. (She) is not pregnant. She’s the youngest on the list of disputed minors,” said Andrea Sloan.
“The department is communicating to the public that there are 14-year olds who are pregnant,” she said. Texas Child Protective Services caseworker Ashley Kennedy said that investigations were still ongoing.
The bombshell was dropped during the hearing involving Adeline Barlow, 38, the mother of a 10-year-old and the 14-year-old.
That led to quite a discussion when Grits for Breakfast replied as follows:
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast @ 6:29 PM Wed, May 21, 2008
Your observation that “Some on our staff have said they aren’t interested in my continued posts on this topic” confirms my sense that the MSM is less interested in focusing on information that’s not full of salacious accusations against weirdo polygamists. God forbid y’all actually report the truth instead of whatever phony accusation CPS ginned up that day.Pretty amazing that your colleagues would admit it, though. The facts on which they based their opinions were invalid, but they don’t want to revisit their conclusions. I’m asking myself “Why?”, but can’t come up with a single good reason offhand besides some sort of religious bigotry. What else could possibly explain journalists’ callous indifference to truth?
Which led to other comments on DMN Opinion Blog:
Posted by Shirlee @ 6:38 PM Wed, May 21, 2008
Amen! It is very demonstrative of the media’s duplicity that these “corrections” aren’t as widely snapped up and repeated as gospel as CPS’s lies all along, such as their assertion that they were investigating sexual abuse in boys too. That was spread like wildfire through the media, with the implication that the FLDS were guilty. This turned out to be, of course, a red herring to remove attention from their other atrocities. Thanks for having the integrity to point this out.
and
Posted by Kristi @ 7:31 PM Wed, May 21, 2008
Thank you for covering this. I have a friend that keeps saying I should quit yelling their rights have been violated and read some of the books out about them and learn more about their beliefs.
WHY? Their beliefs are irrelevant as far as I am concerned. I don’t have to agree with them or disagree with them – that doesn’t matter. What matters is that people are treated humanely, and that citizen’s rights be protected. REGARDLESS of who they sleep with, or what picture hangs in their room. Jeez.
Thanks for covering this. The mainstream media is nothing but a statist mouthpiece. THey aren’t reporting because all they can do is repeat what the govt. tells them. They are afraid of real investigative journalism.
So here’s my take on it – from the perspective of a parent who has lost her child to false allegations & CPS: First I’d like to thank GritsforBreakfast and DMN Opinion Sharon Grigsby for their guts, perseverance and dedication to this story.
Doesn’t it seem eerily like the OJ Simpson Murder trial? Where everyone tuned in, it was a news sensation who-done-it, bestseller, and yet – in the mix – people forgot about Nicole & Ron, the REAL PEOPLE who were brutally murdered in an act that was not from a movie script, but from domestic violence.
These are children. These are mothers.
These are people who do not live like “normal society” – and this is their lives.
In a letter from a former FLDS member, dan fischer, to the parents involved in these proceedings, one of the things he talks about is the way these families lived, and the way these women lived as mothers. They do not have television, friends, movies or dinners out, or clubs or dancing or even pictures hanging on their walls. They have their children. Their children have their mothers. These children, if they get an education, it is not like they would get in public school. It is a different lifestyle, belief, way of thinking and living. Is it wrong? Who’s to say? IT IS ALL THEY KNOW. To say that they will need psychological therapy is an understatement. These families are forever changed. The children are no longer innocent at all, secure, or stable. They are forever altered.
Imagine today, someone comes into your office, takes your computers, your pictures, your children, friends, families, etc., and says “EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING IS NOT NORMAL AND YOU ARE GOING TO BE RIPPED APART AND IMPRISONED FOR IT” and you just thought that’s the way things were in life … you were behaving as “normal” and someone comes and rips it all to pieces – because we forget that ‘normal’ is a perspective….
