Glow
Active Member
Responding to claims by disgruntled ex-members and anti-cult activists that the church was engaging in widespread child abuse, 90 state troopers and 50 social workers simultaneously entered the 19 residences and buildings belonging to a minority religious group in the early morning hours, burst into bedrooms, and commanded family members to get up and get dressed because they were there to take the children into custody. All of the children under age 18 were loaded onto busses and transported 20 miles from their homes. The state authorities had planned to interview the children and subject them to physical and psychological examinations in an effort to discover evidence of child abuse.
No, this wasnt Texas in April of 2008, nor was it an action against members of the FLDS Church. The events took place over twenty years ago in the little village of Island Pond, Vermont, on the morning of June 22, 1984.
A religious organization calling itself the Northeast Kingdom Community Church, now known as the Twelve Tribes Community, was founded in the 1970s in the forests of Vermont, about twenty miles from Canada. The group started a small settlement in Island Pond in the summer of 1978 and now has about 50 communities in 9 countries with a total membership of about 3,500. Members live in communal houses and work in businesses run by the church, such as shoe stores, candle shops, print shops, house-restoration businesses, and dairy farms. They try to follow closely the Bible and to create a Kingdom of God on earth. The church believes that children must be disciplined to create a sense of self worth and that the lack of discipline is what is destroying the nation at large.
Corporal punishment is regularly used to train children in obedience and is administered with thin rods called balloon sticks. Members insist that they discipline their children in the spirit of love; however, critics of the religion claim that the children are severely beaten and are victims of child abuse. Other features of the group that have aroused suspicion and prejudice are the communal lifestyle, the fact that members home school their children, the reluctance of the people to register births and deaths, and the distinctive appearance of members, with men being bearded and women wearing head scarves.
Responding to allegations that parents were beating their children, the Vermont attorney general began a series of strategy sessions in the fall of 1983. Meeting with members of the AG staff were anti-cult activists Galen Kelly and Priscilla Coates. Kelly had previously written a six-page report proposing a plan for the destruction of the church by working closely with government agencies. Following the strategy sessions, investigators were sent around the country to interview hand-picked ex-members and tape record stories of abuse. No actual sworn affidavits were obtained except those of the investigators, who quoted hearsay and statements of defectors.
John Buchard, the State Commissioner of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS), headed the agency responsible for investigating child abuse claims. Buchard subscribed to a philosophy of government interference similar to that currently espoused by Judge Walther and CPS authorities in Texas. Subsequent to the Island Pond raid, he wrote two articles defending the raid and advocating laws for more expansive access to children living in minority religious communities. He felt that Constitutional rights were a hindrance to investigation but that social service personnel were aided by the fact that most parents were unaware of their rights and could be intimidated into cooperation by the presence of state officials so that they believed that any resistance would be futile.
Relying entirely on newspaper accounts and anti-cult propaganda from those seeking to destroy the Island Pond group, Buchard became convinced that the children needed to be rescued from their abusive parents and obtained a warrant to search some twenty homes and seize the children because the parents shared a common faith. The charge of a pervasive belief system among the residents of the YFZ community in Texas is reminiscent of this earlier approach.
That the children themselves did not feel abused at the time of the raid or since is evidenced by the statements made at a gathering of parents, children, and friends held in 2000, close to the sixteenth anniversary of after the raid. A Greyhound bus brought 80 of the original 112 children back to Island Pond for the occasion.
Lisa Campbell, who at age 17 was the oldest child involved in the raid, was the first to speak. "I remember that several police officers gathered us into the living room to ask us our names and dates of birth," she said. "As evidence of the supposed child abuse, the police were picking up knitting needles and pieces of wood used to prop the windows open. I remember thinking that this was all ridiculous because I knew the truth: there was no abuse in our household." (Toensing, 2000)
State investigators, however, had believed the unsubstantiated claims made against the Island Pond group and approached parents with the attitude that they knew they were guilty of something terrible and that the investigators now had power over them. Whenever any parents tried to assert their Constitutional rights, they were accused of being uncooperative.
Buchard and his SRS workers seized 112 children and planned to detain them for three days, during which time they would undergo physical and psychological evaluations to discover signs of abuse. The plan might have worked except for the courage and honesty of one manJudge Frank G. Mahady.
The Island-Pond children were bussed about twenty miles to the courthouse in Newport, where Mahady was the district-court judge. Judge Mahady conducted 40 individual hearings, which kept the court in session until about 9:00 P.M. In response to Judge Mahadys question of what harm there was to the children, the assistant attorney general replied, Its as if the child is living amongst bacteria and the bacteria in this case that jeopardizes this childs health is the teachings and doctrines of the church. (In Re: CC. Orleans District Court, Unit III, Transcript, p. 67, 22 June 1984)
After listening to the total lack of evidence in the first 40 cases, Judge Mahady characterized the raid as a massive fishing expedition and ruled that all of the children should be returned immediately to their homes. He then gave opportunity for any parents who desired to speak to address the court. Many parents passionately related their stories of the raid and expressed their deep gratitude for a judge who ruled justly and not according to public prejudice. Court finally was dismissed about 11:00 P.M. In response to the heartfelt gratitude of parents and children, Judge Mahady replied that he was only doing his job. YFZ residents will smile wryly at the recollection of the many state officials who justified their unconstitutional conduct as only doing my job.
