law and policy blog

Faculty at the University at Buffalo Law School analyzed the Texas case from multiple perspectives at a lively and provocative Baldy Center presentation held on May 16, 2008. Events have moved quickly since then with the court-ordered release of children, but the basic issues remain. Each perspective framed the “problem” differently, generating a fascinating discussion. Professor Sue Mangold described current federal and state child welfare laws that allowed the state of Texas to remove over 460 children from their Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) families because suspected abuse. Although some states have sought to keep children in families while investigations of abuse are ongoing, Texas has been one of a few states in recent years that have increased their rates of removal of children from their homes. After describing domestic violence laws, Professor Sue Tomkins shared a YouTube video, “Polygamist Mothers Speak Out!” in which she saw signs of possible emotional abuse and control similar to victims in domestic violence cases. Others saw in the video an aggressive and patronizing reporter being challenged by the FLDS women, who sought to be reunited with their children and criticized the media’s use of the word “compound” to describe their “home.”

Professor Dianne Avery discussed the complex family histories—particularly the women’s stories–to emerge from the territorial period, histories formed by both the practice of plural marriage and the criminalization of that practice. Professor Stephanie Phillips noted that a key aspect of the Texas case rests on the age of consent. Phillips argued that the age of consent is a cultural construct that varies across time and space. In Texas, the age of consent for girls used to be 14 but was increased to 16 in 2005, specifically in response to the FLDS families who were moving into Texas. Are the FLDS marriages of 15-year old girls evidence of illegal sexual coercion? Or do they show the State of Texas actively targeting a religious minority? Professor Winnifred Sullivan discussed the history of conflict between Mormans and the law in the U.S., noting the many parallels between this event and similar such raids throughout Mormon history. She circulated Texas guidelines for the care of the children in state custody, which sought to insure that children would enjoy cultural continuity in their foster care situations, and asked whether the state was thereby both “establishing” and “reforming” FLDS religion. Finally, Professor Isabel Marcus placed polygamy in an global context, describing the use of international human rights law to challenge the practice as a violation of women’s rights.