CPS Agrees To Reunite 12 FLDS Children With Parents For Now

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) – State child welfare authorities have agreed to reunite 12 children from a West Texas polygamist sect with their parents until the state Supreme Court rules on the custody case.

Teresa Kelly, a spokeswoman for the parents’ lawyer, says Child Protective Services agreed to allow the parents to live with their children in the San Antonio area under state supervision. It’s not clear how many families are involved.

The state asked the Texas Supreme Court on Friday to overrule an appellate court decision that CPS was wrong to seize more than 440 children from a ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. CPS said it had to take the children into foster care because the sect pushes girls into underage marriage and sex and raises the boys to be perpetrators.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)