Your turn at the Soapbox

"................A Texas appeals court said Thursday that the state had no right to take more than 400 children from a polygamist sect's ranch............

"..............The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the state offered 'legally and factually insufficient' grounds for the 'extreme' measure of removing all children from the ranch..........

"..............The state never provided evidence that the children were in any immediate danger.......

".............The state never provided evidence that teenage girls were being sexually abused, and never alleged any sexual or physical abuse against the other children..........

".............The appeals court also said the state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as an individual household and that any abuse claims could apply only to individual households..........

".............Of the 31 originally believed to be underage mothers, 15 have been reclassified as adults — one was 27 years old — and the state conceded a 14-year-old girl had no children and was not pregnant, as officials previously asserted..........

".............The custody case has been chaotic from the beginning. The hearing in which Walther ruled that the children should all enter state custody ran two days. "

--AP SAN ANGELO, Texas