Jehovah's Witnesses ordered by jury to pay $35M to abuse survivor

The Jehovah's Witnesses must pay $35 million to a woman who says the church's national organization ordered Montana clergy members not to report her sexual abuse as a child at the hands of a congregation member, a jury ruled in a verdict.

A judge must review the penalty, and the Jehovah's Witnesses' national organization — Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York — plans to appeal.

Still, the 21-year-old woman's attorneys said Wednesday's verdict sends a message to the church to report child abuse to outside authorities.

"Hopefully that message is loud enough that this will cause the organization to change its priorities in a way that they will begin prioritizing the safety of children so that other children aren't abused in the future," said attorney Neil Smith Thursday.

Jehovah's Witnesses ordered by jury to pay $35M to abuse survivor

Watch: Jehovah's Witnesses official says to destroy records because 'Satan's coming after us' - Philly

A Jehovah’s Witnesses official delivered an urgent message to a group of elders at a 2017 seminar in Britain: The time had come to rethink the record-keeping policies of the organization, which has come under fire for its handling of child sex abuse complaints.

Shawn Bartlett, the Witnesses’ record management overseer, explained that handwritten notes and drafts of internal documents needed to be destroyed because of the potential legal harm they posed to the organization, which has eight million followers worldwide and more than a dozen congregations in the Philadelphia area.

“The question is: Why has this come up?” Bartlett said, according to a video recording of the seminar that was leaked online earlier this year by an anonymous insider.

“Well, we know that the scene of this world is changing, and we know Satan’s coming after us, and he’s going to go for us legally. We can see by the way things are shaping up. So the organization has said, ‘We’ve run into difficulties in the past because of the records we have.'”

Watch: Jehovah's Witnesses official says to destroy records because 'Satan's coming after us' - Philly

Suspect in Jehovah's Witness child sex abuse case arrested - Philly

This right here is why I do what I do in re-posting all these articles,,,

Jennifer Haugh was “beyond happy” when she found out about the arrest. “I truly feel that wouldn’t have happened if the article hadn’t run,” she said. 

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The story of what happened to Haugh’s daughter all those years ago has been layered with frustration and pain. The identity of her alleged abuser was never a mystery; he was an adopted relative named John Logan Haugh. But Martin and Jennifer had waited years to report the incident to police because their congregation elders — the Witnesses’ equivalent of parish priests — had instructed them to not contact law enforcement, in keeping with the organization’s well-practiced efforts to keep the lid on child sex-abuse allegations across the country and around the world.

Police issued an arrest warrant for John Logan Haugh on misdemeanor charges of indecent assault in October, but only recently caught a break in the case. Martin said investigators told him that an elder contacted police and provided an address for the 26-year-old after reading about the molestation last month in an Inquirer and Daily News report on the culture of secrecy that pervades the Witnesses.

John Logan Haugh was arrested on May 3 by police in Dagsboro, a small town in southern Delaware. A court official there said Haugh was released after posting 10 percent of $2,000 bail — and with orders to surrender to authorities in York County.

He finally complied on Wednesday afternoon, when he appeared in court before Magisterial District Judge John Fishel. His father posted bail, which was set at $20,000 this time, according to court records. Haugh’s attorney, Jeffrey Marshall, declined to comment.

Suspect in Jehovah's Witness child sex abuse case arrested - Philly

ADDENDUM::Report sheds light on tragic end for Keego Harbor family

Months after a murder suicide stunned the sleepy town of Keego Harbor, the Free Press has obtained investigative documents that shed light on what drove an aspiring model to kill her two grown children, her husband, herself and the family dog. 

According to police records and interviews with family, friends and neighbors, Stuart  battled many problems, including depression, ostracism from the Jehovah Witness church, and mental scars stemming from alleged sexual abuse as a child.

These factors combined, police believe, led Stuart to cave to despair on a February weekday when she fatally shot her son, daughter and husband — using pillows to suppress the sound — before shooting herself between the eyes.

Report sheds light on tragic end for Keego Harbor family

Banner loses legal case that pitted religious beliefs against science

The parents of a 14-year-old boy with bone cancer won a legal challenge against a Mesa hospital that attempted to override their religious objections to blood transfusions.

The Arizona Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that a lower court's emergency hotline used by hospitals to authorize medical treatment on behalf of patients is not allowed under state law.

The parents of a 14-year-old boy with bone cancer challenged Banner Cardon Children's use of a Maricopa County Superior Court emergency hotline to authorize blood transfusions on behalf of the child. The parents and boy are Jehovah's Witnesses and objected to blood transfusions on religious grounds. 

