DomKen -> RE: Religious couple do it again (4/26/2013 2:44:48 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Aylee quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen quote:
ORIGINAL: muhly22222 quote:
Well, I think charging the church and its ministers with the death would be a damn good way to bring it home. Yes, it can be a slippery slope of sorts, however this isn't listening to a rock and roll singer. A reasonable person expects to be able to get guidance from their priest, pastor, minister, reverend, rabbi, whichever your religion has. A reasonable person doesn't expect to get guidance from a rock band, athlete or celebrity. So there IS a difference. Let's see if those church authorities can continue to preach no medical intervention when they are facing murder charges. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you in sentiment, but there are a lot of problems with doing that. First is causation. No matter what the pastor/minister/reverend taught, the parents made the decision to take it to such an extreme. While they received the spiritual guidance that led them to that conclusion from the minister, the minister did not make that decision for them, which means that the minister (arguably) wasn't the proximate cause of the child's death. Next up is freedom of speech. Like it or not, he does have a right to preach those teachings. We should expect adults to be able to listen to him and realize that "Don't take your children to the doctor when they're sick" is a stupid idea, and to ignore it. Punishing the minister because somebody listened to his idiotic ideas opens up all kinds of potentially unwanted legal results. There's also a problem with the freedom of religion. He has a right to refuse medical treatment because of his religious beliefs. The adults in his church have a right to do the same. It's a valid (though ridiculous) religious belief. Again, people need to use common sense, and we have to give them the chance to do that. The parents should be punished here, but I wouldn't go after the minister. While you're right about all of that, could he not be prosecuted for his actions? In a previous case like this the preacher went to the child's home and exhorted the parents to "stay strong in their faith" and led prayers over the child as she died. Is that still free speech and assembly? It strikes me as awfully close to the "shouting fire in a crowded theater" type of speech. If we (the state) do prosecute the parents and the preacher, are we also going to start prosecuting parents, and those who advocate it, that fail to vaccinate their children? (Exceptions for those who are not able to be vaccinated.) I would. They're endangering both their own children and those people who cannot be vaccinated.
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