Mother of missing child Kyron Horman claims Constitutional rights



Governor Ted Kulongoski signed Aaron's Law in 2005

 Desiree Young, whose 7 year-old-son Kyron Horman was kidnapped more than two years ago, filed motions in Multnomah County Circuit Court today, arguing that the civil case should be heard, and that further delay would violate her constitutional rights.

Terri Horman, stepmother of Kyron Horman and the defendant in the civil case, has filed a motion to abate the civil proceedings for at least two years, asserting that her constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment are threatened.


And thus, the opening salvos in the Kyron Horman civil suit will address issues of rights guaranteed by the US and Oregon constitutions.


This civil suit is the first filed under Oregon’s landmark 2005 child abduction statute, Senate Bill 1041, known as “Aaron’s Law”, which provides child abduction victims with new tools when the criminal and family law systems are unable to move forward, and yet there is a missing child.



Under Aaron’s Law, Oregon became the first and (so far) only state in the nation where abducting a child (violating Oregon’s Custodial Interference in the First Degree statue) creates a civil cause of action.


Thus, everything that happens going forward in the Kyron Horman case will be first in the nation.


Local Portland news channels are beginning to devote more resources to understanding the issues that will be at trial, and there will be many.


KGW-8, for example, consulted with Tung Yin, a legal scholar at Lewis and Clark Law School in this story filed by Nigel Duara of the Associated Press:

http://www.kgw.com/news/Kyron-Hormans-mother-fights-lawsuit-delay-164788256.html


The story includes a link to the legal arguments filed today.


Aaron’s Law was written with Constitutional rights in mind, including the right to parent your child without criminal interference from third parties, and the child’s right NOT to be abducted by ANYONE, including friends, neighbors, hangers-on, church groups, and other criminal associates.


The nation’s criminal and family law systems treat the issue of time, the value of time in a child’s life and in the child’s relationships to parents and family, as if time has no importance.

Both systems also provide few tools or options for victims, who are usually put in the position of helpless spectators to processes that are failing to produce a missing child.


Aaron’s Law provides new tools to resolve and deter child abduction cases.


Aaron Cruz died in Payson, Utah from long term medical neglect, abandonment and heartbreak in the course of his Mormon abduction and the shunning imposed on his father by officials in the Mormon Church.


Aaron’s Law also recognizes that many child abductions involve multiple perpetrators, and is triggered by the Oregon Custodial Interference I statute that reaches to any person who takes, entices or keeps a child wrongfully, who provides planning, logistical or financial support to the abduction.


Aaron’s Law followed on the work of the Senate President's 2004 Interim Task Force on Parental and Family Abductions, and was informed by Sean Aaron Cruz’s personal experiences as the father of four children who disappeared from Oregon in a Mormon abduction that began in 1996.

Understanding Aaron's Law, pt 1: The Trigger

 

By Sean Aaron Cruz

July 29, 2012

Portland, Oregon—

The recent civil court motions in Multnomah County in the Kyron Horman kidnapping case are the first filings under Aaron’s Law since the statute was enacted in 2005, when Oregon became the first and only state in the nation to create a civil cause of action for the crime of Custodial Interference in the First Degree.

The number one reason that it has taken so long for a case to be brought forward under Aaron’s Law is because so few people know it exists.  That is about to change, is already changing now.

There are a lot of people close to the Kyron Horman case looking at a completely new application of law right now, intruding at a time when both the criminal and family law systems are failing and time is marching on, and yet a child is still missing, and note the use of the word “intruding.”

Fewer still understand how Aaron’s Law works. The Kyron Horman case is the first of its kind in the nation, and there will be a great many legal precedents set here as the process outlined under Aaron's Law unfolds.

Attention is about to go nationwide. Believe it! There is a presidential election at stake, with a Mormon candidate. This is gonna be good! God does move in mysterious ways, and in this presidential election, He is gonna punish the wicked!

You bet Aaron’s Law is an intrusion!

Aaron’s Law was written for times like these!

Aaron’s Law gives a parent the power to intrude, the power to assert some control into a system that is failing to produce a missing child and that forces a parent to sit on the sidelines and wait, to wait perhaps forever.

Nothing works in a kidnapper’s favor more than delaying proceedings, two years so far in the Kyron Horman case.

This is a good time to explain the law:

Oregon’s landmark anti-kidnapping statute, Senate Bill 1041 “Aaron’s Law”, is triggered when “a person” commits the crime of Custodial Interference in the First Degree.

1. Who: Note that the statute applies to “a person,” making no exceptions.

“A person”…”any person”…”each person”…”every person”…all the same. This reaches to all of those religious zealots and hypocrites out there...a church shunning can very well be a kidnapping.

2. What: DO NOT take, entice, keep (or conceal) a child in violation of these criminal statutes.

“A person commits the crime of custodial interference…if, knowing or having reason to know that the person has no legal right to do so, the person takes, entices or keeps another person from the other person’s lawful custodian or in violation of a valid joint custody order with intent to hold the other person permanently or for a protracted period.”

3. Where: DO NOT remove the child(ren) from the state of Oregon.

4. Why not: DO NOT expose the child(ren) “to a substantial risk of illness or physical injury.”

Abduction by any person—including a parent—is known to be as abusive to the child as any other form of abuse, and is often the gateway to other forms of child abuse.

If Aaron’s Law had been on the books in 1995, then my son would still be alive today, and my family unbroken.

Here are the key elements of Oregon’s Custodial Interference laws:

ORS 163.257 Custodial interference in the first degree.

(1) A person commits the crime of custodial interference in the first degree if the person violates ORS 163.245 (Custodial Interference in the second degree) and:

(a) Causes the person taken, enticed or kept from the lawful custodian or inviolation of a valid joint custody order to be removed from the state; or

(b) Exposes that person to a substantial risk of illness or physical injury.

(3) Custodial interference in the first degree is a Class B felony.

ORS 163.245 Custodial interference in the second degree.

(1) A person commits the crime of custodial interference in the second degree if, knowing or having reason to know that the person has no legal right to do so, the person takes, entices or keeps another person from the other person’s lawful custodian or in violation of a valid joint custody order with intent to hold the other person permanently or for a protracted period.

