Texas court sides with Taliban

Tell me if this doesn't sound like it isn't ripped straight out of the tyrannical pages of the Taliban.

In 1996, a 17-year-old girl collapsed at a Pentecostal church outside Fort Worth, Texas. Instead of investigating to see if there was a medical cause behind the collapse, church members immediately performed what they called an exorcism by violently pinning her to the floor. (A worshiper had reported seeing a demon running around on church grounds.)

The girl was still conscious and never consented to this exorcism. She fought to break free and was gasping for air. She received rug burns from this restraint, which lasted for 3 hours.

The church did the same thing to her again 3 days later - again without her consent. This time she was bruised heavily.

Not long after this, the previously well-adjusted teenager began experiencing symptoms of what several different therapists agreed was post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder. They determined she was at risk for suicide and cardiovascular problems, and she was unable to eat or sleep.

The victim of the church assaults sued. A jury quite properly awarded her $188,000.

But in BushAmerica, it seems like no sensible court decision lasts very long without some activist judges bopping along and overturning it.

The losing defendants fought their victim tooth and nail and appealed this judgment to the Texas Supreme Court. And the $188,000 verdict was promptly tossed out because they claimed it violated church members' First Amendment rights.

You can't make this stuff up, people. The court actually ruled in favor of those who assaulted the teen by claiming that the assault was protected under the right to religious expression. Seriously, they said that.

I adore the Bill of Rights, and religious freedom is one of the most important rights guarded by this document. But nowhere does this give you the right to injure someone during an exorcism that you performed on them without their consent.

I know that at the time of the incident, the victim was a minor. Then shouldn't the church members who injured her be prosecuted for child abuse? Child abusers can't very well argue that they can abuse their victims because they don't need consent. That would be preposterous.

The Texas Supreme Court's 6 to 3 decision to let the assaulters hide behind the First Amendment is simply nutty. And it guts decades of established law.

The dissent in this case accurately stated that the ruling gives too much immunity to defendants who "merely allege a religious motive" and that the First Amendment does not "sanction intentional abuse in religion's name."

While the court's majority said religious practices that threaten someone's safety "cannot be tolerated as protected religious belief", it denied that the victim's safety was threatened. They said this is because PTSD is emotional and not physical.

What's that again??? It's been proven that PTSD actually involves physical changes in part of the brain. And why should emotional pain be treated as any less of a sign or cause of danger as physical pain?

Maybe I should start my own church so I can break any law I want.

(Source: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/06/28/0628exorcism.html)