Over the next several days and weeks, Judge Mahady issued five separate opinions on the Island-Pond case, totaling 64 pages and severely reproving the state for violating the Constitutional rights of the parents and children:
1. June 25, 1984denied the states request to detain all children for examination
2. June 25, 1984declared illegal the photographs taken of each child by the State for identification
3. July 2, 1984dismissed all cases because religious association is an unlawful basis to allege danger of harm
4. August 7, 1984dismissed all state petitions and ruled that the state was without jurisdiction because it had no allegations of specific facts for specific people
5. August 6, 1984disallowed as evidence all items seized in the raid because the general warrant was unlawful and without probable cause
These opinions contain a number of examples of Judge Mahadys lucid reasoning on proper standards of conduct for state authorities in child custody cases and apply directly to the current YFZ case in Texas or to any case where a minority religion is singled out for persecution:
Adlai Stevenson once noted that guilt is personal, and I might add not communal. Our Court has held many times that mere presence at a particular place is not sufficient to establish participation in a particular act. Therefore, when the court seeks to take the child out of the parental home, it may do so only upon convincing proof. Here, that State lacks any proof whatsoever as to these children and these parents, much less convincing proof. (Detention Order opinion, p. 4)
The phrase child abuse cannot be invoked as talismanic incantation to support the exercise of State power which egregiously violates both First and Fifth Amendment rights. Even where the State acts in a noble cause, it must act lawfully. (Dismissal Order, p. 7)
What the state really sought was investigative detention. In effect, each of the children was viewed as a piece of evidence. It was the States admitted purpose to transport each of the 112 children to a special clinic where they were to be examined . Not only were the children to be treated as mere pieces of evidence; they were also to be held hostage to the ransom demand of information from the parents.
Commissioner Buchard had planned to return children to their parents only if the parents cooperated by giving the SRS investigators certain information. In response to this use of the children as pawns of the state, Judge Mahady said, No human being in the United States may be [so] dealt with by the government officials or by anyone else.
Because of the courage of one man, the 112 Island Pond children were returned to their homes within 48 hours of their seizure. The entire state case was dismissed, and there was no lingering SRS presence to harass the families and attempt further to control their lives.
In recognition of the courageous stand he took in the Island-Pond raid, Judge Frank Mahady was named Vermont Man of the Year in 1984. Following Judge Mahadys death from cancer in 1992 at age 53, the 1993-1994 Vermont Legislature in a joint resolution named the new Addison County Courthouse the Judge Frank Mahady Courthouse in recognition of the fact that despite considerable public criticism, Judge Mahady repeatedly emphasized and upheld the Constitutional rights of all Vermonters, regardless of their age or station in life .
Judge Mahady will be remembered as a man of decency and courage. What a contrast we see between this champion of human rights and Judge Barbara Walther, who, if she continues her manipulative course of collaborating with CPS and trampling upon the rights of parents and children, will be remembered as a petty tyrant and go down in infamy.
Ed Wiseman, one of the founders of the Island-Pond community is quoted in the New York Times of June 19, 2000, as offering these appropriate observations:
The issue of religious persecution and discrimination against new religions is an issue all over the world today. We see a great need for government leaders to make sure that the information theyre receiving about these new minority groups is reliable. Not doing that was what created the atmosphere of moral panic in Vermont in 1984.
Jean A. Swantko, a trial and appellate attorney who defended the Island Pond parents in 1984 and later became a convert to the group, made the following suggestions for state authorities investigating minority religious cultures:
1. Wait on actual evidence of harm or bad acts. (i.e. good faith presumption applies to all)
2. Rely on judiciary, not press or public opinion.
3. Dont trust anti-cult movement (ACM) data as true or reliable.
4. Gain understanding of new religious movements. Scholars are more objective than press or private interests. (i.e., non-reliability of defectors, apostates; financial or discriminatory motives of ACM have effect of denying human rights) (Swantko, Anti-Cultists)
References:
Bazilchuk, Nancy. The Raid Revisited: Island Pond Community Heals Wounds from 1984. Burlington Free Press, 18 June 2000.
Johnson, Sally. Defender of the Faith. Boston Globe Magazine, 12 March 1993.
Swantko, Jean A. Anti-Cultists, Social Policy, and the 1984 Island Pond Raid. August 2000.