While Banner Cardon's medical-treatment plan initially consisted of alternative therapies to fit the parents' religious views, hospital staff later determined that blood transfusions were medically necessary. 

Hospital staff called the Maricopa County Superior Court hotline multiple times from October through December last year to seek authorization for the blood transfusions. The court granted three of five requests, according to court documents.

The parents filed a petition with the Arizona Court of Appeals seeking to halt the transfusions.   

Banner loses legal case that pitted religious beliefs against science

Las Vegas man charged with raping teen member of his church – Las Vegas Review-Journal

A Las Vegas man was arrested last week after authorities accused him of raping a teenage member of his church, police and court records show.

Carlos Alfonso Perez, 55, was charged in January with three counts of sexual assault with a minor under 14 and two counts of sexual assault with a minor under 16, records show. He was arrested March 13 at his northeast Las Vegas home.

Perez is accused of assaulting a teenage girl multiple times between July 2012 and July 2014. He denied any wrongdoing in a December interview with police, according to records, but declined to take a polygraph examination.

Las Vegas man charged with raping teen member of his church – Las Vegas Review-Journal

Friend says church shunned family before murder-suicide - Story | WJBK

 Police say a Keego Harbor woman killed her husband and two grown children before taking her own life.

A friend of the victims believe the family's religion is linked to the tragedy.  Joyce Taylors outburst during Sunday services at the Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall in Union Lake was caught on camera.

Taylor says she was trying to explain to the congregation her theory of what happened to her close friends the Stuart family.

"They were the nicest people, they would give their shirt off their back," she said. "That is how wonderful they were."

Investigators say last Friday 45-year-old Lauren Stuart shot and killed her husband Daniel, daughter Bethany and son Steven, both in their mid-20s.

Then, Lauren turned the gun on herself.

Friend says church shunned family before murder-suicide - Story | WJBK

See also::  Ex-Jehovah’s Witness Kills Family, Then Herself, Possibly Due to Church Shunning

UPDATED::Former Long Beach teacher pleads guilty to molesting student in O.C. – Orange County Register

UPDATE::  Former Teacher, Jehovah’s Witness Church Elder Sentenced for Sexually Assaulting a Minor

A 44-year-old former teacher and Jehovah's Witness church elder was sentenced Friday to six years in prison for sexually assaulting one of his 13-year-old students.

A 44-year-old former teacher and Jehovah’s Witness church elder pleaded guilty Tuesday to sexually assaulting one of his 13-year-old students.

Jason Morris Gorski pleaded guilty to two counts of lewd acts with a minor younger than 14 and is expected to be sentenced to six years in prison on Jan. 26, defense attorney Brian Neal Gurwitz said.

Gorski was a teacher at the now-shuttered Southwestern Longview Private School in Long Beach, where he met the victim, from 2003 to 2007, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. He also attended the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall, a congregation in Cypress, and was appointed to a church elder position in 2007.

Former Long Beach teacher pleads guilty to molesting student in O.C. – Orange County Register

Appeals court scolds Jehovah's Witness organization over failure to turn over molestation records - The San Diego Union-Tribune

The governing body of the Jehovah’s Witness church received another rebuke this week by a state appeals court for “obstinately” refusing to turn over internal documents about knowledge of church leaders who have been accused of sexually abusing children.

The ruling, filed Thursday by the 4th District Court of Appeal, upholds a $4,000-a-day penalty against Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York for its failure to comply with a court order in a lawsuit filed by a man who claimed to have been molested in the 1990s.

“Here, Watchtower has abused the discovery process. It has zealously advocated its position and lost multiple times. Yet, it cavalierly refuses to acknowledge the consequences of these losses and the validity of the court’s orders requiring it to produce documents…,” the opinion concluded.

Appeals court scolds Jehovah's Witness organization over failure to turn over molestation records - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Fresno Jehovah’s Witnesses elder charged in sexual assault | The Fresno Bee

A Madera police dispatcher who is a church elder is charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl he mentored, Fresno police reported.

Fresno police received an anonymous tip on Sept. 20 about Martin Ramos, 43, and launched an investigation, Sgt. Daniel Macias said.

Investigators learned that Ramos was an elder at a Jehovah’s Witnesses church in the 4000 block of West McKinley Avenue. There, he met a teen girl and her family three years ago.

Ramos mentored the girl, and the two communicated through text messages. At one point, the two exchanged “inappropriate” photos and their relationship turned physical, Macias said.