(3) Custodial interference in the second degree is a Class C felony.

~~~~~

Sean Cruz is the father of four children who disappeared from their Oregon homes into Utah in a Mormon abduction in 1996.

He led the legislative work group on Senate Bill 1041 in 2005, which provides the statutory basis for the civil action filed by Kyron Horman's family.

The bill followed on the work of the Senate President's 2004 Interim Task Force on Parental and Family Abductions, and was informed by his personal experiences as the father of four children who disappeared from Oregon in a Mormon abduction that began in 1996.

SB 1041 became known as "Aaron's Law" in memory of his late son Aaron Cruz (who died in the course of his abduction) at the same time that it passed the House on a unanimous vote, and Governor Kulongoski signed the bill into law with Aaron's photograph on his desk.

Having fought through four jurisdictions in three states against a phalanx of Mormon lawyers who used every trick in the book to delay proceedings in the case of the Cruz kidnappings, Aaron's Law anticipated where the Kyron Horman case would be today.

They are going to remember you now, son....

RomneyGate looms: The Governor's secret hard drives

by Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon--

When Mitt Romney left the governor’s office, he took the unprecedented step of taking all of his staff hard drives and the mail server with him, despite the fact that the drives and all of the information on them were the property of the People of the State of Massachusetts.

What was so damaging that he had to take the physical drives, even the mail server of his entire staff? The commingling of State of Massachusetts and Mormon business? Orders from Salt Lake City? Once a Bishop, always a Bishop, as is said….

Those hard drives had serial numbers, are easily identified. Did they all share the same fate? All completely erased or destroyed? Or selected files, which they would all have in common, although in different physical locations on the drives.

There are surely some great stories here….

And then there is the question of backups. Those files have to exist somewhere. If not, it would take an extraordinarily determined and methodical effort to destroy them all.

Someone should start tracking down those former Romney staff members with a video camera, see what they have to say. Will they scramble for cover like arsonists, burglars or Mormon pedophiles and polygamists when confronted by an intrepid investigative reporter?

If elected, does Romney plan to take the White House hard drives with him also? The Holy Grail of the Romney campaign could be to acquire the power of Presidential Privilege....

Only Bishop Romney knows for sure....

RomneyGate looms....

The Wisdom and the Moral Authority

By Sean Cruz


Portland, Oregon—

“Please tell Sean that I also wish him the best. I have also followed his career and believe his personal experience has given him the wisdom and the moral authority necessary to make a real difference in making Oregon safer for our children.” –Judge Jim Fun, Washington County Circuit Court, January 24, 2007

I received this message from Judge Fun’s judicial assistant. He was writing in regard to the work I had done on the issue of child abduction since my four children disappeared into Utah in a Mormon kidnapping in 1996. Each year, more than 200,000 U.S. children are abducted by their own parents, family members or persons known to the family, as in church-sponsored abductions.

Judge Fun knew the issue and my family’s case very well. In 1997, he had been the Assistant District Attorney who prosecuted the 1st degree Custodial Interference case against my former wife, which came to trial nearly a year and a half after my kids had disappeared, and who were still being held incommunicado in Utah. He had noticed during jury selection that the defense referred to a Washington County LDS church roster, and that there were a number of Mormons on the jury. You know how that turned out. The Mormons stick together like the Borg. That includes both inside and outside the courtroom, if you know what I mean.

But Judge Fun was writing about what I had done since then, with that experience and with that moral authority:

The first and most important thing I accomplished was to stay alive, to survive.

I’m a writer and a blogger, so I wrote and I blogged, posting a couple of hundred pieces over the years. I had alerted and informed Senator Avel Gordly about the issue long before she hired me to serve as her legislative staff in 2003. That year, I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Joint Ways and Means Public Safety Subcommittee, and Senate President Peter Courtney appointed the Senate President’s Interim Task Force on Parental and Family Abduction to examine the issue and report its findings to the 2005 legislature.

I testified before the Task Force in 2004, describing how both the family law and criminal law systems and an order for joint custody had failed to protect my children and my family. The fact is these systems fail in non-stranger abduction cases far more often than they succeed, which explains the high numbers.

The Task Force found that the experience of abduction by any person is harmful to the child, and as abusive as any other form of child abuse.

In 2005, Senator Gordly assigned me to lead the workgroup on her landmark Senate Bill 1041. In that legislative session, I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate Rules Committee and before the House State and Federal Affairs Committee as we moved SB 1041 through the building.

The bill went through ten major rewrites on its way to passage on a dramatic, unanimous House vote on the last day of the 2005 legislative session. It immediately became known as Aaron’s Law, in memory of my late son Aaron Cruz, who had died in Payson, Utah, earlier that year, a direct consequence of his abduction.

With Aaron’s Law, Oregon became the first state in the nation where child abduction creates a civil cause of action, providing kidnapping victims with new tools to see justice served, and real deterrents to abducting a child in the first place.

I’ve written extensively about the particulars of Aaron’s Law at www.blogoliticalsean.blogspot.com and www.AaronsLaw.blogspot.com

So, all this to say that many of my readers who know me through my work on issues other than child abduction and who are unfamiliar with the story of the abduction of my children may think that I might be unfair or exaggerating where I refer to Mormons and Mormonism, but I want you all to know that I am speaking from experience and with moral authority.

On swearing in Mitt Romney

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—Now that the GOP Presidential buffoon-o-rama is coming down to just one left standing, and while it’s all good that Mitt Romney is full of ideas about what he thinks he’s going to do on Day One of a Romney presidency, there is one small issue that will certainly stir up a humongous discussion well before that crisp day in January comes around:

Which Bible would a Mormon prefer to be sworn in with? The New, Improved Mormon bible, or the Bible that the Mormons have built their entire mock-Christian religion around denying is truthful in all its translations, King James et al? They are deep into insulting every non-Mormon form of the Bible.

That’s a good question, worth talking about. Romney could resort to the stack-of-bibles approach, including all of the current versions used by various Christian churches, but those would be the same churches that the Book of Mormon refers to throughout as “whores” or “the Great Whore of a church.” Wowie! That issue should spark a discussion too!

Another good question is where would a Romney Western White House be located? Salt Lake City? Close to the Utah Throne? Near the only guy in the world that God speaks to, according to the Mormons?

And here’s another one, related to the preceding question: How similar to theocratic Utah would a Mormon Presidency be? That’s worth exploring in great depth. Utah is the one state in the nation where state and local government is controlled by a religious sect, the system that Romney says is the center of his life.

There will be more good questions like these down the road….

==============


Sean Cruz writes about child abduction and the loss of his four children in a Mormon kidnapping/shunning at www.blogoliticalsean.blogspot.com


He is the father of four children who disappeared into Utah in a Mormon abduction in 1996, organized by a group of Mormon extremists that his former wife had fallen in with, in retaliation for his criticism of LDS church policy.

In 2005, he led the Oregon Senate workgroup that crafted Oregon’s landmark child abduction statute, Senate Bill 1041, known as “Aaron’s Law”, after his late son Aaron, who died in Payson, Utah as a result of this church-sponsored abduction.

