Remember when the state of Texas took 440 children away from their parents? Well, they now claim that only one child is alleged to have been harmed.

The newest report is here:

Texas officials say more than 440 children seized during an April raid on a polygamist ranch can safely live with their parents or guardians.

Authorities feared some girls were being forced into underage marriages and boys were being raised to be perpetrators. The Texas Supreme Court later ruled the action was too broad and ordered the children back to their parents. The Associated Press has learned that so far the custody cases for 235 children have been dropped, and Texas Child Protective Services says more cases are likely to be dropped. Only one child - a girl allegedly married FLDS leader Warren Jeffs when she was 12 - has been returned to foster care.

Study: Women live longer if they have grandchildren, men live longer if they have multiple wives

From Fox News:

Some men may think one is bad enough. But a study suggests the key to a long life may be to get a second wife.

Researchers from the U.K.'s University of Sheffield looked at men older than 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy and found that they lived an average of 12 percent longer than men from 49 monogamous nations, according to a report from the Times of India.

The study's findings were presented last week at the International Society for Behavioral Ecology’s annual meetingin Ithaca, New York, according to the report.

Researchers looked to previous research on women to answer why polygamous men live longer and chalk it up to a variation of the "grandmother effect."

Scientists believe women, who live considerably longer post-menopause than other mammals, do so because the longer they live the more grandchildren they have to dote on. Caring for grandchildren, it seems, gives women a reason to live long after they're no longer able to reproduce.

Doting on grandchildren, however, does not have the same life-lengthening benefits for men. But men are able to reproduce into their 60s, 70s and 80s. So it would seem, researchers said, that polygamous men experience a sort of father effect, meaning, the more wives they have, the more children they father. Fathering children gives them a reason to continue living longer than monogamous men who often stop fathering children at much earlier ages, researchers concluded.

Texas Authorities Again Goes After Polygamist Sect's Children

Well, eight children is a lot fewer than 440 children. The difference could hardly be more dramatic, but possibly the Child Protective Services felt that they had to do something to save face. After two months one would think that CPS would have had time to build a very strong case, but if CPS loses on these few cases, it will really show an agency that is out of control. The AP has the story here:

SAN ANGELO, Texas — More than two months after being forced to return children from a polygamist sect to their parents, Texas child welfare authorities want eight youngsters put back in foster care.

Individual hearings for the four mothers of the children, who range in age from 5 to 17, are set to begin Monday.

Child Protective Services has asked a judge to return the children to foster care because their mothers have allegedly refused to limit their contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.

"We continue to have concerns in particular for these eight children, which is why we have asked the judge to review the case," said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

None of the children live at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, from where authorities took roughly 440 children into foster care in April. Officials said the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which established the ranch, was forcing girls into underage marriages and grooming boys to be adult abusers.

The Texas Supreme Court forced CPS to return the children to their parents six weeks after they were placed in foster care because the agency presented evidence of no more than a handful of teenage girls being abused. Many of the children taken into CPS custody were infants and toddlers. . . .

John Stossel on how the media treats polygamists

John Stossel has a useful piece on how the media treats polygamists here.

"It's female-centered. The women are the ones who are benefiting. ..."

Wouldn't most people say it's about the men getting more sex with more women?

"It's not about another notch on your belt or anything like that. It really is the women who really promote this idea."

Polygamy increases the overall demand for women in marriage and reduces it for men. The value of women on average will rise and fall for men.

More thoughts on the Texas FLDS polygamy case

David Friedman has yet more interesting commentary on the Texas FLDS polygamy case here.

Another delay in releasing Texas FLDS children to their parents.

Wasn't it bad enough that the government had no evidence that the children in the FLDS compound were being harmed? Wasn't it bad enough that some of the mothers who had their children taken away because the mothers were claimed to be children were as old as 27 years old? After stinging rebukes by the appeals and state Supreme Courts, it looked like the children would finally be released to their parents. As it was, the parents were being forced to agree not to leave the state and allow further investigations by Child Protective Services. But now the district court judge is just being obnoxious and will not release the children until all the parents have signed the agreement form, even though that will add days to the release of the children. Obviously, the judge could have released children to their mothers after the mothers had signed the forms, but instead the judge choose this delaying tactic.

Walther had wanted to add restrictions to the agreement worked out by the parents' attorneys and Texas Child Protective Services, but the parents' attorneys argued that she didn't have the authority.

The judge then said she would sign the initial document, but only after all 38 mothers involved in the case the high court ruled on signed it first.

State officials had said earlier that children could start being returned Monday, but attorneys for the parents said the new requirement could add days to the time frame.

The high court on Thursday affirmed an appeals court ruling ordering Walther to reverse her decision last month putting all children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch into foster case. The Supreme Court and the appeals court rejected the state's argument that all the children were in immediate danger from what it said was a cycle of sexual abuse of teenage girls at the ranch. . . .

Texas had no right to take children from polygamists

This court case could eventually lead to the same rights for polygamists as is being demanded for homosexuals. I think that the courts are going to have a hard time differentiating these different types of relationships between consenting adults. In any case, this is just the first in a string of decisions. David Friedman has been following the case very closely. The latest developments can be seen here.

SAN ANGELO, Texas — In a ruling that could torpedo the case against the West Texas polygamist sect, a state appeals court Thursday said authorities had no right to seize more than 440 children in a raid on the splinter group's compound last month.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.

It was not clear when the children — now scattered in foster homes across the state — might be returned to their parents. The ruling gave a lower-court judge 10 days to release the youngsters from custody, but the state could appeal to the Texas Supreme Court and block that. . . . .

The Houston Chronicle reports:

In the decision, the 3rd Court ruled that CPS failed to provide any evidence that the children were in imminent danger. It said state acted hastily in removing them from their families.

The agency had argued that the children on the ranch were either abused or at risk of abuse. The Texas Family Code allows a judge to consider whether the "household" to which a child would be returned includes a person who has sexually abused another child. Child welfare officials alleged that the polygamist sect's practice of marrying underage girls to older men places all its children at risk of sexual abuse.

"The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the Department’s witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger," said the unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel of the 3rd Court. "Removing children from their homes on an emergency basis before fully litigating the issue of whether the parents should continue to have custody of the children is an extreme measure.

The Economics of Polygamy

This discussion on Fox News points to what happens to the relative value of girls and boys when you have polygamy. The boys are driven out of the groups when they turn about 15 years of age.