Fresno Jehovah’s Witnesses elder charged in sexual assault | The Fresno Bee

Family of Jehovah's Witness who died after refusing blood transfusion can't keep suing doctors | PennLive.com

The family of a Jehovah's Witness who died after repeatedly refusing blood transfusions can't sue the hospital where doctors begged for a chance to save her life, a state appeals court ruled.

The case, outlined in an opinion by Superior Court Judge Jacqueline O. Shogan, involves a convergence of religion, medicine and the law.

Its focus is on what happened before Terri Seels-Davila, a Jehovah's Witness missionary, died after giving birth at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia in November 2010.

Seels-Davila, who had been serving on mission with her husband in Nicaragua, chose Hahnemann because of its "bloodless medicine" program for patients who won't agree to having blood transfusions, including Jehovah's Witnesses, Shogan noted. The treatment plan for Seels-Davila called for recycling her own blood back into her system.

Yet that proved to be inadequate when complications of her delivery required Seels-Davila to deliver by cesarean section. She developed internal bleeding. Even though doctors warned that her condition was dire, Seels-Davila, her husband and other family members refused to consent to a transfusion, court filings state.

Family of Jehovah's Witness who died after refusing blood transfusion can't keep suing doctors | PennLive.com

Jehovah’s Witnesses accused of vandalizing 7,000 year-old pyramid out of fears of devil worship

Members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses church have been accused to vandalizing  a 7,000 year old religious site in Mexico as part of a religious campaign against devil worship, reports Telesur.

According to local media sources, recent damage at the base of a pyramid at the San Bartolo Tutotepec archeological site falls in line the destruction of altars in the area that church members have taken responsibility for.

Members of the Christian sect state that they are following the word of God and believe that the sites are still used for traditional rituals that are “not Christian” and may involve devil worship.

Jehovah’s Witnesses accused of vandalizing 7,000 year-old pyramid out of fears of devil worship

A reader’s guide to the Jehovah’s Witnesses child sex abuse scandal | Reveal

Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders are fighting on multiple fronts to hide what they know about child sexual abusers in their religion.

Facing more than a dozen civil lawsuits in the United States and a government investigation in the United Kingdom, the Witnesses are continuing to withhold court-ordered documents from authorities. In England this month, the religious organization went to court for a fourth time attempting to block investigators from looking at their child abuse records.

It’s been just over a year since Reveal began publishing and broadcasting stories about Jehovah’s Witnesses covering up child sexual abuse. Since our first story aired, hundreds of Witnesses and ex-Witnesses have contacted us, mostly to share their stories.

We’re continuing to report on the issue, but in the meantime, here’s a quick rundown of nine major findings so far,,,

A reader’s guide to the Jehovah’s Witnesses child sex abuse scandal | Reveal

UPDATED::Authorities: Jehovah's Witnesses didn't report child sex abuse involving congregation members

UPDATE::  Jehovah’s Witnesses fight law on reporting child sex abuse to police

The case highlights the struggle of courts to interpret a convoluted web of clergy reporting laws that stretches across U.S. Elevating the tension is the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses explicitly are instructed not to report child sexual abuse to secular authorities unless required by state law.

Clergy are mandated to report child abuse in 45 states, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But laws in 32 of those states contain some version of a loophole called a clergy-penitent privilege. Those exceptions allow clergy to withhold information from authorities if they receive it from members seeking spiritual advice.

Delaware law requires any individual or organization suspecting child abuse to report it. But then it gets confusing. The law allows an exemption for a priest who learns of abuse during a “sacramental confession,” wording that suggests a privilege specifically for clergy in the Catholic Church.
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The judge concluded last week that while Delaware’s clergy reporting exemption could be interpreted to include the Witnesses, Carmean White’s admission to the elders was likely not a “sacramental confession.” She denied the Witnesses’ motion to dismiss the case.

The Witnesses frequently have cited their right to religious freedom to justify keeping child abuse secret from secular authorities. The Witnesses’ parent corporation, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, claimed its First Amendment rights in a major California lawsuit last year and in several other child abuse cases.

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The Delaware attorney general's office is suing a Jehovah's Witnesses congregation in Sussex County, claiming that elders failed to report an unlawful sexual relationship between a woman and a 14-year-old boy, both of whom were congregation members.

After speaking with attorneys this week, a New Castle County Superior Court judge scheduled oral arguments in the civil action against the Laurel congregation for Nov. 9.