With Aaron’s Law, Oregon became the only state in the nation where child abduction creates a civil cause of action. Without a civil cause of action, a parent of a kidnapped child has no basis in law to hold a kidnapper accountable for the damages the criminal causes.

Under Aaron’s Law, victims can reach those who provided planning, logistical or financial support to their abduction. This is especially significant in cases with multiple perpetrators, as a church-sponsored shunning.

Without a civil cause of action, the parent of a kidnapped child has only two courses of action: the family law system or the criminal system, both of which routinely fail the child and the family in abduction cases.

The U.S. Department of Justice documents more than 200,000 cases each year of parental and family abductions, year after year, and many of those children are never recovered.

Aaron’s Law passed the Oregon House on a unanimous vote, the last stop on its way to the Governor for signature into law, but is still in need of amending and refining in order to be truly effective in both preventing and resolving abductions.

Aaron’s Law should be modeled in other states, eventually becoming the law of the land.

With Aaron’s Law, my son’s death is not for nothing, and his life not without honor.

I couldn't be happier...been a long time comin'...You know who you are

By Sean Cruz


Portland, Oregon—I couldn’t be happier than to see Mitt Romney, Mormon bishop Mitt Romney, become the GOP nominee for President!


See why in my comments posted on The Oregonian Editorial Board’s “Oregon GOP should pick Mitt” endorsement, April 7, 2012, right here:


http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/04/oregon_gop_should_pick_mitt.html


And to the Mormons who kidnapped my children, hid them in Utah, ruined my son Aaron’s life and let him die, I want you to know that payback is gonna be a bitch! It’s been a long time coming. You know who you are….


=======


Sean Cruz writes and posts about the issue of child abduction and the story of the Mormon kidnapping of his children at www.blogoliticalsean.blogspot.com

He is the father of four children who disappeared into Utah on February 12, 1996 in a Mormon abduction/shunning. He had spoken out in opposition to certain practices and doctrines of the LDS church, including its racist attitudes toward people of color, its coercion of women into roles subservient to men, and for forcing young people to choose between the church and their own families when marrying into the Mormon religion.


In retribution for his remarks, Mormon officials in three states connived to cause his children to vanish from their Oregon homes during the Great Storm that struck the Pacific Northwest in February, 1996, just ten days after his baby girl’s eighth birthday. His mother would die four years later without contact with her grandchildren, as the Mormons enforced their “no contact” rules against those they regarded as apostates.


He pursued the recovery of his children through four jurisdictions in three states while both the criminal and family law systems failed to either protect his family or uphold the joint custody order that had kept his children’s lives safe and secure for five years preceding the abduction.


The Cruz children were initially concealed in the mountains east of Ogden at the home of Mormon official Kory Wright and his wife, who were the principle organizers of the kidnapping. In 2009, he confronted his children’s abductor in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel in Vancouver, Washington:


Counting coup on an Oregon kidnapper


http://blogoliticalsean.blogspot.com/2011/04/on-counting-coup-on-kidnapper.html


His son Aaron Cruz died in the course of the abduction, alone and without medical care, in Payson, Utah.


As Senator Avel Gordly’s chief of staff, Sean led the workgroup on parental and family abduction that resulted in Senate Bill 1041, known as “Aaron’s Law” in memory of his late son, which passed the Oregon House on a unanimous vote in 2005.


With Aaron’s Law, Oregon became the only state in the nation where the abduction of a child creates a civil cause of action, which provides kidnapping victims new avenues of recourse to hold their abductors accountable.


Sean Cruz hopes to see the principles of Aaron’s Law enacted nationwide.

Governor Kulongoski signed Senate Bill 1041 into law with my son Aaron’s photo on his desk.


For all of those parental and family abductions that will not take place in the future for his sacrifice, my son did not die in vain or without honor….

On Presidential candidate Mitt Romney: Pink Slips and Slit Throats

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon— Mitt Romney’s zeal for issuing pink slips to middle class workers whose jobs he’s destroying is well established by his own admissions, but his participation in Mormon throat-slitting rituals has been kept under wraps (so far) by the LDS church’s (so far) successful campaign to keep specific aspects of the highly secretive religion out of public view.

A new BBC documentary titled “The Mormon Candidate” examines the issues that are somehow off-limits in U.S. political discourse in 2012, among them the LDS practice of destroying families by requiring its members to shun those who leave the church or who speak out in opposition, and the symbolism of throat-slitting and disemboweling gestures made in secret Mormon temple practices.

Mormon temple ordinances required devotees to symbolize a knife slicing across their own throats with a finger, and the same gesture across the belly as an act of promised hari kiri if they were to reveal any temple secret to an outsider. The mumbo-jumbo litany that Mormons would chant as they made the gestures made it clear that if they got crosswise with the LDS hierarchy, they would be cutting their own throats and disemboweling themselves, and all Mormon church members would have “no contact” with them, at all, ever. In other words, a shunning would take place.

All of that inside information is available on the Web now, posted by former Mormon insiders, who aren’t making up any of it.

These two segments describe how Mormon shunnings work. The interviews include a high Mormon official denying the throat- and belly-slitting, denying that shunning takes place, and otherwise illustrating his superb prevaricational skills.

A look-alike relative of Mitt Romney discloses how his views drew a shunning that is still active, like mine. Mormon shunnings are forever, and all family members (including the children) are forced into compliance or face the same fate, with real consequences in that closed-off Mormon society.

I have written and spoken about these practices for many years subsequent to the Mormon abduction of my four children, and all along it has been difficult to convince people that the shunnings are real or that they are effective.

Mormon officials in three states were directly involved in the planning, execution and ongoing support for the abduction of my children and their forced immersion into extreme Mormonism. I have named them repeatedly, the ones whose identities have been revealed in court documents and those who participated by their own admissions:

Chris and Kory Wright, Bishop Donald Taylor, Bishop David Holiday, Steve and Gina Nielson (now Ben and Gina Foulk), Relief Society President Evelyn Taylor, Cynthia Anderson, Anthony Micheletti all had criminal involvement in the kidnapping. Then there were the tier of Mormon court officials, including three Mormon judges who had the distinction of also being my former wife’s former divorce lawyers in three of her four divorces, so far. Their roles were to see that all the Mormons in the criminal conspiracy and the image of the LDS church were protected, and they did this using all the judicial powers available to them.

As in the current Presidential campaigns, people are reluctant to criticize other religions, even a belief system as notoriously wicked and contrived as Mormonism. The British do not seem to have that odd American hangup.

See for yourself in these two segments, now available on Youtube.

The Mormon Candidate, pt 4 of 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLRzdeKEEII


The Mormon Candidate, pt 5 of 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2TvQij0OoM&feature=relmfu


Three cheers for the BBC!!!

On Passing a Mormon-Abducted Child's Birthday, and the Rites of Spring

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—


In nature, Spring is a time of renewal. The awful weather Winter brings is fading, the days grow longer and sunnier and a new generation emerges. It is a time for optimism, for looking forward, and for many a season of fruition beckons, fulfilling family milestones, school graduations, marriages and new adventures.


Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is a story about the sacrifice of a young girl’s life in order to suit some pagan agenda, to satisfy their belief that a horrible criminal act would please a Deity with whom they imagined they had a special relationship.


Which reminds me of the Mormons who kidnapped my children, and of that awful first Spring.


My late, kidnapped son Aaron’s birthday is March 21, and his was the first of my four children’s birthdays to pass by after they disappeared on February 12, 1996, on their way to concealment in a series of remote Mormon enclaves in Utah.


There would be no more birthday celebrations for the Cruz family once they entered Utah. We would never have contact on a birthday or any other family day ever again, once the Mormons had gained control over their lives.


I would fight to locate and regain contact with my children through four jurisdictions in three states, all while counting the days, each day, living one day at a time, day after joyless day, hopeless days on end….


So I missed my son’s birthday, that first birthday some six weeks after the beginning of the kidnapping (abductions are continuing crimes, meaning the crime continues until the abduction ends with the recovery of the victim), and I know it broke his heart.


This was a clear sign of the cruelty of his Mormon kidnappers. They knew they were breaking my children’s hearts, and they did this time and again.


The Mormons feel a need to separate the world into its “Members” and everyone else, and they run a very sophisticated operation to keep people from leaving their church.


The most common reason the Mormons lose converts is to family influence, so they have developed techniques to carve families apart. Some are subtle, but others are fundamental, such as forbidding non-Mormon parents from attending their Mormon-convert adult children’s weddings.


Once they were taken to Utah, my children did what they had to do to survive. Some succumbed to the coercion and inducements. Aaron did not, and my other children had to watch him suffer for years, all while growing up with their own tormented, confused feelings. And they would suffer together through their mother’s 3-Mormon-stepdads-in-3-states wedding spree.


It is not only this time of the year that I think about Aaron’s birthday, or those of my surviving, still-abducted children. The feelings are very long-lasting, and seem to last the whole year, year after year.


I’m working on those renewal feelings, and making good progress, with the help of my friends….


And while I’m thinking about Aaron right now, Natalia, Tyler and Allie are also in my heart. Your birthdays may be far away on the calendar, but I can feel them from here.

 
 
 

 
 
 

RomneyGate 2012: The Governor's Secret Hard Drives

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—Remember the erased tapes in the Nixon White House, the infamous 18 ½ minute gap? Here’s the President’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, demonstrating the pose she says she held for that length of time, simultaneously talking on the phone and “accidentally” erasing exactly that key smoking-gun section of tape with that foot right there….

Ah, but how technology has changed…smoking guns are located on hard drives now, and exponentially more difficult to erase. One would have to take extraordinary steps to cover one’s tracks….

RomneyGate might be no further away than those hard drives that Romney took with him when he left the Governor's office. All of the electronic information on those drives is public property, the property of The People of the State of Massachusets, yet he took them all….

The Holy Grail of Mitt Romney’s presidential lust just might be grasping that power of Presidential Privilege. Does he plan to take the White House hard drives with him also?

What was so damaging that he had to take the physical drives, even the mail server of his entire staff? The commingling of State and Mormon business? Orders from Salt Lake City? Once a Bishop, always a Bishop, as is said….

Romney has defended taking the hard drives, stating that there was no violation of the law, but has offered no explanation of why they were taken, every staff hard drive and the mail server.

He provided a massive stack of email printouts, sure to overwhelm any who tried to make some sense of it, claiming this was full disclosure or close enough.

Those hard drives had serial numbers, are easily identified. Did they all share the same fate? All completely erased or destroyed? Or selected files, which they would all have in common, although in different physical locations on the drives.

There are surely some great stories here….

And then there is the question of backups. Those files have to exist somewhere. If not, it would take an extraordinarily determined and methodical effort to destroy them all. Why? that's a good question too.

RomneyGate….

Romney's Achilles Heel might be on those drives, and it's not so much about the Money, although there is certain to be a megadump of money, even some wisecracks, enough to make people cringe for years to come, and maybe some tax advice, Wall Street insider moves….

Someone should start tracking down those former Romney staff members with a video camera, see what they have to say. Will they scramble for cover like arsonists, burglars or Mormon pedophiles and polygamists when confronted by an intrepid investigative reporter?

Only Bishop Romney knows for sure....

===========

Sean Cruz writes at http://www.blogoliticalsean.blogspot.com/

He is the father of four children who disappeared into Utah in a Mormon abduction in 1996, organized by a group of Mormon extremists that his former wife had fallen in with, in retaliation for his criticism of LDS church policy.

In 2005, he led the Oregon Senate workgroup that crafted Oregon’s landmark child abduction statute, Senate Bill 1041, known as “Aaron’s Law”, after his late son Aaron, who died in Payson, Utah as a result of this church-sponsored abduction.

With Aaron’s Law, Oregon became the only state in the nation where child abduction creates a civil cause of action. Without a civil cause of action, a parent of a kidnapped child has no basis in law to hold a kidnapper financially accountable for the damages the criminal causes.

Without a civil cause of action, the parent of a kidnapped child has only two courses of action: the family law system or the criminal system, both of which routinely fail the child and the family in abduction cases.

The U.S. Department of Justice documents more than 200,000 cases each year of parental and family abductions, year after year, and many of those children are never recovered.

Aaron’s Law passed the Oregon House on a unanimous vote, the last stop on its way to the Governor for signature into law, but is still in need of amending and refining in order to be truly effective in both preventing and resolving abductions.

And Aaron’s Law should be modeled in other states, eventually becoming the law of the land, and the sooner the better for that.

Day One of a Mormon abduction, 16 years later....

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—

The 16th anniversary of the day that my four children disappeared, kidnapped into Mormon Country, has arrived and it is just as their Mormon abductors intended it to be, both then and now.

A Mormon shunning, with the weight of the church to keep it in place, intended to punish me for speaking my mind so long ago, intended to last forever….

Mormon officials in three states put the scheme together, had decided to hide my children in the mountains east of Ogden, and to hide themselves behind a phalanx of Mormon lawyers and the theocratic courts that pass for a justice system in Utah. An actual Mormon cabal, think about it….

On this day 16 years ago, a Monday morning, a school day during the Great Storm of 1996, my children had vanished, were in fact being driven by a roundabout, secret route from Battle Ground to Salem to a motel near the Oregon coast where they were hidden for a few days, waiting for flooded Interstate 84 eastbound to clear.

Then they were driven out through the Columbia Gorge, through the Blue Mountains, east across Idaho and then down into theocratic Utah, where a group of Mormon zealots awaited their arrival, covert as you would expect a gang of human traffickers to be, months of planning invested in this, not to mention the overtly criminal conduct.

They were going to take my children to Utah and force them to choose a parent—the Mormon parent—and cut all ties with their non-Mormon family members. This amounts to torture, emotional torture, Mormonboarding….

