POLITICAL DOMINION
The battle for political dominion among the different religious believe systems is heating up around the world. In almost every religious war, it has been said that the sectarian interests are battling for political dominion over the population.
This article describes the political efforts of religious organizations to control the secular political body of the United States and around the world.
In the United States, political dominion by sectarian interests takes the form of legislative efforts to impose regulatory obstacles to provision medical care for women seeking to prevent or end pregnancies, curtail the free exchange of medical information and services for women, stop the interstate transportation of minors for medical services in contradiction of state parental notification laws, create useless medical notification procedures concerning women's health, dictate the sexes of the parties to a secular marriage contract; end the role of courts in assuring the rights of minorities in religious proselytizing cases, establish biblical instruction in science biology courses for schools districts throughout the nation, and subject children in secular public schools to sectarian proselytizing.
Sectarian groups have been and are now actively engaged in rewriting the nation's history in order to fulfill their political ambitions. Likewise, these groups are actively engaged in stopping public funding for medical and scientific research. Their self avowed stance is that the majority should rule rather than, as the U.S. Constitution provides, the minority is to be protected from rule by the majority and they proclaim themselves to be the majority.
CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT
One of the most serious condemnations of religious organizations comes from examples of child abuse and neglect that include severe beatings, rejection of medical care, starvation, forced marriages, child labor, slavery, isolation, exorcism rituals, and sexual molestation as religious practices. The following information was obtained from Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty, Inc. (CHILD, Inc.)
CHILD, Inc. reports that the following religious organizations engage in the practice of rejection of medial care:
Amy Hermanson, 7, died in 1986 in Sarasota, Florida. A talented little girl, she took piano, violin, harp, and art lessons, and excelled in academic subjects also. Many teachers and employees at her mother's business observed Amy's weight loss and lethargy over a four-week period, but did not report to Child Protection Services (CPS). They did not know she had diabetes. Some assumed the parents were providing medical treatment. One employee said she did not report to CPS because she knew the Hermansons were Christian Scientists and they were "signing [her] paycheck." A neighbor urged her mother to take her to a doctor, but the mother refused. A few minutes later, Amy crawled in from another room on her hands and knees and begged her mother to take her home. Her aunt said that she was incoherent and unable to focus her eyes the day before she died.
The Hermansons were convicted of felony child abuse and third-degree murder. In 1992, however, the Florida Supreme Court overturned their conviction on fair notice grounds. Citing a religious exemption in Florida's civil code, the Court said, "The statutes have created a trap that the legislature should address." Nine years later, however, the Florida legislature still has not done so. (1)
WAR
"Intolerance breeds injustice. Injustice invariably leads to rebellion and retaliation, and these will lead to escalation on the part of both making reconciliation almost impossible. It would appear that during times of stress, despair and frustration, people become increasingly irrational, and they do things which they never think they are capable of. And so we see hideous brutality perpetrated by the most gentle people."
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