June 5, 2008

The Texas Two-Step

By James H. Miller

A phone call is made. Supposedly, a young woman reports that she is an underage teen bride being held against her will at a Mormon compound in Texas. Texas’ child protective services moves immediately. This is a compound of polygamist whites operating in a commune separated from the rest of Texas society. Could bureaucrats be given a better target? They find a local judge who allows them to take all the children away from their parents. It seems to be a tremendous victory for the bureaucrats.

Then things begin to unravel. The so-called underage girl can’t be found. Questions begin to be raised about why all 400 children were removed if this was a case of teenage sexual abuse. Half of the children were under the age of five. If it is about sexual abuse of women, why were the boys taken? Why were all parents being punished, as well as their children? Even the ACLU begins to side with the parents. And then the real problem—the courts stepped in. The Texas Court of Appeals unanimously ruled against the bureaucrats. Siding with the defendants, the court rules that the bureaucrats had no evidence or facts to support their allegations. The court also reveals that some of the so-called child brides turn out to be adults. In fact, one was twenty-seven. The bureaucrats respond by taking the case to the Texas Supreme Court, which again sides with the Court of Appeals and orders the children returned to their parents.

The dimensions of this case were quick and overwhelming, but when you step back there are other parts to this issue that deserve to be examined. When the children were removed from the parents, in many instances sibling groups were deliberately separated. Young children who had never known any other life were placed into foster homes or shelters without any family support. You have to question why this was done. Was it simply because this was a supposedly polygamist Mormon sect? If the circumstances were different, if this was a Muslim sect or a commune made up of Hispanics or African Americans, would child welfare bureaucrats really move on these people? Or was it only because they were different and assumed to be outside the usual societal norms?

Another question to ask is: if the goal of child welfare bureaucrats is to separate young children from dysfunctional, unmarried mothers, why would they just pick out Mormons? Do you mean that there are no other small children living with young single mothers in Dallas or Houston? Why not go after them? The answers to these questions may lie more with race and culture than anyone wants to admit. Interestingly, years ago when Hillary Clinton published a book about how it takes a village to raise a child, liberals were ecstatic. Apparently the Clinton philosophy of having everyone in a village taking care of a child doesn’t apply to Mormons, especially in Texas.

The real lesson here is that it isn’t just about Texas. When government bureaucrats can make decisions that change lives in a split section, it can become very expensive to remedy their decisions in the courts. It is a lesson for anyone who thinks that government should be making decisions about the lives of individuals. Bureaucrats make up their own rules. Facts or reality, in many instances, have little to do with their decisions.

Oh, and by the way, under Healthy Wisconsin, bureaucrats in Madison will be deciding health care policy for Wisconsin citizens. Won’t that be swell?