Under Delaware law, any person, agency, organization or entity who knows or in good faith suspects that a child is being abused or neglected must call a 24-hour hotline to report it. The law specifically states that the reporting requirements apply to health care workers and organizations, school employees, social workers, psychologists and law enforcement officials.

But a lawyer for the congregation is arguing that the elders of the Jehovah's Witnesses congregation are protected from the reporting requirements by clergy privilege, similar to the confidentiality of a church confessional.

"It's a First Amendment issue," defense attorney James Liguori said.

Curious about the so-called "First Amendment issue", I found this:

The civil case will likely raise questions about the constitutionality of Delaware’s child abuse reporting mandate. A Superior Court judge in a Sussex County trial recently upheld the mandate.

Eric Bodenweiser, a former political candidate charged with abusing a young boy in the 1980s, asked a judge to rule his pastor couldn’t give prosecution testimony because the conversation he and the pastor had was a ‘sacramental confession’ under the law, which is exempt from mandatory reporting.

Alternatively, Bodenweiser’s lawyers argued, the law was unconstitutional if it was read to allow Catholic confessions, but not faith leader-congregant talks in other faiths, to be privileged.

The judge in Bodenweiser’s case declined to interpret the law that way and the pastor did testify. That trial ended in a mistrial; Bodenweiser later pleaded no contest to a lesser charge.

Authorities: Jehovah's Witnesses didn't report child sex abuse involving congregation members

Abuse allegations in Newfoundland casting a cloud over Jehovah's Witnesses - Newfoundland & Labrador - CBC News

Allegations of abuse involving two members of the Jehovah's Witness religious movement in Newfoundland have emerged, though details of the charges are protected by a court-ordered publication ban.

CBC News has learned that a former volunteer church elder and his son are facing charges.

The former elder is charged with sexual assault and sexual exploitation relating to allegations dating from 2009 to 2012 in central Newfoundland.

According to court documents, a second man is charged with sexual assault, with the information referencing a period between May 2011 and December 2013 in a community on the Avalon Peninsula.

CBC News has confirmed that the pair are father and son.

The RCMP also confirmed Thursday that both cases involve the same complainant.
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When asked about the charges, he also referenced the ongoing investigation and publication ban, but strongly condemned any abuse against young people.

"How we feel about child sexual abuse has been very clear for years now," said Picard.

"We do abhor that kind of wickedness … and we do not protect any of these individuals and we allow the authorities to do their work."

Picard confirmed the older accused is no longer a church elder, and that the church is co-operating with the investigation.

He also stressed that the Jehovah's Witnesses have measures in place to protect members of the church.

Abuse allegations in Newfoundland casting a cloud over Jehovah's Witnesses - Newfoundland & Labrador - CBC News

January 16, 2016::End of the day round-up

Reflections on the Bill Gothard Phenomenom and Scandal…

Why do I compare Gothard and Piper and their movements? The comparison has nothing to do with scandals; it has only to do with the kind of single-minded, overly simplistic, absolutist dedication of core followers. Both were perceived by many developmentally immature evangelical Christians as “the recovery” of true, authentic Christianity that, if adopted by all Christians, would solve all the major problems facing and infiltrating Christian churches from secular culture. The single enemy of both, whether followers know it or not, is the rise of anomie out of the secular and pluralistic cultural revolution of the 1960s. Both offer “the cure” for all that ails church and society. Both have strongly ideological and demogogic features. Both have the tendency to idolize power. Leaders of both failed to recognize the predictable abuses of their teachings by their absolutizing followers.

The core problem with both movements is threefold. First, they tend to take one rather idiocyncratic idea and blow it up into the interpretive key to the whole Bible and Christianity in general; Second, they tend to totalize an ideology developed out of that idea/key as something that cannot be subjected to critical scrutiny without revealing the critic’s spiritual weakness if not outright rebellion against God. A problem with both is that they did and do not regard their signature teachings as proposals for consideration but rather regard them as having the status of divine revelation itself. (How many times have I heard YRRM people call high Calvinism “a transcript of the gospel itself?”) Finally, both tend to elevate a single individual teacher as above question or criticism and both of those teachers are noted for rarely, if ever, saying “But I could be wrong.”

Another judge criticizes Jehovah’s Witnesses’ court tactics

Jenkins didn’t elaborate on the collaboration, but her remarks were not the first time a judge has taken issue with the Watchtower’s tactics in court. In two cases in California, judges issued default judgments to plaintiffs because the Watchtower refused to produce documents and witnesses.
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A Reveal investigation last February found that since 1989, the Watchtower had directed Jehovah’s Witnesses elders to hide child sexual abuse from secular authorities. The Watchtower’s pattern of secrecy subsequently was highlighted during an inquiry by an Australian government commission, which found that the Witnesses had failed to report more than 1,000 suspected child sexual abusers in that country.