__________. The Vermont Cases. In James T. Richardson, ed. Regulating Religion: Case Studies from Around the Globe. New York: Springer, 2004.
Toensing, Amy. Trip Home to Stand Up for Their Community. New York Times, 19 June 2000.
http://www.truthwillprevail.org/
No, this wasnt Texas in April of 2008, nor was it an action against members of the FLDS Church. The events took place over twenty years ago in the little village of Island Pond, Vermont, on the morning of June 22, 1984.
A religious organization calling itself the Northeast Kingdom Community Church, now known as the Twelve Tribes Community, was founded in the 1970s in the forests of Vermont, about twenty miles from Canada. The group started a small settlement in Island Pond in the summer of 1978 and now has about 50 communities in 9 countries with a total membership of about 3,500. Members live in communal houses and work in businesses run by the church, such as shoe stores, candle shops, print shops, house-restoration businesses, and dairy farms. They try to follow closely the Bible and to create a Kingdom of God on earth. The church believes that children must be disciplined to create a sense of self worth and that the lack of discipline is what is destroying the nation at large.
Corporal punishment is regularly used to train children in obedience and is administered with thin rods called balloon sticks. Members insist that they discipline their children in the spirit of love; however, critics of the religion claim that the children are severely beaten and are victims of child abuse. Other features of the group that have aroused suspicion and prejudice are the communal lifestyle, the fact that members home school their children, the reluctance of the people to register births and deaths, and the distinctive appearance of members, with men being bearded and women wearing head scarves.
Responding to allegations that parents were beating their children, the Vermont attorney general began a series of strategy sessions in the fall of 1983. Meeting with members of the AG staff were anti-cult activists Galen Kelly and Priscilla Coates. Kelly had previously written a six-page report proposing a plan for the destruction of the church by working closely with government agencies. Following the strategy sessions, investigators were sent around the country to interview hand-picked ex-members and tape record stories of abuse. No actual sworn affidavits were obtained except those of the investigators, who quoted hearsay and statements of defectors.
John Buchard, the State Commissioner of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS), headed the agency responsible for investigating child abuse claims. Buchard subscribed to a philosophy of government interference similar to that currently espoused by Judge Walther and CPS authorities in Texas. Subsequent to the Island Pond raid, he wrote two articles defending the raid and advocating laws for more expansive access to children living in minority religious communities. He felt that Constitutional rights were a hindrance to investigation but that social service personnel were aided by the fact that most parents were unaware of their rights and could be intimidated into cooperation by the presence of state officials so that they believed that any resistance would be futile.
Relying entirely on newspaper accounts and anti-cult propaganda from those seeking to destroy the Island Pond group, Buchard became convinced that the children needed to be rescued from their abusive parents and obtained a warrant to search some twenty homes and seize the children because the parents shared a common faith. The charge of a pervasive belief system among the residents of the YFZ community in Texas is reminiscent of this earlier approach.
That the children themselves did not feel abused at the time of the raid or since is evidenced by the statements made at a gathering of parents, children, and friends held in 2000, close to the sixteenth anniversary of after the raid. A Greyhound bus brought 80 of the original 112 children back to Island Pond for the occasion.
Lisa Campbell, who at age 17 was the oldest child involved in the raid, was the first to speak. "I remember that several police officers gathered us into the living room to ask us our names and dates of birth," she said. "As evidence of the supposed child abuse, the police were picking up knitting needles and pieces of wood used to prop the windows open. I remember thinking that this was all ridiculous because I knew the truth: there was no abuse in our household." (Toensing, 2000)
State investigators, however, had believed the unsubstantiated claims made against the Island Pond group and approached parents with the attitude that they knew they were guilty of something terrible and that the investigators now had power over them. Whenever any parents tried to assert their Constitutional rights, they were accused of being uncooperative.
Buchard and his SRS workers seized 112 children and planned to detain them for three days, during which time they would undergo physical and psychological evaluations to discover signs of abuse. The plan might have worked except for the courage and honesty of one manJudge Frank G. Mahady.
The Island-Pond children were bussed about twenty miles to the courthouse in Newport, where Mahady was the district-court judge. Judge Mahady conducted 40 individual hearings, which kept the court in session until about 9:00 P.M. In response to Judge Mahadys question of what harm there was to the children, the assistant attorney general replied, Its as if the child is living amongst bacteria and the bacteria in this case that jeopardizes this childs health is the teachings and doctrines of the church. (In Re: CC. Orleans District Court, Unit III, Transcript, p. 67, 22 June 1984)
After listening to the total lack of evidence in the first 40 cases, Judge Mahady characterized the raid as a massive fishing expedition and ruled that all of the children should be returned immediately to their homes. He then gave opportunity for any parents who desired to speak to address the court. Many parents passionately related their stories of the raid and expressed their deep gratitude for a judge who ruled justly and not according to public prejudice. Court finally was dismissed about 11:00 P.M. In response to the heartfelt gratitude of parents and children, Judge Mahady replied that he was only doing his job. YFZ residents will smile wryly at the recollection of the many state officials who justified their unconstitutional conduct as only doing my job.
