Amanda Truth Project

Just in case anyone out there disbelieves that CPS is out of control, let's revisit a 2008 case...or cases as it was.

There was a fundamentalist Church where over 400 children were removed from the care of their parents and put into foster care until those families could prove their innocence (remember our right to a presumption of innocence...I guess that's only in cases where CPS isn't involved). 

I'll be the last person to admit that I would or could ever condone the practice of polygamy; however, there are those in the world who make a good argument for it and that's their concern. 

But does that make it acceptable to remove children?  I thought this country was supposed to be one of religious tolerance among other rumors back in the 1770s of "certain unalienable rights" for all men or something along those lines in this weird document called...hmm...something or other Declaration of Independence. 

The children were in foster care for a couple months from what I was to understand.  Why were they punished and the families ripped apart over one unsubstantiated, alleged phone call from a pregnant girl claiming she was abused?  On top of that, they treated the entire compound as a "single-family" and rounded up every child, half of which were under 5 and surely had no idea why they were being taken forcibly from their crying mothers.  Am I being melodramatic?  I think not given the images burned on my memory of some of those mothers in blue dresses crying for their babies.

Given one additional memory of a moment when I thought that the woman at Fairview Hospital might not allow me to see my daughter...I got to tell you I almost saw red and went ballistic.  Luckily I don't have to know what I'd have done if they tried to prevent me from going to her and touching her and letting her know "Mommy's here."  Knowing that one brief moment of panic and anxiety and fear doesn't compare to weeks or months of not even knowing where my daughter is, I can't imagine what those mothers went through.  I honestly cannot imagine.

When the courts ruled CPS had no right to take those children, the spokesman for the organization mentioned appealing.  They still were upholding that they were in the right!  Now whether that was to save face or they honestly felt virtuous is neither here nor there. How much longer do we persecute these people?

Now consider what red tape you have to go through to just get a sticker for your car registration every year that we place on our license plates.  What these families had to do - drive dozens of miles to courts, hire lawyers (with their own money - guilty until proven innocent and even then you don't get your money back when you win a case like this), listen to judges tell them what they had to do to get their children back, and wait for lawyers to sort out which children are yours, where they got placed, etc. - is surely appalling. 

When's the last time a government agency misplaced an important document of yours? Can you imagine if it was up to you to find that piece of paper?  Now imagine that it's your child.

Reference:

CBS (2008). Court: Texas Had No Right Taking Sect Kids. Retrieved December 14, 2009, from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/22/national/main4118720.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4118720