New Virginia bill would let clerks deny marriage licenses to gay couples

Republican Sen. Charles Carrico of Galax, whose southwestern district borders Kentucky, said many of his constituents were concerned about what happened to Kim Davis, the Rowan County clerk, and asked him to help Virginia officials who are put in the same position.

“I’m just trying to clarify what the options are if they have a right-of-conscience issue,” said Carrico, who said he opposes gay marriage.

Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe has already vowed to veto the bill if it passes the GOP-controlled General Assembly.
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Carrico’s bill specifies that clerks and deputy clerks wouldn’t have to issue licenses if they object on “personal, ethical, moral or religious grounds.” It would establish a process to ensure that people whose licenses are denied would be able to get one from the Department of Motor Vehicles, Carrico said.
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The Virginia Court Clerks’ Association hasn’t taken a position on whether clerks should be able to refuse licenses, but doesn’t believe the DMV should have the power to hand out licenses, said Chaz Evans-Haywood, Rockingham County Clerk and the group’s president. If the bill moves forward, the group will push to ensure it specifies that if one clerk declines, another clerk in the county or a deputy clerk would have to issue the license, he said.

“We want to make sure that everyone who comes to the door is taken care of equally,” he said.

Seven days from the "5th Annual International Day of Protest Against Hereditary Religion" which is taking place on January 23, 2016. Here is part 2 of 4 from 2014 to tickle your appetite.

One Of The Largest Coal Companies In The United States Just Filed For Bankruptcy

“U.S. coal consumption is declining dramatically as coal-fired power plants are shutting down. Coal is being displaced by renewables and natural gas, and the Asian markets that all coal companies were looking to as their saviors are moving in the opposite direction,” Ross Macfarlane, senior advisor with Climate Solutions, told ThinkProgress. “[Arch’s bankruptcy filing] wasn’t unexpected, but it’s still very significant in that it shows that the second-largest coal company in the United States is unable to pay its debts and provide any return at all to its shareholders.”

As a company, Arch has seen a fairly rapid decline in the value of its shares following a flurry of domestic acquisitions in 2011. Those acquisitions, which totaled in the millions, were based on the presumption that the coal industry would see rapid overseas growth in the coming years. That overseas growth never materialized, with coal consumption several key nations like China peaking, or appearing to peak, in the past few years. In early 2011, stock in Arch Coal peaked at $260 a share — on Monday, shares in Arch Coal were worth less than a dollar. During that time, Arch Coal executives doubled their pay, despite falling share prices.
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“After carefully evaluating our options, we determined that implementing these agreements through a court-supervised process represents the best way to solidify our financial position and strengthen our balance sheet,” Arch’s chairman and CEO John W. Eaves said in the press statement announcing the Chapter 11 filing. “We are confident that this comprehensive financial restructuring will further enhance Arch’s position as a large-scale, low-cost operator.”

WATCH: Stephen Colbert’s fascinating interview with pyramid-discovering ‘space archaeologist’ Sarah Parcak

Parcak, an associate professor of Anthropology and director of the Laboratory for Global Observation at the University of Alabama, recently was awarded the 2016 $1 million TED Prize for her talk on how she uses satellite imagery to discover below-surface ruins.

January 8, 2016::End of the day round-up (pg 2)

You’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer. How soon do you need treatment?

When a patient with breast cancer comes in to see me, not infrequently I have to reassure her that she doesn’t need to be wheeled off to the operating room tomorrow, that it’s safe to wait a while. One reason, of course, is that it takes years for a cancer to grow from a single cell to a detectable mass. The big question, of course, is: What is “a while”? Two studies published online last month attempt to answer that question. One study (Bleicher et al) comes from Fox Chase Cancer Center and examines the effect of time to surgery on breast cancer outcomes; the other (Chavez-MacGregor et al) is from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and examines the effect of time to chemotherapy on outcome. Both find a detrimental effect due to delays in treatment.
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I realize that these two studies are about as close to “Well, duh!” studies as there are. Of course, delaying surgery for breast cancer is not a good thing. Of course, delaying chemotherapy when it’s indicated is also not a good thing. These are results that are not unexpected. However, these studies are still very important because they give us estimates of how much of a delay is safe and at what point delaying care starts to have a measurable impact on patient outcomes. Putting the results of these studies together suggests that it’s best to do surgery within about 60 days in patients not needing chemotherapy first, and that for patients with disease lacking the estrogen and progesterone receptor it’s best to start chemotherapy within 90 days of surgery.
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This sort of analysis is also yet another bit of data demonstrating that conventional treatments work. After all, if a conventional treatment didn’t work, it wouldn’t matter how long you waited to administer it. For instance, if you treated a woman with breast cancer with homeopathy right away, the results would be the same if you waited 120 days. I’ve discussed examples of patients who paid a steep price for their delaying effective treatments for their cancers, beginning with breast cancer patients over eleven years ago and a man I encountered as a resident with rectal cancer who had turned himself orange with megadoses of carrots trying to treat his disease. We also know that the use of alternative medicine as a primary treatment in breast cancer is associated with recurrence and death. Using alternative therapy for breast cancer is a good way to die when you don’t have to or to die sooner than you would otherwise. Refusing surgery also results in death.

