All Those Mothers and Children . . .

I'm a mother. I have children. I struggle a lot lately with what has transpired at the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints compound in El Dorado, TX. I still can't figure out why so many very young children have been taken from their mothers, children who are nowhere near the age of whatever sort of marital union those folks deem acceptable. E'en with the revelation that the phone call that started the whole raid was likely a hoax, those children have been bused clear across the state to live in foster homes with total strangers and to face the prospect of enrollment in public schools. I'm no advocate of plural marriage, but I fail to see how living amongst adults who practice it is much worse than the gang violence, drug abuse, and overtly tacky social mores all too common in institutional education these days.

Child brides are, ostensibly, at the core of the raid and for that I say, "Godspeed and go get 'em." But what about all the children who are babes in arms, toddlers, adolescents? Why separate them from their mothers? Texas finds the money to build sports stadiums the size of small cities, and boasts the largest land mass of the Lower 48 and we can't find room to house those kids AND their mothers until this mess is sorted out?

And seeing as how the FLDS compound was constructed right under the noses of authorities who knew -- I promise you, they knew -- what that community was all about and how they had been living and would continue to live, a "raid" of any sort seems at best extremely heavyhanded. Were they just chomping at the bit all these years, waiting for the call that would give them legal entre? Maybe so.

I really appreciated the comment from our CPS spokesman who called the day of separation a "great day" for those kids. Really? Being torn from the only life you've ever known, your mom, your siblings, your sheltered private education, your faith and thrust into a world of television, androgenous clothing, video games and a general lack of respect for people of faith (whatever that faith might be) is somehow a "great day" if you're five or eight or ten?

My best guess is that even if/when underage marriage is proven, plenty of those FLDS folks are gonna have some solid fodder for a lawsuit based on all sorts of nasty details like religious freedom, reasonable search and seizure, and parental rights in the absence of obvious abuse.

Meanwhile, lots of little children are going to bed tonight in the company of strangers, far away from their moms and powerless to do anything about it.