You can’t imagine it – I know I can’t… tho’ I can try. Day to day routine & what you know is based on your experiences, surroundings, teachings, and perspective. Duh… right? Now – how does that tie into the law? How does that relate to the system?
There’s the debate. But wait a minute – the children…. aren’t they the MOST IMPORTANT PART OF ALL OF THIS? Remember the children are no longer protected by the sect and their ‘no television’ rules. They are thrown into “normal’ society – for the first time – So they get their first taste of ‘normalcy’ in a place where children are 11 times more likely to be abused than at their natural home? These are children being introduced to society In a place where anger and rage and social workers and doctors and lawyers and psychotropic medications and abuse and lies and faces change and confusion and more abuse and more rage and new foster mothers and new foster fathers and new schools and new kids and danger and fear and confusion fear confusion confusion…. COME ON THESE ARE CHILDREN!
I am a mother first and foremost, and an advocate for children & families. I fight against pedophiles, crooked CPS workers, and system failures within our government. BUT WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING TO THESE CHILDREN?
As a Mother having gone through this CPS involvement and false allegation thing, I want to say this:
– I know that if I had the media reporting lies & making my case into a rumor-filled-gossip office-watercooler-coffee-break discussion, I probably wouldn’t be here typing this blog post right now. I’d be dead, because I would have committed suicide at least 10 times over from the pain and humiliation and suffering that I ALREADY HAD GOING ON added to that media cherry to the top of the rumor cake. No way. I wouldn’t have made it. I do not speak lightly when I say that. I would not be here. My heart goes out to the mothers and children.
As an Advocate-Paralegal who fights against pedophiles, child abusers, and government system failures – I say this:
Lets suppose a 14 year old gets married to an adult… is the sex still considered pedophilia? If a parent ‘consents’ to marry away the child to their sex partner can they essentially thwart the law? What if that marriage – which makes it legal – is forced …. in the name of ‘consent’ but the child never speaks up… or doesn’t know better..?
Child abuse is child abuse. A child has the right to live an abuse-free life. So then, let’s define abuse….Spanking on the butt? To some – yes. To others – no… Some say “Discipline all children with the rod or the child will be unruly” – Others say “Corporal punishment of any kind is abuse…”
Some say keeping these children apart from mainstream society without the ability to choose for themselves whether or not to watch TV or whether or not to go to public school, is abuse;While to others, its a NORMAL WAY OF LIFE.
Go to college v. get a job ? Dog v. cat ? Toilet paper – put it on the roll with the pull side up? Or down?
We could argue all day long as to who is living right or who is living wrong. We could argue all day about whether or not its abusive to live in a sect or abusive to allow no religious teachings in a family.
But we cannot argue truth vs. lie.
We cannot argue the difference between fact or fiction – perjury – telling the truth in the court of law v. falsifying evidence.
WE CANNOT DEBATE WHETHER CPS WORKERS SHOULD OR SHOULD NOT LIE ABOUT THE CHILDREN AND FAMILIES THEY ARE INVESTIGATING…
IT IS NOT OKAY TO LIE ABOUT THE FACTS OF A CASE
IT IS NOT OKAY TO REPORT LIES IF YOU ARE REPORTING THE NEWS
IF YOU KNOW SOMETHING IS NOT TRUE IT IS NOT OKAY TO ADD TO THE PROPOGANDA BY TELLING THE LIE AGAIN AND AGAIN WHEN IT COMES TO REAL PEOPLE’S LIVES & THE EFFECTS IT WILL HAVE ON FAMILIES (isn’t that right Nicole, Ron?)
While everyone has an opinion, not everyone has a child.
Not everyone has a family or a family problem with CPS.
Not everyone has abuse issues in their lives, or conflicts to deal with, or a religious leader telling them one thing with a government telling them another with media saying something else with people giving opinions and everything they know being taken away, and not everyone understands what is involved in a case unless you go through it yourself.