Jehovah’s Witnesses Say God Used a Typhoon to Deliver Sand for the Building of a New Kingdom Hall

In the latest episode of the Jehovah’s Witness’ online show JW Broadcasting, construction overseer Travis Brooks explains how sand was hard to come by when his team was building a new hall. But Jehovah answered their prayers by way of a supernatural disaster.

Raif Badawi supporters to give petition to Saudi embassy in London

Supporters of Raif Badawi, the jailed Saudi activist and blogger, plan to hand over a petition with 250,000 signatures to the Saudi embassy in London on Friday [today] calling for his release.

A separate petition for the release of Badawi’s lawyer, Waleed Abu al-Khair, will also be handed over to mark a year since Badawi received 50 lashes in a public square in Jeddah. He was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for insulting Islam.

Meet Marco Rubio's 'Religious Liberty Advisory Board'

Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign has announced its creation of a Religious Liberty Advisory Board that includes Religious Right legal and political activists, including academics and some big names, like Rick Warren of Saddleback Church.

The list could be seen as a response by Rubio’s campaign to last month’s closed-door meeting at which “dozens” of Religious Right leaders voted to rally behind his rival, Sen. Ted Cruz. But Rubio’s director of Faith Outreach, former Manhattan Declaration Executive Director Eric Teetsel, told World Magazine that “membership on the board doesn’t equal an endorsement of the GOP candidate, and the members could advise other campaigns if they wanted.”
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Also on Rubio’s advisory board are people affiliated with legal groups promoting Religious Right efforts to portray LGBT equality and religious liberty as incompatible, including Doug Napier and Kellie Fiedorek of Alliance Defending Freedom and Kyle Duncan, lead counsel for the Green family, the owners of Hobby Lobby, and former general counsel of the Becket Fund, which was once described in Politico as “God’s Rottweilers.”

Formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund, ADF is a heavyweight among Religious Right legal groups, and is spreading its anti-gay, anti-choice advocacy worldwide. Fiedorek argues that the “agenda to expand sexual liberty and redefine marriage” puts religious liberty in “great peril.” She has compared business owners who refuse to provide wedding-related services to same-sex couples to Rosa Parks.

ISIS’ War On Children

The reasons for indoctrinating children are both strategic and optic. By training and filming children along with its fighters, ISIS presents its brand of militancy as a family affair — and the family as integral to the state it’s created.
“Children are shown in propaganda videos for calculated psychological value,” Rachel Bryson writes in the Independent. “It aims to arouse global fear through portraying to the world that it is a powerful and fully-functioning state, fueling a multi-generational war.”

That fear seems deliberate on the part of ISIS, which has developed a specialized curriculum and camps to indoctrinate children into their extremist world view — and train them to defend it. Children of ISIS fighters and sympathizers are reared in ISIS’ ideology and trained to fight in camps far from their parents’ reach.

When A 14-Year-Old Chooses To Die Because Of Religion, Can Anyone Stop Him? | KUOW News and Information

“Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children.”

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Dennis Lindberg died in 2007, his case has faded in the memories of many (myself included); for a few, not so much.  Isolde Raftery is one such individual,,,

This is the second of two medical cases that pose a dilemma.  While I understand and accept that Washington state allows for this type of decision by law, called the mature minor doctrine, it doesn't take away the stupidity of religious indoctrination.  Although the law in question allows for autonomy in decisions concerning transgender and pregnancy issues, killing one's self based on religious brainwashing, that is counter to medical science is asinine.

