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Last week's top religion story continued to attract coverage, providing an ironic counterpoint to the pedophile priests of the Roman church. Most of the fundamentalist Mormon mothers of the Yearning for Zion ranch were separated from their children by Texas child welfare authorities and sent back to their sect. They invited the news media to listen to their protestations of innocence of abuse and their outrage at having their children taken from them. All three networks gained access to the "sprawling and usually secretive compound," as ABC's Neal Karlinsky called it. CBS' Hari Sreenivasan counted 51 mothers who volunteered to return to the compound without their children, while only six decided to leave the ranch to seek refuge in a women's shelter. "Only mothers with young children were allowed to stay with their kids," noted NBC's Don Teague.
ABC's Karlinsky called the separation of mothers from children "one more crushing blow" as the women "claimed not to understand why the state was so worried about their children." Inquired Karlinsky: "Do you share a husband with many other wives?" "I cannot answer that at this time." "Why not?" "It is sacred to me." "I take that to mean you do share a husband with other wives." "It may or may not."
After NBC's Teague pointed out that child welfare authorities "still have not identified the 16-year-old girl whose call for help led to the raid," his network's anchor Brian Williams asked for a briefing from NBC's justice correspondent Pete Williams. He said that welfare agencies "are required" to take children out of "the home" if they believe there is evidence of abuse. He added that it is "normal practice" to separate children from their parents. He warned that Texas' decision to remove all the children "may be a problem." Williams did not address whether the entire compound, with 416 children and teenagers, constituted a single home under the law. Nor did he explain why a pregnant 16-year-old's telephone complaint that she was being beaten up by her common law polygamous husband constituted evidence that any children were in danger of abuse from their own parents.
Your use of the word "Mormon" is confusing to your readers. This might help clear up some confusion: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9OqdOM9udv4
Lyman --
Thanks for the clarification. This seems to be the state of the art for nomenclature at the three broadcast networks: ABC uses the formal FLDS or Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints to identify the sect; CBS uses the more colloquial "breakaway Mormons"; NBC mentions LDS or Mormon most rarely but has described the sect as having "long ago parted ways with the Mormon Church."
In order to avoid the confusion that you are worried about do you think Tyndall Report should capitalize the "f" in "fundamentalist Mormons" in keeping with the group's self-identification as FLDS, cap F? I think it is fair to use the words "Mormons" and "members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" interchangeably, don't you?
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