Texas can't take FLDS kids away, says court

Update on the Texas Fundamental Latter Day Saints case, in which over 400 babies and children were seized and sent to foster care all over the enormous state of Texas:

On Thursday, an appellate court ruled that there was no evidence that the children were in immediate danger of physical or sexual abuse. (Which seems right to me; it’s when the girls hit puberty that they’re in danger, not at age 1 or 5, as most of these children were, and in any case they’re in danger from their fathers and the church’s fathers, not their mothers.) If the ruling holds, the state’s case falls apart.

Can’t call this exactly a happy ending, as mothers interviewed by The New York Times said they’d go back to the ranch and the ultra-patriarchal cult that runs it. But it is a victory for justice, denying the government the power to separate children from mothers except where there’s clear evidence of immediate harm, even if they belong to a despised group, whether it’s poor black folk, dramatically over-represented in foster cases, or a misogynist cult. Here’s hoping the decision has ramifications beyond this lurid case.