As Raftery notes,

… I reached out to Dr. Douglas Diekema, a senior ethicist at Seattle Children’s.
Although Diekema wasn’t involved in Dennis’s care, he said he believed Dennis was too young to make such a grave decision. Brain research shows that most of our decision-making is driven by the emotional side of our brains. In teenagers, that’s even more pronounced, because teen decision-making relies more on mid-brain structures, or the socio-emotional part of the brain, than adult decision-making.
…
Given Dennis’s rough start in life, Diekema said he wondered if Dennis was refusing blood to maintain his relationship with his aunt and his standing in a church community that provided him social support and nurture.

“He may not feel as obligated to make that same decision when he’s 30,” Diekema said.

Two points to consider, one of which is alluded to above, "Given Dennis’s rough start in life, Diekema said he wondered if Dennis was refusing blood to maintain his relationship with his aunt and his standing in a church community that provided him social support and nurture."  You see Dennis was a child convert,

Dennis adapted well to his new life in Mount Vernon, a farm city an hour north of Seattle. Mincin taught him to brush his teeth and encouraged him as he learned to read. She immersed him in the Jehovah’s Witness faith, connected him with mentors and brought him to the nearby Kingdom Hall. On Saturday mornings, Dennis donned a suit and tie and proselytized in the area.
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When Dennis asked if he could call Mincin “mom,” she gently said no. He had a mother, she said. When he asked to be baptized as a Jehovah’s Witness, she resisted. He was so needy, she told me later, so eager to please. She worried that he was seeking social, not spiritual, acceptance.

In seventh grade, Dennis convinced Mincin that he was ready.

And so, at 13, Dennis was baptized. The same day, he signed what Witnesses call a “blood card,” saying he would refuse blood. Around this time, Mincin became his legal guardian. His parents said they believed it was a temporary arrangement so that Dennis could cross the nearby border to Canada for a religious convention.

So a convert at 13, dead at 14.  I'm sorry, and not to belittle Dennis or his faith, no man understands the intricacies and ramifications of religious belief in one years time.

Point two, this is a wholly, man made doctrine, to further the cause of isolationism among the JW cult.

Jehovah’s Witnesses became adamant about refusing blood around 1945, when blood banks were established in Chicago and San Francisco.

Elders at the Watch Tower Society in Brooklyn pointed to Genesis 9:4, which condemns cannibalism, and Leviticus 17:10, which says, “I will set my face against that soul who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people.”

Not that it’s been uniform. Some Witnesses say they would take fractions of blood but not whole blood or specific parts – plasma, platelets, red blood cells or white blood cells. Others accept organ transplants.
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Years later, Mincin recalled what went through her mind: “I knew I was helping him to actually die. It was awful. But the other option was more horrifying. To abandon Dennis in his strong conviction to uphold Bible principles as we understand them and allow transfusions to be forced upon him, would have killed him in so many other ways.”

But for me, here is the clincher, "“I know that you and a lot of other people want me to have the treatment,” he said, “but more people think I should follow my faith.”  If Teresa Vaughn's encounter with Dennis at the hospital (as reported by Raftery) is accurate, Dennis has become a martyr for the cause and that is all.

I asked her how Dennis’s death affected her faith, and she said it was strengthened initially.

“Now that the years are passing, I feel like everybody has forgotten the courageous stand he took,” she said.

“Intellectually, I know that is not true. But, somehow, I want his name written down somewhere in our literature. I want him remembered. It's as though life goes by and he never existed. Not to me, but to others. It's hard to move on.”

I am all for religious freedom. As an atheist I will fight for your right, AS AN ADULT, to practice you chosen faith in private.  What I will not fight for is the death of a living, breathing, minor child.

Like the doctrine of original sin in mainstream Christianity, JWs believe receiving blood makes one unclean and unworthy.  To say, "I don't believe Dennis' decision is the result of any coercion. He is mature and understands the consequences of his decision," is poppycock.  Dennis was being taught that he was a failed human being by accepting the advances of medical science, that is coercion in my book.

When religion becomes state sanctified insanity, which in my opinion, it is.... Superstition becomes "sacred," and people die from it. Everyone who knows even a little bit of history knows how destructive religious thinking is to humankind,,,

When A 14-Year-Old Chooses To Die Because Of Religion, Can Anyone Stop Him? | KUOW News and Information

PS::  I lied!!  There is a third case I am muddling through without much luck,,,

How Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Changing Medicine - The New Yorker

This is one of those mixed feelings type articles.  On one hand, it is excellent "news" that science has advanced enough to accommodate the bizarre beliefs and restrictions of the Jehovah's Witnesses and we will all benefit from said advances.  On the other, why should we?  Because of the children.  And, “But we had to remind ourselves we were respecting his wishes. Patients have the right to determine their care.”

