Whoa! Polygamist solution is frightening...

[Pressing-On]

Recapping the case.

I'm in favor of what has happened. What they practice is against the law of God and against the law of the state. Close it down and take the children away from their mothers.

Points:

Though Mormon church founder Joseph Smith reported in 1843 that God commanded plural marriage as a path to the highest level of heaven, the church disavowed polygamy in 1890. Several sects, including the FLDS, split with the main church and continued to practice polygamy.

The underage marriages were condoned by the girls' parents.

In Texas, it is a felony to have sex with a person younger than 17 if the perpetrator is more than three years older than the teen. Sex with any child younger than 14 is considered aggravated sexual assault.

"Religion appears to play little or no role in the allegations about practices at the Eldorado ranch. No religious belief held by an adult justifies any kind of child abuse. No religious belief allows an adult to have sex with an underage girl. One fear is that any children that you don't remove will be themselves abused, and the other fear is that any children you don't remove will be whisked out of the state, which both puts them at risk potentially and impedes an investigation" " Scott McCown, a former district judge.

Most of these children, like the young babies, there is no evidence whatsoever they were under any threat of being physically or sexually abused. You are removing children because 12 or 14 years down the line, they are gong to be sexually molested.

Leaving the Eldorado ranch families intact was not a viable option. Investigators found clear evidence of a pattern of sexual abuse, including 20 girls who had been impregnated between the ages of 13 and 16 and boys who were being indoctrinated to become adult perpretrators of sexual abuse.

State Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville whose district includes Eldorado, speculated that law enforcement and CPS probably had a loose plan in place. Hilderbran remembers talking to CPS officials about the ranch in 2005, when he worked to pass a bill targeted at the sect that raised the legal marriage age with parental consent from 14 to 16. The bill passed.