All of this was in clear violation of an Order for Joint Custody that had been in effect for five years. Decisions about the children’s education were to be made jointly.

From this point on, however, every decision regarding my children was made by others, as I fought through four jurisdictions in three states.

Utah officials ignored or refused to comply with orders from Oregon or Washington courts, even a felony arrest warrant for Custodial Interference I. At the same time, all of the courts involved treated the Joint Custody order as if it were printed in invisible ink.

They have their own ways of doing things in Mormon Country, and if you have been labeled as anti-Mormon, they will shut you out. In this respect, they are like the Borg….

And like the Borg, they ganged up on my children, force-fed them the dogma, forced them to reject the non-Mormon parent in favor of Mormon stepdad #1, then Mormon stepdad #2 (the heavy-set thug who slapped my kids around Payson Utah), and now Mormon stepdad #3.

Mormon stepdad #3 has a heavy investment in maintaining the status quo, simple jealousy a good portion of that. I am the one, after all, who his wife sustained a 15-year prior marriage with, a relationship that produced four beautiful children, and these facts are always going to stick in his craw.

But it’s really about the Mormonism, this whole story.

Apart from the shock of losing their father, their grandmother and all of their father’s family, their Oregon homes, their schools and all of their friends, my children suffered an onslaught of indoctrination, far beyond what is normal even in Mormon circles.

This particular group of Mormons was well aware that they were acting criminally in terms of state and federal statutes, but they were group-thinking their way through the series of crimes, convinced that they were working on behalf of A Higher Authority. And they certainly wanted to be sure that their asses were protected from discovery, which could lead to criminal prosecution.

They forced my children to write letters to the court, begging the court not to make them return to Oregon. My children wrote that they never wanted to leave Utah, not ever, not for any reason, and the Courts did nothing to look any deeper than the surface.

This is how my children were forced into a religious war, where they remain today, still in Mormon Country, where many Mormons are heavily invested in maintaining the status quo. Long past the time when the statutes of limitations bar prosecutions, there is still the fear of discovery, embarrassment and loss of status in that closed-off secretive Mormon society, a very real threat.

How differently our lives would have turned out if only the court had required that the children be returned to their Oregon homes and the terms of the Joint Custody Order enforced. For years, that was all that I asked the Courts to do.

Aaron would still be alive today.

Our family would be whole. Maybe some Mormon, some non-Mormon, but not at war within the family over religious bullshit.

Our family would be whole.

And Aaron would be alive today.

------------------

Sean Cruz writes at

www.blogoliticalsean.blogspot.com

Rivers flooding, highways closing, a Mormon kidnapping underway

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—

Rivers are flooding, highways closing.... These are the same weather conditions as when the Mormons took my four kids out of their schools and vanished, during the Great Storm of 1996.

They shuttled my kids among themselves from place to place in Oregon, Washington and finally to theocratic Utah, all in violation of the joint custody order that had protected my children for five years, keeping their lives orderly and secure.

You would never do this to children you actually loved.

Today’s Oregonian headline reads:

Oregon winter storm: Mother and child die; 17 rivers at or near flood stage; more rain on the way

http://www.oregonlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2012/01/oregon_winter_storm_mother_and.html

Takes me all the way back to the Great Storm of 1996, and a lonely, desperate search for four missing children, children I love with all of my heart….

Law enforcement, the courts and the media take little interest in missing children when family members are involved.

The U.S. Department of Justice tallies more than 200,000 cases of parental and family abductions taking place across the country each year, every year, year after year….

I’ll have more to say about this later, just talkin’ about the weather….
 
The first places the Mormons hid my children in Utah were organized by Mormon zealots Chris and Kory Wright, in the mountains east of Ogden.
 
Years later, kidnapping bastard Kory Wright moved his family back to the Portland Metro Area, working for a Mormon-owned company, Columbia Ultimate, where he's on its management team:
 
https://www.columbiaultimate.com/about-us/management-team.aspx
 
More about this later, and later still....
 
 
 

I've seen fire

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—

“I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end….”

James Taylor’s timeless1970 masterpiece “Fire and Rain” speaks to the universal soul of human experience, connects us in the most intimate ways to the grief we share individually and collectively at different times in our lives, recalls for me the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, who wrote in Anna Karenina that “Every happy family is exactly alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

None of us are exempt from the pain and loss that life brings: the death of loved ones, betrayals of trust, forces of nature, random acts of violence and deliberate criminality, catastrophic indifference and just plain stupidity. Whether tsunami or house fire, public and wholesale or private and intensely personal, we all cross paths with one or more of his lines, sooner or later. We are human.

“Lord knows the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around….”

There are few songs that say so much in a line, and Fire and Rain has become for me a song that captures my uniquely unhappy family’s experience in the wake of the abduction of my four children, a Mormon kidnapping now entering its sixteenth year.

“The plans they made put an end to you….”

At this time, in January 1996, Mormon officials in three states were putting the finishing logistical touches on their plans to cause my four children to disappear into a series of remote Mormon enclaves in Utah, deliberately causing them to suffer the loss of their father and all of their Cruz family, in order to impose a full-on Mormon indoctrination despite the order for joint custody that had kept their lives orderly and secure, their personalities whole and beautiful, for five years.

These Mormons, you see, wanted to exact a price from me for speaking in opposition to Mormon dogma. They wanted to enforce a shunning, and force my own children to participate, first by isolating them and then by creating both physical and emotional distance. No mail would get through, no phone calls, no contact, and a squad of Mormon lawyers in three states fully engaged to enforce the shunning.

In fact, mail sent to their mother’s last known address in Hillsboro, Oregon, was not forwarded to wherever my children had been taken, a step the Mormons had taken to make it more difficult for me to find them. I later learned that the desperate letters I wrote to my children were forwarded instead to the Hillsboro home of Evelyn Taylor, then the president of the Mormon Relief Society, the highest office a woman can aspire to in the Mormon universe.

My son Aaron did not survive his forced immersion into concentrated Mormonism, isolated and surrounded, under constant pressure to reject his non-Mormon father.

Indeed, the Mormons wanted to kill off anything in my children that would remind them of me, and Aaron was just about exactly like me. They even noted that his skin was “slightly dark”, and Mormon dogma preaches that a dark skin is “the mark of Cain”, a sign of an evil nature.

(Explain that fact to the voters, about the dark skin, Mitt Romney, Mormon Bishop Mitt Romney)….

For my other three children, the key to survival was to adapt themselves into the new regime, and they did. This is where they remain today, still caught up in a religious war between Mormonism (“Good”) and everyone else (“Evil”).

“Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone….”

No one had to let me know that the children were gone. I could feel it! They had been removed from their schools in violation of the joint custody order and their mother’s house had been emptied. They were gone, just like that, no information at all about where they had been taken!

Kidnappings are always ambushes. Stealth and surprise, whisperings in Mormon congregations....
I wake up every morning knowing that you are gone….