The whole story is an interesting read - and it’s only part one of a three-part series looking at this practice.  Faith-based ban on transfusions do not make any logical sense. But, it’s pretty amazing to see a religion that hurts its own sheeple followers, only to have science swoop in to fix the problem.

In the Book of Acts, the apostle Paul urges congregants to abstain “from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what is strangled, and from sexual immorality.” Jehovah’s Witnesses, apparently alone among Christian groups, believe this verse, along with others, prohibits them from accepting blood transfusions, no matter how dire the circumstance. As Joan Ortiz, a Witness in her sixties, recently told me, it’s as much a sin to take a blood transfusion as to have an extramarital affair. In this interpretation of Scripture, those who comply will prosper and enjoy good health. Those who don’t can be cut off from their people and denied resurrection. “Everything about us is carried in our blood,” said Ortiz. “Our personality, our sicknesses, all the good things about us. It’s who we are. It’s our soul.” It should not be mixed, even if life depends on it.

Though Witnesses accept virtually all other medical interventions, the stricture against transfusion can affect their care. Patients may need donor blood when they lose their own blood rapidly, as a result of a car crash or surgery, or when they develop severe anemia—for instance, during cancer treatment. In the past several decades, specialty programs in “bloodless medicine” that cater to Jehovah’s Witnesses have grown up at dozens of hospitals.

Surprisingly, doctors’ experience in these programs has often led them to order blood far less frequently for other patients, as well. Some bloodless medicine experts have also helped lead a national movement calling for more sparing use of transfusion. Donor blood comes with risks for all patients, including the potential for immune reactions and infections. And clinical trials have shown that, for a broad range of conditions, restrictive transfusion practices do not lead to worse outcomes than liberal ones. In recent years, the American Medical Association has listed transfusion as among the most overused therapies in medicine.

,,,

Still, bloodless medicine requires more than surgical skill, as Steinberger himself also stressed. It rests on a myriad of small precautions and coördinated, blood-saving techniques that begin well in advance of surgery. When Ortiz had pre-operative testing done in Florida, on the advice of a nurse who was familiar with Witnesses, she insisted that the phlebotomist use pediatric tubes and draw the minimum amount possible.

How Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Changing Medicine - The New Yorker

What I Believe to Be True — and How I Have Come to Believe It — Medium

Although a month old (lost in the shuffle of my recovery), an excellent read concerning the Jehovah’s Witnesses and how one question led to a path of secular humanism based on critical thinking.  It is a well written piece specifically picking apart a foundational teaching of the cult as well as the practice of shunning.

This is when it really hit me that the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society is a completely unethical organization. No healthy organization emotionally blackmails their members into staying, instills debilitating phobias of life outside the organization, or promotes complete dependence on it. Because of a “contract” I entered when I was 15 years old, I now had to throw my life away and start over.

A huge H/T to Hemant Mehta for this gem. If you are a comment nerd like myself, Genser engages dialogue throughout the comment section.

I decided to stop going to meetings because my beliefs and values no longer align with the official policies of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society and their affiliate corporations. Since there is absolutely no room in the JW organization for dissent, I decided to withdraw, move on with my life, and start over.

This article is my explanation for why and how I have changed my beliefs.

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One of the defining moments of my childhood came when I was seven years old. My sister, at the age of 17, was disfellowshipped. I loved my sister — I even shared a room with her! Suddenly, though, she was a spiritual pariah, and my family was to have nothing to do with her.

I was too young to understand fully what was even happening at the time, but I remember my mom crying and crying. The arguments increased in the ensuing years over how much involvement our family should have with her as she got married and started a family of her own.

For the remaining portion of my childhood, I grew up not knowing my sister. At all. To this day, for all intents and purposes, my sister is a stranger to me.

,,,

Without the 607 date, the 1914 doctrine is wrong, and the 1919 appointment of JW leadership as the “faithful and discreet slave” is mathematically impossible.

So what seems at first to be a relatively unimportant historical dispute about the date of Jerusalem’s destruction becomes critically important to the credibility and spiritual authority of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

,,,

I was devastated to learn all this. I was angry, I was despondent, and I was scared. I was scared that my entire life had been built on a house of doctrinal cards, and the house was falling apart fast. I was also scared to discuss this with anyone — even my wife — because I knew there is no room for disagreement with Watchtower doctrine.

What I Believe to Be True — and How I Have Come to Believe It — Medium