Kids go home and new promises made!

An all around positive day. FLDS kids can go home but families stay monitored and questioned as the case is still gathering evidence. As a bonus, this FLDS sect has made a promise to not allow underage marriages. Hopefully, a more positive outcome lies in the FLDS kids future.

Texas sect children reunited with happy parents

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iIdMpRHjN4hpNKBhfYyAsR4DDo4QD912HU8G0

Excerpts

Parents took 129 of the roughly 430 children in foster care on Monday after a judge signed an order clearing the children to leave with their parents, bowing to a state Supreme Court ruling that the seizure was not justified.

Child welfare officials expected many of the remaining children to go home Tuesday as parents traveled across the sprawling state to foster facilities where the children were scattered.

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Judge Barbara Walther's order requires the parents to stay in Texas, to attend parenting classes and to allow the children to be examined as part of any abuse investigation.

But it does not put restrictions on the children's fathers, require the parents renounce polygamy or force them to leave the Yearning For Zion Ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway sect of the Mormon church.


FLDS makes concessions regarding plural marriage rules

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9462175

For nearly 10 years, the FLDS withstood government pressure and refused to make any public concession on its marriage practices. That changed Monday when the polygamous sect released a four-paragraph statement vowing to abide by marriage age laws in all states. Spokesman Willie Jessop read the declaration, saying it had been issued by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Asked who authorized it, Jessop said, "Joseph Smith." He also said he was unaware if FLDS leader Warren S. Jeffs had any hand in crafting the statement. Here is the statement:

• The church's policies regarding marriage have been widely misrepresented and misunderstood. Indeed, much of the misinformation circulating on this subject seems designed intentionally to fuel the flames of prejudice against the church.

• The church's practices in this regard continue a long tradition of marriage in this country that would have been found to have been unremarkable in 19th century America. In the FLDS church all marriages are consensual. The church insists on appropriate consent, including that of the woman and the man in all circumstances.

• Nevertheless the church is clarifying its policy toward marriage. Therefore, in the future, the church commits that it will not preside over the marriage of any woman under the age of legal consent in the jurisdiction in which the marriage takes place. The church will counsel families that they neither request nor consent to any underage marriages. This policy will apply church-wide.

• The church believes in purity, cleanliness, and innocence. Our children and families are the cornerstones of our lives and our religion. We hope that this modest clarification in policy will alleviate recent concerns and allow the church and its families to reside in peace among our neighbors.