SAN ANGELO, Texas - For a controversial polygamous sect, a nearly 10-year standoff with government authorities over marriage practices has come to this: a prophet in prison. Property seized. The prospect of a generation of children taken away.
   The ramifications of a Texas judge's ruling that 416 children taken from the sect's YFZ Ranch would remain in temporary state custody have ignited a debate about the intertwining of religious liberty, parental rights and child protection.

..While none argue that abuse should go unchecked, some experts said Walther's sweeping ruling may have handed fundamentalist Mormons who believe in plural marriage a case capable of testing the ban on polygamy at the U.S. Supreme Court level.
    “This is Loving v. Virginia meets Lawrence v. Texas meets Reynolds v. U.S.,” said Firmage. Those cases, all heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, set precedents for government regulation of adult relationships.
  Loving dealt with interracial marriage, Lawrence with homosexual relationships and Reynolds banned polygamy. The last case, heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1890, has never been directly challenged.

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Sixty FLDS women willingly left a cloistered polygamist compound here Sunday to join the now 159 children taken by police and state social workers.
Texas officials can't say why exactly the women agreed to leave the YFZ ranch but said they weren't forced to go and may have left to be with their children.

"I can't really speak for their motivation," said Texas Child Protective Services spokesman Patrick Crimmins. "During the course of our investigation, we've been talking and conducting interviews and we told the women if they wanted to leave the compound, they were free to do so.

"Sixty chose to do so, but I can't say what they were individually thinking."

No adult men have left or been taken from the reclusive ranch, situated near the western Texas prairie town of Eldorado.

Sunday evening, The Eldorado Success reported an additional 32 children and nine adults had been transported from the ranch. CPS officials said more people would likely be taken from the compound throughout Sunday but would not confirm new numbers until a press briefing this afternoon.

All 219 of the FLDS community members who were removed or allowed to leave as of Saturday were taken by bus Sunday afternoon to San Angelo, a town of about 88,000 people nearly 50 miles away. They are now being housed together in a building at the historic Fort Concho, near the Ralph R. Chase State of Texas Services Center.

WAUSAU, Wis. — The three siblings of a girl who died of diabetes that went untreated as her parents prayed instead of taking her to a doctor have been removed from the home during an investigation, police said Friday.

The parents and social services experts agreed the move would be best for everyone, Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said. The children are staying with other relatives, though they were not in danger, he said.

“There is no physical evidence of abuse or neglect,” he said.

Madeline Neumann, 11, died Sunday the Weston home of an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes as her parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, prayed for her to get better. Her mother said she never expected her daughter, whom she called Kara, to die.

The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, Leilani Neumann said.

The children removed from the home range in age from 13 to 16 and are expected to return to their parents once an investigation of the girl’s death wraps up, Vergin said.

Mar 25, 2008 21:20 EST

The former pastor of a Northumberland County church acknowledges using parishioners' personal information to obtain credit cards.
The Rev. Raymond Clayton pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Williamsport to a charge of access device fraud. He awaits sentencing in June. The 43-year-old Clayton is the former pastor of Grace Fellowship Church near Mount Carmel.

It was the middle of the day, and in the village of Sidorovoskaya four visitors turned up unannounced at the church. Armed with automatic weapons, the men broke into the orthodox building and made off with the church's prized medieval icon.

When the priest arrived at the scene the robbers stuck a gun in his chest. "Go home, leave peacefully and forget about us," they said, before escaping in a 4x4.

The robbery last year was the latest in a series of attacks on churches inside Russia's Golden ring - the ancient towns close to Moscow where orthodox Christianity first took root in the 10th century.

Now police in the region have come up with a novel solution to the problem of icon raids: they have advised priests to apply for firearms licences and carry guns.

Given the atrocious state of the area's roads, detectives say that weapons are the only way to deter marauding criminals. The police concede that by the time they arrive the gangs have long gone.

"The police are recommending to priests that they should apply, as private individuals, to the interior ministry's offices and request a licence to own firearms for self-defence," a regional police spokeswoman, Yelena Kirshanova, told Reuters.

MEDIA ADVISORY, March 17 /Christian Newswire/ -- Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and attorneys with the Foundation for Moral Law, representing several Pennsylvania Christians, argued in a brief filed today in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that the state legislature violated the state constitution in 2002 when it added "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the state's "hate crimes" law--under the title "ethnic intimidation."  (Read the legal brief here.)
 
Judge Roy Moore said about this important case:
 
"There is a dangerous trend surfacing in other countries and here in America where governments are trying to make it illegal to speak out against homosexuality, even when such an immoral lifestyle is publicly paraded in the streets.  In their rush to be Pennsylvania's thought police, the legislature broke their own state's constitutional rules.  God alone has the ability to see, and the right to judge, the hearts and minds of men."
 

The first papal visit to Ireland in 29 years could be marred by protests if the Pope refuses to meet victims of sexual abuse by priests over many years.

An organisation representing some of the victims of paedophile priests has written to the Irish Conference of Catholic Bishops asking for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI during a visit expected to take place next year.

The bishops were to receive the warning during a special session held today to discuss matters including ongoing paedophile scandals.

Sean O'Conaill, the coordinator of Voice of the Faithful in Ireland, which includes Catholic priests as well as abuse victims, said that if the bishops refused to arrange a meeting between the victims and the Pope there would be "outrage and disgust".

"In that situation we would be forced to consider dignified protests during the papal visit. A boycott by contrast would be silent and unheard. There would be serious consideration given to protests," he said.

They were the consummate Pentecostal power couple who preached about the sanctity of marriage, held hands in public, even proclaimed their love in a book. Behind closed doors, their relationship was no fairy tale.

On Tuesday, Bishop Thomas W. Weeks III is scheduled to face criminal charges at Fulton County Superior Court for allegedly choking, beating and kicking his estranged wife, nationally known evangelist Juanita Bynum, after they argued in the Renaissance Concourse Hotel parking lot on Aug. 21.

Weeks claims he did not abuse Bynum. He maintains he has been a victim of domestic violence in their stormy five-year marriage.

It will be up to a jury to decide which minister's message is more moving.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said the facts will speak for themselves: Bynum suffered bruises in the attack. A bellman pulled Weeks off Bynum to stop the beating. The bellman heard Weeks threaten to kill Bynum.

"We plan to present evidence of what happened by way of eyewitnesses," Howard said.

Weeks was charged with aggravated assault, terroristic threats and simple battery in connection with the incident.