Texas Rep. Harvey Hilderbran seeks to “rein in” FLDS

Religious discrimination in Texas is a group activity involving legislative, executive and judicial branches of government — together with periodic efforts by the Ku Klux Klan — according a collection of recent reports. This one — an illustration of one Republican legislator’s (pictured below with Texas Gov. Perry) apparent disregard for the Texas Bill of Rights — comes courtesy of Grits for Breakfast and the Deseret News.

Excerpts below. The commentary assumes the fairness of the underlying reportage.

Texans had been ‘reining in’ the FLDS via state laws

No zoning rules in sight — but ranch made folks leery

By Andrew Kirk
Deseret News

Published: June 2, 2008

If the Fundamentalist LDS Church wanted to be left alone, it certainly seemed like its members picked the right place out on the west Texas prairie. Isolated and without a planning and zoning ordinance in sight, the FLDS members were basically free to build their Yearning for Zion Ranch with minimal governmental oversight.

In fact, the FLDS were not even required to file for zoning permits. Deputy clerk Sarah McNealy of Schleicher County, where the ranch is located, said there are no rules or regulations of any kind regarding subdivisions for the county. . .

People like to be left alone in west Texas, and the laws reflect that. Once property is legally acquired, governments have little power to interfere, explained Randy Mankin, editor of the Eldorado Success, the weekly newspaper in the closest thing approaching civilization to the FLDS compound. But lack of oversight didn’t equate to the actions of the FLDS going unnoticed.

And when local residents learned in 2004 of the sect’s intent to build a religious compound, there were sufficient concerns to catch the attention of Texas State Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, who began looking for ways to rein in his FLDS neighbors.

“I wanted to make it unappealing to them,” Hilderbran said. “I hoped they wouldn’t stay.”

“Unappealing to them . . . hoped they wouldn’t stay. . .” Rep. Hilderbran, have you ever read your Texas Bill of Rights? Here’s a short excerpt:

… No human authority ought, in any case whatever, to control or interfere with the rights of conscience in matters of religion, and no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious society or mode of worship. But it shall be THE DUTY OF THE LEGISLATURE to pass such laws as may be necessary to PROTECT EQUALLY EVERY RELIGIOUS DENOMINATION in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship.

Do you Texans read? Or do you just put stuff like this in your Constitution to give outsiders the impression that you run a civilized operation down there?

As the compound population grew, Hilderbran wrote HB3006 in 2005 to copy Utah laws targeting polygamous groups. He wanted to amend Texas’ marriage laws to protect minors and prevent polygamy, bigamy and interfamily marriage. But he also wanted to make sure FLDS children were receiving minimum standards of education and that the FLDS couldn’t vote as a bloc to take over rural county and city governments. Schleicher County has a few more than 3,000 residents.

Can you just imagine the uproar that would ensue if Hilderbran had deliberately set about writing laws to be sure that blacks, Catholics or Jews “could not vote as a bloc”?

But his bill stalled in committee. Folks in east Texas complained the bill would prevent marriage between second cousins; . . .

Yep, I’ll bet that was a problem in east Texas, dontcha know!

. . . home-schooling advocates didn’t want more state intervention in curriculum; minority rights advocates worried about how the voting measures would affect other minorities elsewhere, Hilderbran said.

Well, hell, Rep. Hilderbran! Who needs a law in west Texas when you have Sheriff Doran and Judge Walther? Why go to all this trouble?

Before the session ended, he successfully attached the marriage amendments to a Child Protective Services bill that also contained certain family law matters and was less controversial. (The bill received no opposition in committee and passed the House with about 85 percent of the vote.) His amendment raised the minimum marriage age from 14 to 16 and made violation of the law a first-degree felony. It also reaffirmed the state’s prohibition of bigamy and polygamy and made clear that ceremonies performed in place of legal marriage would not be exempted.

Hmm. I wonder what kind of “ceremonies” you might have in mind? Does this bill cover the ceremony that accompanies ordinary adultery? Or just the special, FLDS kind of adultery?

The new laws are already being used to prosecute the leader of another religious sect practicing polygamy (the group is also suspected of underage marriages) called The House of Yahweh. The group is in a compound near Abilene, Texas, 120 miles northeast of Eldorado. The sect began in the 1980s and is not as private and secretive as the FLDS but has been described as “darker.” . . .

“Darker”? What does that mean? So we have a special law specifically targeted to prosecute a specific leader of another religion? At least west Texans tell you what they’re thinking!

Later, while preparing new legislation, Hilderbran sought to increase his watchdog role by “energizing” local agencies to make sure they “did their job” in monitoring the compound — particularly regarding the environment.”You can’t control who comes, but you can enforce and update laws,” he said. “Because our hands were tied, we needed to use the laws we had.” . . .

Hilderbran expressed a little chagrin that the city decided to make money off the FLDS by processing the ranch’s waste. Miller said he thought it was a little unusual that Hilderbran got involved in the way he did. A professional politician, Hilderbran usually comes down on the side of privacy rights both in family and property situations. . .

Yes, that is interesting. Usually comes down on the side of privacy rights. But not when it comes to the FLDS. Now that FLDS folk, ya hear, Harvey gonna “rein in them thar varmints!”

. . . That said, Miller explained, Hilderbran is also someone one might describe as a stereotypical Texan who occasionally likes to play a wild card and do his own thing.

He “doesn’t go off half cocked,” though, and undoubtedly has informed reasons for taking his position, Miller said.

Both Hilderbran and Darby said they are planning to bring new bills targeting the FLDS residents again in the next legislative session, which begins in January. Darby said he is expecting other legislators will do the same now that the compound is under public scrutiny.

How about a bit of “public scrutiny” of hypocritical legislators who violate the Bill of Rights? Where’s the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice?