Catch 22 of saving children from emotional abuse

This is the text of my recent post to Amazon.com's Parenting Discussion Forum:

The catch 22 of religiously inspired child abuse
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An Amazon Parents forum participant writes:

I think everyone should just chill. The fact of the matter is, parents will teach their children whatever they want and as long as it doesn't fall under abuse as defined by the Dept. of Social Services, there is nothing anyone else can do about it.

BAM! CASE CLOSED
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Richard replies:

No, the case is far from closed, as you put it. This discussion is about parents subjecting children to harm through actions they control, and indeed are complicit in. The harm is to their child's mental health and emotional well being, leaving aside the gross violation of their personhood. Can you find a state in the country that does not have laws against inflicting emotional abuse on another person? Such laws do exist, but....

No minor child can walk into child protective services and seek help to escape the mind control program they are subjected to. The damage to their intellectual development and emotional health occurs over many years. In the best of circumstances, the crime of inflicting emotional abuse on another person is extremely difficult to prosecute -- even when the abuse is blatant and has no religious overtones. The only persons legally able to speak for a child are the same persons complicit in the abuse. That is the nub of the problem. That is the catch 22.

For anyone reading this that may suspect they know of a child that is being abused, here are the behavioral indications (quoted from the non-profit web page Helpguide.org):

"Behavioral signs. Since emotional child abuse does not leave concrete marks, the effects may be harder to detect. Is the child excessively shy, fearful or afraid of doing something wrong? Behavioral extremes may also be a clue. A child may be constantly trying to parent other children for example, or on the opposite side exhibit antisocial behavior such as uncontrolled aggression. Look for inappropriate age behaviors as well, such as an older child exhibiting behaviors more commonly found in younger children.

Caregiver signs. Does a caregiver seem unusually harsh and critical of a child, belittling and shaming him or her in front of others? Has the caregiver shown anger or issues with control in other areas? A caregiver may also seem strangely unconcerned with a child's welfare or performance. Keep in mind that there might not be immediate caregiver signs. Tragically, many emotionally abusive caregivers can present a kind outside face to the world, making the abuse of the child all the more confusing and scary."

Children have rights that are trampled in the United States by a legal doctrine that favors parents religious free exercise rights over consideration of children's welfare interests. Experts assert this legal doctrine is on weak moral ground because it is based solely on patriarchal tradition, which of course is male privilige written large.

If you examine the history of human rights progress you can see a clear pattern. The starting point is a widespread harmful cultural practice and a legal system that shelters the rights abuses. Slavery was legal because rich white landowners controlled the legal apparatus and they had a financial stake in having slaves. In the South they pointed to their bibles as justification for the practice. The abolition movement started in the mercantile North where the financial stake in agriculture did not exist.

Drunk driving, spousal abuse, miscegenation; and segregation in housing, education and public life, all follow the pattern. Women were denied the right to vote in the USA until 1920. Blacks were subject to Jim Crow. A white male power structure and public indifference fostered these injustices. Recall that most judges were white males until very recently and spousal rape could not be prosecuted. Likewise, the hierarchy of most organized religions is in the hands of white males. Coincidence?

Until women achieve full and complete equality with men imbalances and injustices will continue. Protecting children and advancing women's rights are key to solving many of our problems.

We see the legal system now fosters and protects religious mind control programs. In state legislatures around the country, Christian fascist leaders such as Tony Perkins, Michael Ferris and James Dobson (all are dominionists that would replace our democracy with a theonomy and all are part of the Council for National Policy cabal) were able to bulldoze state legislatures into revoking and revising truancy laws to enable sham homeschools to mushroom. Estimates are that as many as 1.5 million children are sequestered in their own homes and subject to brain washing 24/7. I have posted extensively on this topic.

Adherents, clerics and anyone who gets a paycheck from a church has a financial stake in maintaining the membership of their congregations. All congregations, without exception, must maintain a constant flow of new adherents in the front door as the old members fade away and can no longer chip in the collection plate. Religion is a vast multi-billion dollar enterprise. What business do you know that could allow their customers to die away and not replace them?

Organized religion has adapted the most sophisticated public relations tools known to modern man. According to their PR, society would collapse from moral rot if people were not sitting in the pews listening to and absorbing ancient fables and myths. They trumpet their charitable works, yet some recent studies show that only about five percent of tax exempt donations actually go to charity. The rest is spent maintaining property and I suppose on coffee and cake for the members. Essentially what you have is a social club operated for the benefit of the members at the expense of the tax paying public.

A new facebook group, Abolish tax breaks for faith-based groups, is devoted to countering unfair tax laws that favor groups just because they believe in mythology :

http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?id=1077947340&gv=4#/group.php?gid=48134307000

The Threat of Christian Fascism is Hidden, but Very Real

For more on fascism:

American Fascists, The Christian Right and The War on America, by Chris Hedges
Kingdom Coming, by Michelle Goldberg
American Theocracy, The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury by Kevin Philips
Reports on the web include:
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm#_edn14
http://www.theocracywatch.org/
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v19n3/clarkson_dominionism.html
http://www.theocracywatch.org/chris_hedges_nov24_04.htm
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/1/5/155457/0298
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/12/0081322

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/1419644386/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Amazon.com reviewer

Liars for Jesus

February 18, 2008
By Steven L. Roberts (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews

Liars for Jesus by Chris Rodda is one of the best written and most important books about contemporary American politics that I have read in years. The only problem with this book is that it was apparently published with the author's own money, making its availability somewhat limited. This book should be widely read and discussed, because it helps explain why the Christian Right seems so incomprehensibly loony to most of us who are not part of that movement, and, conversely, why they attack the rest of us with such unfettered zeal.

There has been a series of revisionist "history" books published since the end of WWII which give a "Christian" version of American history that attempts to paint the Founding Fathers and subsequent American culture in a way that is in agreement with contemporary Fundamentalism. We have now had a couple of generations of conservative Christians who have been buying into this version of history and reacting angrily to an America that assumes fundamental principals like the separation of church and state to be at the core of what America stands for.

Author Rodda systematically lists and then busts a series of myths that these spurious history books have generated. She leaves no stone unturned in doing so.

Things get really scary when she starts quoting Supreme Court opinions written by Rennquist, Thomas and Burger, and it becomes apparent that members of our highest court do not know the difference between real history and Fundamentalist wishful thinking.

The book is a fascinating study in how the desire for a different set of facts can, over time, morph into an alternative if deluded "reality".

My Comment:

There is an insidious clandestine effort underway driven by Christian fascists to polute the common person's understanding of American history and the part religion plays in that history. This is not merely the usual difference of interpretation that ethical historians normally write about. As Michelle Goldman explains in her book, "Kingdom Comming", what is dangerous is that a gradual shift has occurred so that what would have been unthinkable rubbish ten years ago is now embraced by the fascists as absolute truth.

Others, trained from childhood to follow authority blindly accept the lies as truth. Since kids in homeschools never encounter any other point of view they readily accept the lies. Which is exactly why their misbegotten parents sequester them in their sham schools.

Accordingly, this propaganda posing as history is being freely passed around over the Internet and incorporated in textbooks sold to the child abusers in charge of lying to their children. Revisionist history books by several different authors (David Barton, Peter Marshall, Mark A. Beliles (Author), and Stephen K. McDowell to name a few) are widely used in sham homeschools along with grossly distorted books on science that are teaching ID and creation myths and calling it science.

Parents do this because they trust the likes of James Dobson, Michael Ferris, Phylis Schafly, and Pat Robertson and they have no critical faculties. Dobson, the high priest of religious child abuse, insists the most important quality a child can have is obedience. According to him children are inherently incorrigible and they must be whipped to convince them to obey what they are told to do. These are the methods totalitarians use.