It isn’t an easy thing to deal with when you live in mainstream society I CANNOT IMAGINE that happening to me if I lived in a removed, isolated, lifestyle like FLDS mothers, and I HAVE BEEN THROUGH IT – So if I can’t imagine it, knowing what I know, I KNOW there are most people out there who have no idea what they are talking about.
But everyone has an opinion. So, here’s mine –
I ONLY WISH I HAD THE NEWS REPORTING AND WATCHING OVER MY CASE THIS WAY WHEN I LOST MY LITTLE BOY –
Maybe then I wouldn’t have scars on my arm from my suicide attempts and the tears that fall when I post this – feeling the shame as I still write, admitting it, for the sake of children I don’t know.
If I had this kind of attention to my case, I might have back the years I lost, and the many more to come since my case caused me such despair because I WAS LIED ABOUT BY CPS TOO. Maybe I wouldn’t have lost everything I owned, friends of 20 years and my children.
Maybe my family members that I don’t see or speak to anymore would be over this weekend with my children who are not in my life anymore and we’d laugh together instead of yearning for my children & family back.
Maybe if I had someone to blog about me and my case when my son was forcibly removed and traumatized I wouldn’t have these nightmares about seeing him beaten & drugged in foster care, & the LIES BY CPS WORKERS and GAG ORDERS that made it okay to hurt my child and destroy me so a pedophile could get his revenge – finally – against me – for leaving him and trying to protect my child… REALLY protect my child….
That’s not news. That’s a life. That’s my life. My son’s life. That’s their life & their children’s lives in ElDorado. That’s the lives of your children AND mine, and unless you’ve been through this kind of horrible thing, you just may not understand.
I pray you never do understand -But for cryin’ out loud – tell the truth…. whether you’re reporting on it, or working on the case, or just talking about it to your neighbors.
If mainstream media entertainment “sells” more newspapers based on CPS LYING ABOUT THESE FAMILIES…. I URGE ALL OF YOU TO JOIN IN A STRIKE.
RIGHT NOW I URGE US ALL TO STRIKE AGAINST ANY NEWS REPORTING AGENCY, BLOG, NEWSPAPER, MAGAZINE OR OTHER NEWS/MEDIA SOURCE WHO KNOWINGLY MISREPORTS ELDORADO OR FLDS FACTS & WHO ASSISTS IN SPREADING CPS’ LIES OR WHO FAILS TO CORRECT ANY MISSTATED FACTS OF ANY FLDS/ELDORADO CHILD WHO IS GOING THROUGH THIS TRAGEDY IN THEIR FAMILY.
IF WE ALLOW CPS TO LIE ABOUT A FAMILY & CALL IT ‘NEWSWORTHY’ THEN WE ARE ALSO CHILD ABUSERS WHO SHOULD BE PUNISHED ACCORDINGLY IF WE ARE TO DO RIGHT BY THE CHILDREN. NO FAMILY DESERVES SUCH ABUSE & ATROCITY NO MATTER WHAT THEIR BELIEFS MAY BE – NO MATTER WHAT LIFESTYLE THEY LIVE.
SHOW THE TRUTH WHEN IT IS REVEALED OR BE JUDGED ALL THE SAME. TRUTH IS TRUTH. REPORT IT TRUTHFULLY OR SHUT UP. TRUTH IS TRUTH.
Please. For the sake of these families.
There’s no question about the integrity of truth v. lie ….
just like you can’t be ‘kinda pregnant’….
Because the swing of every pendulum brings with it potential adverse consequences, it is important to emphasize that in the area of child abuse, as with the investigation and prosecution of all crimes, the state is constrained by the substantive and procedural guarantees of the Constitution. The fact that the suspected crime may be heinous – whether it involves children or adults – does not provide cause for the state to ignore the rights of the accused or any other parties. Otherwise, serious injustices may result. Syl.Pt.3,WALLIS v. SPENCER, 202 F.3d 1126(9th Cir. 2000)
