Harry Reid’s FLDS deceit: Let’s have a real hearing on how Texas has dissed the Constitution!

Freedom and Liberty Defenders Society Petition

On July 24, 2008 the United States Senate is holding a hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the FLDS Church and the polygamist lifestyle. In order for this hearing to be fair, we, as petitioners, feel that it is absolutely essential that members of the FLDS Church and those favorable to their cause be invited to testify to give a fair balance of the facts before that committee.

Because of the one sided, and often greatly exaggerated and false reports, officers of the sate of Texas raided a small community called Yearning for Zion Ranch and removed over 420 innocent children from their parents, and held them and two dozen adults in state custody for over two months. The raid was based upon public misconceptions about these people and a hoax phone call. We believe that persecuting the FLDS people in this way, the state of Texas has engaged in an egregious abuse of authority from start to finish and has already wasted over $20 million dollars of taxpayer money.

F B I Director Robert Mueller has stated publicly that he does not feel a federal task force to investigate these people is necessary.

The Federal Government should, instead, be heading a task force to investigate the state of Texas, The Child Protective Services, and every official who had a hand in the massive violation of basic human and religious rights that occurred against these people. We adamantly oppose conducting what could be tantamount to a federal witch hunt based on rumors and innuendo; much of which coming from the same individuals and organizations responsible for the current mess in Texas.

We, as signers of this petition, are not seeking support of the polygamist lifestyle. We are not seeking to legalize polygamy. We are not all sympathetic to the people of FLDS Church or any of its practices. We are not all sympathetic to their position over those who have been invited to the hearing. What we are sympathetic to is the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Indeed, we believe that the very foundation of this country, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, was created to protect all of her citizens from religious discrimination and persecution, even those we do not agree with.

What we are asking for is that all Americans, even members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, be afforded their Civil and Constitutional Rights—rights that the state of Texas conspicuously disregarded in the raid and subsequent events surrounding the YFZ ranch in Eldorado, but which are guaranteed to all citizens of the United States by our Constitution. In the impending hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee has a moral and ethical obligation to hear the FLDS people, who are, after all, the DIRECT TARGET of the hearing.

A legitimate investigation into the activities of the FLDS Church, or any other organized group, would include representation from those favorable to that group, and even from members of the group itself. Please help us make our country free from religious discrimination by listening to us and affording these people their rights.

Reprinted without permission from Voices for the Children. Don’t wait. Make your voice heard! Write your U.S. senators and sign the petition here. The “hearing” is this Thursday.