What's going on in Texas?

Texas officials have taken more than 400 children into temporary state custody while they continued investigating allegations that girls at a remote polygamist compound were being sexually abused by men. (old news)

However, thirteen days have passed and removed every child living there, but they still do not know if they have the 16-year-old whose calls moved them to act.

Now there are questions about whether she really exists. "It's all a farce," says Annette, one FLDS woman whose children are in state custody. "They searched. Did they find her?" Skeptics point to a number of problems with the caller's story, which Texas authorities acknowledge was key to the dramatic raid. No call for help, no raid. (new news)

"There is no verbage or terminology used that leads me to believe the statements were made by someone inside," said Ezra Draper of Hildale, Utah, who left the FLDS sect six years ago. "I think it's bunk."

Yet, the kids are still separated from their mothers. Most of whom (according to the crack media covering the case) claim that they weren't even given an explanation from the State authorities why their kids were being placed into State care.

It is assumed that the strength or weakness of the state's evidence of alleged abuse found at the ranch that will matter when Judge Walther decides whether the 416 FLDS children will go to foster homes, they say.

John J. Sampson, a University of Texas law professor and expert on family law, said those cases will focus on what investigators found once they were at the ranch. But if there was no real abuse going on in there, and the initial call was based on false premises?

Look - if there WAS any abuse going on - hell yes, absolutely prosecute them, throw the phone book on them. Castration comes to mind. There's nothing worse than child abuse, in my feeble little mind. But prosecute the MEN.

However, the false premise, the lack of evidence, the inability to find the whistle blower... it raises questions I'm not hearing in the press. Raiding the 'compound' on false pretenses? Shouldn't that null any evidence they found?

Look, if you've ever seen Big Love on HBO, you've got a little bit of an idea of what's going on. There's a compound separated from the rest of the world - they're not LDS, but an offshoot that practices "the Principle" which is Polygamy. And the State just raided the compound and "rescued" all the children. Children who have (probably) never been away from their mothers or off the compound. Imagine the trauma that's causing those children?

Why didn't they just jail the men? Probably because there was absolutely no evidence? Or better, Texas will be clobbered with a first amendment battle over freedom of religion, or the separation of church and state. But what about the kids?

"The state was absolutely within its rights to take these children," says Marci Hamilton, an expert on church-state issues at the Cardozo School of Law in New York. "There is no religious defense to child abuse and no problem with the separation of church and state when the state stays focused on the abuse."

Bottom line: Unchecked state power needs to be questioned. Goofy religious sect this week... your goofy uncle's pr0n collection next. I just feel for those poor kids.