“I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song 
 just can't remember who to send it to….”

I’ll write about these lines sometime soon, but not now, about the walking, about the writing, about the remembering and the sending….

“Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line
To talk about things to come….”

And I’ll write about the hours, about the time, about the end of time on the telephone, about the end of talking, of planning, of dreaming with my children, about the things to come….

“Won't you look down on me, Jesus
You've got to help me make a stand
You've just got to see me through another day
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way….”

By the time the first kidnapped year came to an end, now aware of the Mormon forces at work, even to the names of some of the criminals, I had slipped into a crushing clinical depression. I had lost all hope of seeing my children again, and these were “lonely times when I could not find a friend….”

Just as I was preparing to end my life, in January 1997, a pastor from Victory Outreach, an inner-city church in Northeast Portland, invited me to move into their Men’s Re-entry Home, a sort of halfway house located upstairs over the building the church met in, a former neighborhood movie theater.

In order to live, I had to find reasons to live every day, day after day, and from there I became involved in community and public service, receiving an appointment by the US Attorney to a crime-fighting steering committee, and later a founding board member of a national program for the US Department of Justice, representing the Pacific Northwest.

The battle to find and recover my children became more intense once I became involved in a church, because the Mormons believe that all other religions are false, even “whore(s) of a church” in Mormon dogma. They are an American Taliban....

I would live there at Victory Outreach for the next five years…where I asked Jesus to look down on my children and protect them every day, every single day, counting each day, day after day….

“But I always thought that I'd see you again….”

I will never give up, thinking that I will see you each and all again, even knowing that the entire Mormon church is organized to protect itself and its members from any negative disclosure.

But Mitt Romney is in the news now, and will be throughout 2012, and we are going to take on the subject of Mormonism and its rampant evils, all…year…long.

My son Aaron waits for me in the afterlife, my son who rejected Mormonism just like his father, and there is not a thing the Mormons can do about it. I will see you again, Aaron…and you too, Natalia, Tyler and Allie, I will see you again, when you are free once more, free to be who you really are….

And here is James Taylor himself, to send our spirits soaring….

Fire and Rain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOIo4lEpsPY

------
Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to

I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

Won't you look down on me, Jesus
You've got to help me make a stand
You've just got to see me through another day
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way

oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

I’ve been walking my mind to an easy time
My back turned towards the sun
Lord knows the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around
Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line
To talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.

oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you, baby, one more time again, now

Thought I'd see you one more time again
There's just a few things coming my way this time around,
Thought I'd see you, thought I'd see you fire and rain, now
Thought i'd see you just one more time again.

On the Mormon core of Mitt Romney

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—

“Instead of obsessing over whether an element of humanity might disqualify Gingrich with some Iowa voters, the media would be better served focusing on whether out-and-out lying should disqualify Romney with all voters.” –Arianna Huffington

The Romney and Huntsman presidential campaigns will draw a level of public scrutiny to Mormonism unlike anything the secretive, polytheistic, mock-Christian sect has ever experienced heretofore, and the Mormon church is ultimately not going to like the results.

Although his campaign portrays him as a businessman, Mitt Romney, a former bishop, is a product of the Mormon institution, and in the social values of the church is the only place where he can be counted on to have a core, the loci of his few absolute values.

The problem for shape-shifting Romney is that Mormonism itself waves in the wind, has a particularly loose grip on facts and is packed full of hypocrisy and some of the weirdest ideas on the planet.

The Mormon church is as against polygamy and the raising of child brides today as it was for its practices not so long ago, and its officially racist doctrine about people with dark skin tones was changed in just the past twenty years, to cite just two examples of major flip flops on fundamental values.

The Mormon church has a gigantic investment in erasing its own past. It’s future growth (and cash flow) is nearly entirely dependent upon teams of skilled missionaries working one on one in their prospects’ homes, feeding information in a carefully controlled program, not out in public in group settings. You never hear the details until you’re in.

Through the nomination process, the public is about to learn much about the details of Mormonism and how it controls its members, particularly women and children, who have no real power in the organization, and who hold no positions of authority in the church.

Romney’s attitudes toward the place of women (it’s in the home), is fundamental to Mormon society, as is the Mormon church’s antipathy towards independent-minded women.

But Romney is going to tell you that he can be on both sides of these issues at the same time, with no sense of hypocrisy.

As chameleonesque Mitt Romney pursues the GOP nomination, many ponder the question “Is the country ready for a Mormon president?”

But that’s the wrong question. A better, more-informed discussion would be had should we consider whether the country is ready for a president whose beliefs and character are based in a white-male-dominated, highly secretive, polytheistic, mock-Christian sect with extreme right-wing social views that is openly hostile to all other faiths and that comprises less than 3% of the US population.

That’s a long question, but it gets to the real heart of the matter. Romney’s success depends on the public remaining largely ignorant of the tenets and practices of Mormonism, and tolerating its hypocritical weirdness.

My views were formed by direct experience, including the abduction of my four children and the death of my son Aaron in the course of a Mormon kidnapping.

Oregon’s landmark 2005 anti-kidnapping “Aaron’s Law”, Senate Bill 1041, is named for my son. The statute addresses the failures of both the criminal and family law systems to protect my family, and with Aaron’s Law Oregon is the only state in the nation where kidnapping a child creates a civil cause of action.

You can thank the Mormon church for inspiring the law….
------

Posted on Arianna Huffington’s blog, Nov 29, 2011:

Mitt Romney Brazenly Lies and the Media Lets Him Slide

By Arianna Huffington

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/mitt-romney-ad_b_1117288.html

On child abuse, Mormonism, Mitt Romney, the Penn State Scandal and the People of the Lie

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—

That Jerry Sanduski loved to play grabass naked with children not much taller than his crotch in the Penn State athletic department showers (he calls it “horsing around) is not in dispute. Nor is the fact that many adults had some awareness of Sanduski’s “problem”, and kept silent or otherwise minimized his criminal conduct in order to protect their own careers and their respective institutions, Penn State mostly, but the web of guilt and the repercussions will not end there.

The combination of power, greed, vast sums of money and valuable perks, an organization that commands and rewards loyalty in a climate of religious fervor, and a culture financially and otherwise dependent upon the public stature of iconic individuals and the continuation of fabricated legends, has led to this end.

Religious fervor and sports zealotry are very similar, and how individuals think and act within institutions that strive to increase levels of fervor and zealotry (and the financial rewards that ensue) within its manufactured belief system exactly alike. Where do people exhibit more raw, emotional zealotry as a group than in church or sports settings?

