Texas kids return to polygamist homes

More than 400 child members of a polygamist sect began returning to their families on Monday after a judge lifted her order giving the state of Texas custody of the children.

Also on Monday, a leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints said the sect would no longer sanctify marriages of girls under the legal age of consent.

State District Judge Barbara Walther ordered parents to be ready for unannounced home visits by authorities to the FLDS compound, the Yearning for Zion ranch in West Texas, and barred them from taking the children out of Texas without court approval.

Local media reported that the children were being reunited with parents who picked them up from foster homes and state care and agreed to take parenting classes, according to the order.

The standoff between the FLDS and Texas authorities has gripped Americans with lurid allegations of adolescent brides, teenage pregnancies and a secretive sect on a remote ranch.

The children were removed in early April after Family and Protective Services received a telephone call reporting that a 16-year-old girl named Sarah was being physically and sexually abused at the compound. "Sarah" was never identified.

"The parents are ecstatic at having a shot at getting their kids back, finally," said Robert Doggett of Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, the lead attorneys for the children.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled last week that the seizure of the children was unwarranted and ordered Walther to lift her April order granting their custody to the state.

The compound is run by followers of jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, who are members of the renegade Mormon sect.

Plural marriage is illegal in the United States but FLDS men typically marry one legal wife while the others become their "spiritual wives."

That may be a way around the law but the sect stands accused of marrying underage brides, which is not legal.

Jeffs was convicted last year in Utah as an accomplice to rape for forcing a 14-year-old to marry her 19-year-old cousin.

"The church now commits that in the future, we will not preside over and sanctify and marriage of any woman under the age of legal consent under the jurisdiction in which the marriage takes place," FLDS elder William Jessop, a leader at the Texas compound, told reporters on Monday.

The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renounced polygamy more than a century ago and has tried to distance itself from splinter groups such as the FLDS that continue to practice plural marriages.

Texas Child Protective Services and the FLDS negotiated through the weekend on the deal, according to Laura Shockley, the lead lawyer for the ranch.

"We will work with the district court to ensure the safety of the children, and to make sure all of our actions conform to the decision of the Texas Supreme Court," Patrick Crimmins of Child Protective Services said in a statement.