Over the next several days and weeks, Judge Mahady issued five separate opinions on the Island-Pond case, totaling 64 pages and severely reproving the state for violating the Constitutional rights of the parents and children:
1. June 25, 1984denied the states request to detain all children for examination
2. June 25, 1984declared illegal the photographs taken of each child by the State for identification
3. July 2, 1984dismissed all cases because religious association is an unlawful basis to allege danger of harm
4. August 7, 1984dismissed all state petitions and ruled that the state was without jurisdiction because it had no allegations of specific facts for specific people
5. August 6, 1984disallowed as evidence all items seized in the raid because the general warrant was unlawful and without probable cause
These opinions contain a number of examples of Judge Mahadys lucid reasoning on proper standards of conduct for state authorities in child custody cases and apply directly to the current YFZ case in Texas or to any case where a minority religion is singled out for persecution:
Adlai Stevenson once noted that guilt is personal, and I might add not communal. Our Court has held many times that mere presence at a particular place is not sufficient to establish participation in a particular act. Therefore, when the court seeks to take the child out of the parental home, it may do so only upon convincing proof. Here, that State lacks any proof whatsoever as to these children and these parents, much less convincing proof. (Detention Order opinion, p. 4)
The phrase child abuse cannot be invoked as talismanic incantation to support the exercise of State power which egregiously violates both First and Fifth Amendment rights. Even where the State acts in a noble cause, it must act lawfully. (Dismissal Order, p. 7)
What the state really sought was investigative detention. In effect, each of the children was viewed as a piece of evidence. It was the States admitted purpose to transport each of the 112 children to a special clinic where they were to be examined . Not only were the children to be treated as mere pieces of evidence; they were also to be held hostage to the ransom demand of information from the parents.
Commissioner Buchard had planned to return children to their parents only if the parents cooperated by giving the SRS investigators certain information. In response to this use of the children as pawns of the state, Judge Mahady said, No human being in the United States may be [so] dealt with by the government officials or by anyone else.
Because of the courage of one man, the 112 Island Pond children were returned to their homes within 48 hours of their seizure. The entire state case was dismissed, and there was no lingering SRS presence to harass the families and attempt further to control their lives.
In recognition of the courageous stand he took in the Island-Pond raid, Judge Frank Mahady was named Vermont Man of the Year in 1984. Following Judge Mahadys death from cancer in 1992 at age 53, the 1993-1994 Vermont Legislature in a joint resolution named the new Addison County Courthouse the Judge Frank Mahady Courthouse in recognition of the fact that despite considerable public criticism, Judge Mahady repeatedly emphasized and upheld the Constitutional rights of all Vermonters, regardless of their age or station in life .
Judge Mahady will be remembered as a man of decency and courage. What a contrast we see between this champion of human rights and Judge Barbara Walther, who, if she continues her manipulative course of collaborating with CPS and trampling upon the rights of parents and children, will be remembered as a petty tyrant and go down in infamy.
Ed Wiseman, one of the founders of the Island-Pond community is quoted in the New York Times of June 19, 2000, as offering these appropriate observations:
The issue of religious persecution and discrimination against new religions is an issue all over the world today. We see a great need for government leaders to make sure that the information theyre receiving about these new minority groups is reliable. Not doing that was what created the atmosphere of moral panic in Vermont in 1984.
Jean A. Swantko, a trial and appellate attorney who defended the Island Pond parents in 1984 and later became a convert to the group, made the following suggestions for state authorities investigating minority religious cultures:
1. Wait on actual evidence of harm or bad acts. (i.e. good faith presumption applies to all)
2. Rely on judiciary, not press or public opinion.
3. Dont trust anti-cult movement (ACM) data as true or reliable.
4. Gain understanding of new religious movements. Scholars are more objective than press or private interests. (i.e., non-reliability of defectors, apostates; financial or discriminatory motives of ACM have effect of denying human rights) (Swantko, Anti-Cultists)
References:
Bazilchuk, Nancy. The Raid Revisited: Island Pond Community Heals Wounds from 1984. Burlington Free Press, 18 June 2000.
Johnson, Sally. Defender of the Faith. Boston Globe Magazine, 12 March 1993.
Swantko, Jean A. Anti-Cultists, Social Policy, and the 1984 Island Pond Raid. August 2000.
__________. The Vermont Cases. In James T. Richardson, ed. Regulating Religion: Case Studies from Around the Globe. New York: Springer, 2004.
Toensing, Amy. Trip Home to Stand Up for Their Community. New York Times, 19 June 2000.
http://www.truthwillprevail.org/