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NBC chose to lead with the day's other big religion story--the start of the child custody hearings in San Angelo Texas over the 416 children and teenagers of the Yearning for Zion ranch, run by the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints. The courthouse "looked like an emergency meeting of the Texas State Bar Association," joked NBC's Pete Williams. ABC's Neal Karlinsky (embargoed link) saw "a sea of lawyers" in the overflow courthouse. The news media were there in force too, and "even fathers, who have been camera-shy so far" joined the throng, observed CBS' Hari Sreenivasan.
A key new piece of evidence was introduced by child welfare investigators, a document called the Bishop's Record. It documented the 38 family units living at Yearning for Zion, naming the husbands and the women to whom they were "spiritually united" which, NBC's Williams explained, is the sect's term for marriage. The state of Texas argues that these 38 families form one household and that the presence of even a single child bride in the community constitutes evidence that every child and teenager is at risk of abuse, depriving all parents of custody. The network reporters disagreed about what to make of this Bishop's Record: of those 38 husbands, ABC's Karlinsky reported that it showed that a wife's age was "often" 16; CBS' Sreenivasan reported that "at least ten" wives were married by age 16; NBC's Williams found merely "several" under age.
Even more surprising, NBC's Williams reported that of the 38 families on the ranch, only "some" were polygamous.
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