The behavior of Penn State as an institution and as a collective of individuals in the Sandusky scandal is similar to that exercised by the Mormon Church and its TBMs “True Believer Mormons” as everyday practice, as the norm. This explains in large part why the mock-Christian sect is so secretive, shielding itself from scrutiny concerning the rampant domestic and child abuse so thoroughly ingrained in its white-male-dominant, female-submissive culture.

In his book “People of the Lie”, examining the psychology of evil in everyday life and in how the roles of individuals within groups operate in such situations, Dr. Scott Peck called these persons exactly that, the People of the Lie, describing a mechanism he termed “the fragmentation of conscience.”

“Whenever the roles of individuals within a group become specialized, it becomes both possible and easy for the individual to pass the moral buck to some other part of the group. In this way, not only does the individual forsake his conscience but the conscience of the group as a whole can become so fragmented and diluted as to be nonexistent…The plain fact of the matter is that any group will remain inevitably potentially conscienceless and evil until such time as each and every individual holds himself or herself directly responsible for the behavior of the whole group—the organism—of which he or she is a part.”

The coming legal process will reveal the names of many whose inaction, while not strictly criminal, served to enable the continuation of heinous crimes against defenseless children fallen into the Penn State-Sandusky orbit. We will learn the identities of those who kept a lid on clear evidence of child abuse in order to protect the system and their place in it. The investigation will follow both the money and the amorality and cowardice.

The same processes were at work in the Mormon abduction and long-term abuse of my four children, in the series of crimes that took place beginning in 1995, when the kidnapping was planned, and after February 12, 1996, the day my children vanished into Mormon enclaves in remote areas of Utah.

Mormon officials, bishops and the like, in three states were criminally involved in the abduction, and that fact created powerful incentives to protect themselves, each other, and their institution once the kidnapping had become a fact. Like at Penn State, these were crimes of great shame, and reputations and prison sentences were at stake, and thus the People of the Lie conspired to sustain a kidnapping, and the systematic abuse of four innocent children.

Bob Schaeffer had these words to say on the Penn State scandal, in his commentary on Face the Nation, broadcast November 13:

“It is hard to believe that anyone who had an inkling of what was going on at Penn State did not understand its significance… As the Catholic church learned, when protecting the institution is put ahead of those it is intended to serve, it is eventually the institution that is put at risk. That is unfortunate, but let us remember those the institution forgot, the victims, children who may have been scarred for life (italics added).

“They deserve to know that those who wronged them and those who knew about it are being brought to justice; and, yes, that includes the icons.”

There were Mormons who knew in advance that my children were to be abducted, and there were Mormons who became involved later, that worked to protect the first group, and thus themselves, as the crimes metastasized through the church organizations, all well aware of the significance of their actions, these People of the Lie.

To deliberately cause a child to lose a beloved parent, a beloved grandparent, is an act of child abuse as cruelly destructive as any other form, and has lifelong consequences. Each of the perpetrators understood this fact perfectly well, and would have considered the treatment that they were happy to give the Cruz children as child abuse were it applied in their own families. They were knowingly People of the Lie.

And thus, I will identify them, as I have many times over the years, again in this essay. Lifetime consequences for the victims must be balanced by lifetime consequences for the perpetrators; even if they are never brought to justice, their conduct must be brought out into the open and kept there, as both punishment and deterrent.

The statue of limitations has probably long expired over many of the Sandusky crimes, as it has for the crimes of child abuse perpetrated in the Mormon kidnapping of the Cruz children. The passage of Senate Bill 1041, named after my late son Aaron Cruz, whose death is directly attributable to the abuse and isolation he endured during his years in Mormon captivity, did not pose any threat of justice against his abusers. The law applies only to those cases that originated after its passage in 2005.

These People of the Lie, complicit in the Mormon kidnappings, individually and institutionally, often acting in their official LDS capacity, and bearing a share of responsibility in the death of my son Aaron, include:

Kory and Chris Wright; bishop Donald Taylor; bishop David Holiday, Evelyn Taylor, Tony Micheletti, Cynthia Anderson, Steve Nielson, Ben and Gina Foulk, Barry and Connie Dunford, Edwin Poyfair, James Rulli, and others whose names I do not know or who escape recall at this writing.

The presidential aspirations of Mitt Romney is bringing new attention to Mormonism and how the church operates, how it controls its members, particularly women and children, who have no real power in the organization.

The fragmentation of conscience is far more potent a path and cover for evildoing in the Mormon church than it is in collegiate sports, as would be expected in any secret society.

Although his campaign portrays him very effectively as a businessman and a moderate (despite his crazy talk on the stump), Mitt Romney, a former bishop, is a product of the Mormon institution, and the social values of the church are the only place where he can be counted on to have a core, the loci of his few absolute values.


“As bishop, Romney exercised great power over his congregation. Besides appointing staff members, from the local church librarian to choir master, he interviewed people in the congregation to determine fealty to the church. He decided who could carry a ‘recommend,’ a physical card that serves as proof of a person’s good doctrinal standing and suitability to enter the sacred temples. --“In Boston, Mitt Romney ‘evolved’ in Mormon leadership, some churchwomen say”, By Jason Horowitz, The Washington Post

Mr. Horowitz delved into the “evolution” of Romney’s attitudes toward the place of women (it’s in the home), concluding that he shares the Mormon church’s antipathy towards independent-minded women.

These temple recommends are an effective tool for keeping the people in line, and any Mormon who commits an act of child abuse is sure to lose it and much more, should the crime become known.

Therein lies the incentives and the path for child abuse, Mormonism, Mitt Romney, Penn State, the Cruz kidnappings and the People of the Lie….

----------------

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/campaigns/in-boston-mitt-romney-evolved-in-mormonleadership-some-churchwomen-say/2011/11/17/gIQAMOoWjN_story.html

On Faith, Religion, Mormonism and Presidential Politics

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—

The candidacies of Mormons Mitt Romney and John Huntsman have put the issue of religion on the Presidential debate stage, which is where it belongs.

The President is the nation’s Decider-in-Chief.

We should be concerned with all of the factors that will influence the future President’s decision-making. When the candidates identify a particular school of thought, worldview, religion or set of beliefs as central to their lives, then the public should vet those aspects. This is no place to grant a candidate a pass.

It’s one thing to have faith in a given creation story or adhere to a given religious tradition. It’s another thing entirely, however, to believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old, or that a person rapped a stick on a rock and the sea actually parted, or a story about golden plates, the Lost-Tribe-of-Israel origins of Native Americans and real rocking, talking angels. Do we want a Commander-in-Chief who is convinced that any of this is factual?

If the next Decider-in-Chief has crazy beliefs in his or her head, we need to know about it. Does the candidate believe that God drawls in his or her ear? Like George W. Bush? Have we forgotten how that worked out already?

(sound track: The Who: “Won’t Get Fooled Again!” is playing right here)

I don’t much care what church they do or do not go to, but I do want to know--long before election night, long before the anointed one ascends—if they are spending way too much time in an imaginary world, measured in cubits. That’s not the problem-solver I want to see in the Oval Office.

