Polygamy sect parents say state has scattered children

In a second segment on TODAY, the Dockstaders and Keates responded to viewer e-mails as well as additional questions from TODAY’s Ann Curry.

E-mail question from “Nancy”:
If/when your children are returned to you, will you then return to the ranch, or will you make a new life in society for fear that at any time they may take the children again?

Nancy Dockstader:
“That’s a hard question to answer. The ranch is a different place now. I think the ranch may be scary to the children because of the guns they brought in, the tanks. I just don’t know how the children will feel ... how they were taken away.”

Willie Jessop:
“I think that’s the strategy of the state, to force everyone to where they don’t have an option to go back to the ranch. The way they’re taking them away without any kind of paperwork, it seems there’s a strategic plan to keep people from going back.”

E-mail question from “Dene”:
Every time someone from your community is questioned whether or not you feel it is abuse to have a teenage girl pregnant or married, you all dance around the question. If you all have nothing to hide, why not give a straightforward answer?

Rulon Keate:
“That doesn’t apply to us. We have little boys; we have boys from 9 to 1 year.” (The Keates also have one young daughter, also in state custody, but Keate did not address that.)

Jessop:
“That’s a broad question and you’re trying to make someone answer the question it doesn’t apply to.”

E-mail question from “Sandra”:
What do you consider abuse?

Jessop:
“Abuse is when somebody’s in a situation that they’re forced or coerced into — something that they don’t have control of.”

Ann Curry:
“If someone is having marital relations under the age of 18, is that abuse?”

Jessop:
“There’s a lot of factors that go with that, like parental consent. I think the laws allow for that.”

E-mail question from “Julie”:
If you knew or suspected abuse on the ranch, would you have done anything to stop it?

James Dockstader:
“Absolutely. We wouldn’t allow it in any way.”

Curry:  
“There is this idea that people aren’t free to say and do what they want.”

Rulon Keate:
“I just have to chuckle at that, because we’re the freest people on earth — at the ranch before the government came in. Everybody’s free to go and come as they please. We chose the ranch because we felt like it would be a good place for our children.”

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