We know from engaging parents on public discussion forums how deranged these people are and how futile it is to try and hold an intelligent discussion with them. A constant retort is, "well that is your opinion", facts mean absolutely nothing. Their brains are reduced to a worthless pile of rotten cells that serve no function.

Is Homeschooling in for a Major shakeup?

An examination of recent events in California

March 10, 2008

No one argues that the phenomenal growth of homeschooled children now reaches millions of families although no one can say precisely how many children are affected. But, there is little doubt that well heeled and highly motivated conservative Christian groups are the driving force behind what can only be described as a movement. Until now, these partisans have met with success in their state by state battles, but drastic change is in the wind. More and more citizens are beginning to understand what is happening and see the danger homeschooling poses to our civic integrity.

The calculations for homeschooled children are unreliable because state laws vary widely with respect to regulation of home schools and no one seems to be keeping score, least of all the Department of Education under the incompetent administration of President Bush. Some estimates put the number at 1.5 to 2.0 million children nationwide. Most opinions seem to agree that 80% of homeschooled children are in conservative Christian homes. However the most often quoted estimates come from people with an agenda, for example the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) and the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). These are only two of the many Christian organizations and associations advocating for home schools.

Brian D. Ray, according to his resume, is one of the best-known scholars, internationally, on the topic of homeschooling. He is president of NHERI, a nonprofit research and educational organization that sells services to home, private, and public educators by conducting research on home-based education, developing a network of researchers, and educating the worldwide public about Homeschooling. He has homeschooled his eight children.

His book Worldwide Guide to Homeschooling, Facts and Stats is available on Amazon.com for 9 cents. There is only one reader review and that is by an individual that apparently only reviews books with a Christian theme or connection. One has to wonder that with such a slim fan base how impartial Mr. Ray’s facts and stats can be.

Even if you assume the lowest estimate of 1.5 million kids and 80% are in conservative Christian homes that means 1,200,000 children are trapped in a parent dominated cocoon where they have no choice of what music to listen to, what books or magazines to read, what television to watch, or where they can go on the internet. Their contact with people outside the home is limited to church families and their children and every attempt is made to shield them from outside influence 24 hours a day. Can you say stifled?

Everything these sequestered children see, or touch, or hear is pre-approved. What chance will they have to develop their own individual patterns of thought or habits of mind? This point of the constant monitoring is to shield children from “the dreaded homosexual agenda” and from learning about their sexuality and human reproduction. Parents hiding from the law can indoctrinate their children with their backward sexist stereotypes of what it means to be a man or a woman, which directly violates the letter and spirit of curriculum requirements of the state of California that are aimed at leveling the field for females in our California. What chance would a girl in such a home have of ever becoming an astronaut?

In 2007 California enacted SB777, The Student Civil Rights Act, authored by Shiela Kuehl, which applies to the curriculum home school parents must now abide by and is aimed at ending discrimination of gay or transgendered children (among others) in the public school system.[1] The new law merely extends the reach of these rights to home schools and just took effect in February 2008. The reason for such a law is patently clear because Christian conservatives choose to home school their children precisely because they will not agree that such discrimination is wrong.

The Safe Place to Learn Act requires the California Department of Education to regularly monitor what steps school districts have taken to ensure compliance with the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000, AB 537 (Kuehl). The legislation will help to ensure that current school safety standards regarding harassment and discrimination are fully and properly implemented.

Another important event transpired very recently when a California appellate court ruled February 28, 2008 that California home school children must be taught by a credentialed teacher. It is doubtful that the majority of home schools are meeting this requirement. Those that are in compliance have nothing to fear. The opinion of three judges in the Jonathan L. and Mary Grace L. v. Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles case states:

“The educational program of the State of California was designed to promote the general welfare of all the people and was not designed to accommodate the personal ideas of any individual in the field of education.”

The appeals ruling said California law requires “persons between the ages of six and 18” to be in school, “the public full-time day school,” with exemptions being allowed for those in a “private full-time day school” or those “instructed by a tutor who holds a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught.”

The judges ruled in the case involving the Longs that the family failed to demonstrate, “that mother has a teaching credential such that the children can be said to be receiving an education from a credentialed tutor,” and that their involvement and supervision by Sunland Christian School’s independent study programs was of no value.”[2]

Nor did the family's religious beliefs matter to the court.

Their “sincerely held religious beliefs, are not the quality of evidence that permits us to say that application of California's compulsory public school education law to them violates their First Amendment rights.”

“Such sparse representations are too easily asserted by any parent who wishes to homeschool his or her child,” the court concluded.”

Randy Thomasson, of Campaign for Children and Families, said:

“Under California law parents have the legal right to create a private school in their home and enroll their own children. Children belong to the parents, not to the state”. But he acknowledged that there's a great deal of misinformation about the status of homeschooling in California.

Note the language – “children belong”. On the contrary, children are not property, they are not chattel. The patriarchal concept that children are chattel is abominable to our enlightened age. Yes, there is a lot of misinformation and it comes from the likes of Randy Thomasson and other right wing Christians who claim rights over children they do not have. The case is not about the right to homeschool children, it is about meeting legal requirements.

The California Appellate Court ruling is good news for all Californians who support the right of children to a quality education in tune with the mores and morals of the majority of California citizens. We simply must not allow thousands of California’s children to be shunted off into religious ghettos where they may never recover from the sexism, enforced ignorance of science, distorted American history, and mind rape they are subjected to 24 hours a day seven days a week. The greatest danger is that a secretive fifth column is being primed to create a theocracy (for example the Dominionists) and it is slowly growing right under our noses.

As could be expected, homeschool parents are now beseeching sectarian schools in hopes of enrolling their children. They no doubt will discover there is little room in these expensive schools for adding students and not much to recommend them anyway. Law Professor James G. Dwyer is an advocate for reforming the law with respect to children to give greater weight to their right to self determination and autonomy. The synopsis for his book, Religious Schools v. Children's Rights reads:

Despair over the reported inadequacies of public education leads many people to consider religious schools as an alternative. James G. Dwyer demonstrates, however, that religious schooling is almost completely unregulated and that common pedagogical practices in fundamentalist Christian and Catholic schools may be damaging to children. He presents evidence of excessive restriction of children's basic liberties, stifling of intellectual development, the instilling of dogmatic and intolerant attitudes, as well as the infliction of psychological and emotional harms, including excessive guilt and repression and, especially among girls, diminished self-esteem.

Courts, legal and political theorists, and the public typically argue that families and religious communities are entitled to raise their children as they see fit and that the state must remain neutral on religious matters. Dwyer proposes an alternative framework for state policy regarding religious schooling and other child-rearing practices, urging that the focus always be on what is best, from a secular perspective, for the affected children. He argues that the children who attend religious schools have a right to adequate state regulation and oversight of their education. States are obligated to ensure that such schools do not engage in harmful practices and that they provide their students with the training necessary for pursuit of a broad range of careers and for full citizenship in a pluralistic, democratic society.

In a distressing reaction to the court decision, Governor Schwarznegger has sided with lawbreaking parents.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZNEGGER'S STATEMENT

“Every California child deserves a quality education and parents should have the right to decide what's best for their children. Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts and if the courts don't protect parents' rights then, as elected officials, we will.”

Resources:

http://www.eqca.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=9oINKWMCF&b=2292609&ct=3622857

Equality California Org Sponsors

http://www.nheri.org/Latest/California-Homeschool-Court-Decision-Ignores-Research-Findings-and-Constitutions.html

Here Brian Ray tries to establish that there is a constitutional right to home school children. Since he is not an attorney, one wonders how accurate his information could possible be. What seems to be happening when you look at the businesses that are raking in millions of dollars, they simply are trying to maintain their income by bolstering the morale of their customers with flim flam.

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[1] Refer to internet URL under resources.

[2] This school is pretty secretive about course offerings and curriculums. Judging from their web page one must contact an official of the school to really find out what they are all about. They do admit they are a Christian organization.