The Mormon church is powerful, enormously wealthy, highly secretive, and amounts to about 3% of the US population. These are well-established facts that have nothing to do with the theology of the sect or its relationship to Christian points of view, or with the First Amendment, for that matter.

Mormonism is controversial for many reasons, not just whether it meets the dictionary definition of a cult or is a bizarre form of polytheistic Christianity, or for its polygamist and officially racist recent past.

One of those reasons is the Mormon practice of shunning, and how Mormon shunnings are enforced, which speaks to how the Mormon Church operates as if it were a cult. That’s a different issue altogether, and should be part of the discussion.

Another issue is the position of women in the Mormon Church and in the Mormon worldview. All of the higher positions in the church organization are reserved for men only. Mormon women belong in the home, not the workplace. Mormon women and girls are expected to be subservient to men, and are trained to be “meek and mild” as part of everyday practice.

I would never vote for a candidate that held this set of beliefs, not for any public office.

One of the issues that stood between me and unwelcome Mormonism in my family story was the status of its women and girls. I did not want my daughters to grow up believing that their roles were to be subservient to men, or my sons to believe that either.

If your child marries into the Mormon church, you can say goodbye to any plans you ever had to see your child’s wedding. You will be forbidden participation, an outsider to one of the most important events in your life. That is official Mormon policy, and it is enforced without exception. Voters need to be clear on this.

The Mormon notion of the family unit and the church’s willingness to sever families based on their membership status or fidelity to hard core Mormonism should be part of this public policy discussion, as the candidates debate their notions of family values, an essential component of each of their platforms.

My four children disappeared into Utah in a Mormon abduction more than 15 years ago. This is the story of a Mormon shunning.

Mormon officials in three states conspired to abduct and conceal my kids in a series of remote Mormon enclaves in order to immerse them in a completely Mormon environment, despite an order for joint custody. And they got what they wanted, too, although it cost the happiness and then the life of my son Aaron.

Oregon's landmark 2005 kidnapping law is named "Aaron's Law" after my late son Aaron Cruz, who died in Payson, Utah from long-term medical neglect, emotional abuse and abandonment. Aarons Law (Senate Bill 1041) is designed to remedy several common failures of the criminal and family law systems in preventing and resolving cases of child abduction.

Aarons Law provides abduction victims tools to hold their abductors, and those who provide financial, planning or logistical support to the abduction, accountable financially, including religious organizations that engage in shunning, like the Mormons, like the Mormons who abducted my children.

With Aaron’s Law, Oregon is the only state in the nation where the abduction of a child creates a civil cause of action. The law recognizes that the abduction of a child by any person is child abuse, as serious as any other form of abuse.

The provisions of Aaron’s Law arise from the failures of both the criminal and family law systems in the interstate kidnapping and concealment of my children, but these failures are commonplace, with more than 200,000 cases of parental and family abduction taking place in the United States each year, and increasing numbers of children disappearing into foreign countries forever.

Personally, I’m glad Romney’s in the race. The more people understand the ins and outs of Mormonism, the more will reject it. Bring it on, Mitt! You too, Mr. Huntsman. I didn’t buy the story about the golden plates, so your church destroyed my family. Now let’s talk about who you hypocrites really are.

Every candidate for public office has the right to believe whatever he or she believes, to belong or not belong to any religious organization. That is guaranteed by the First Amendment.
But the public does have a legitimate right to know the specifics of those beliefs, and to vote accordingly with a complete set of facts.

There is far too much at stake in the election of a President to give the candidates a pass on such a fundamental part of their character and how they view the world, particularly since they express such strong feelings about it. Let's talk it all out. There's plenty of time. I've waited for 15 years.

On Mitt Romney and the Mormonism controversy

by Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon--

My four children disappeared into Utah in a Mormon abduction more than 15 years ago.


Mormon officials in three states conspired to abduct and conceal my kids in a series of remote Mormon enclaves in order to immerse them in a completely Mormon environment, despite an order for joint custody.


Oregon's landmark 2005 kidnapping law is named "Aaron's Law" after my late son Aaron Cruz, who died in Payson, Utah. Aarons Law is designed to remedy several common failures of the criminal and family law systems in preventing and resolving cases of child abduction.


Mormons divide the world into "Members" (Mormons) and "Non-Members" (everybody else), and they carry a huge thin-skinned “Us vs Them” persecution complex that influences their relationships with non-members unlike any mainstream religion in America.


Mormonism’s essential tenets put it at odds with every branch of Christianity on the planet, along with the Mormon doctrine that every other church or belief system is fundamentally evil.


If your child marries into the Mormon church, you can say goodbye to any plans you ever had to see your child’s wedding. The Mormon notion of the family unit and their willingness to sever families based on their membership status should be part of this public policy discussion.


Personally, I’m glad Romney’s in the race. The more people understand the ins and outs of Mormonism, the more will reject it. Bring it on, Mitt!

Mormon mystery company slips a million mystery bucks to Mitt Romney

Mormon mystery company slips a million mystery bucks to Mitt Romney and then dissolves, recalling the pre-Watergate era of secret campaign finance.

From the Huffington Post:

“A mystery company that pumped $1 million into a political committee backing Mitt Romney has been dissolved just months after it was formed, leaving few clues as to who was behind one of the biggest contributions yet of the 2012 presidential campaign.

“The existence of the million-dollar donation — as gleaned from campaign and corporate records obtained by NBC News — provides a vivid example of how secret campaign cash is being funneled in ever more circuitous ways into the political system.

“The company, W Spann LLC, was formed in March by a Boston lawyer who specializes in estate tax planning for “high net worth individuals,” according to corporate records and the lawyer’s bio on her firm’s website.

“The corporate records provide no information about the owner of the firm, its address or its type of business.

“Six weeks later, W Spann LLC made its million-dollar donation to Restore Our Future — a new so-called “super PAC” started by a group of former Romney political aides to boost the former Massachusetts governor’s presidential bid. It listed its address as being in a midtown Manhattan office building that has no record of such a tenant.

“The Boston lawyer, Cameron Casey, dissolved the company on July 12 — two weeks before Restore Our Future made its first campaign filing of the year reporting the donation from the now-nonexistent company, the corporate records show.

“I don’t see how you can do this,” said Lawrence Noble, the former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission, when asked about the contribution from the now defunct company.

“Last week, Restore Our Future filed its first report of 2012, disclosing that it had received $12.2 million during the first six months of the year. Among the contributors: four donors who contributed $1 million apiece, including John Paulson, the Wall Street hedge fund kingpin who made billions betting against the housing market, and two corporate partnerships listed at the Provo, Utah, address of Steven J. Lund, a former chief executive of Nu Skin Enterprises and a longtime Romney backer who has been a leader in the Mormon Church.

Read the complete article here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44011308/#.TjrBZ2Fn6Sp