October 17, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-girls-toddler-5-year-old-raped-new-delhi/

Police: Young girls raped in separate attacks in India
AP October 17, 2015

Photograph -- Indian protesters shout slogans during a demonstration near the home of a girl who was raped in New Delhi Oct. 17, 2015. CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES


NEW DELHI -- Two young girls - a toddler and a 5-year-old - have been raped in separate attacks in New Delhi, police said Saturday, in the latest incidents of sexual violence against girls and women in India.

A 2 1/2-year-old girl who was playing outside her home was raped in a west Delhi suburb Friday evening, said Delhi Police deputy superintendent Pushpendra Kumar. Family members found the child lying unconscious and bleeding in a park three hours after she went missing during a power outage in the neighborhood.

Police have detained a few men but have not yet made any arrests in the incident, Kumar said.

Meanwhile, police said they were questioning three men arrested in the gang-rape of the 5-year-old Friday evening in east Delhi.

Both girls were in stable condition at hospitals, police said.

The rapes occurred a week after a 4-year-old girl was found dumped near a railway track after being raped and slashed with a blade.

A series of recent attacks has renewed public fury and horror over India's inability to halt chronic violence against women and girls.

In December 2012, the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus led to a national outcry. In response to that attack, the government doubled the maximum prison term for rape to 20 years, created special courts to prosecute cases more quickly, and made voyeurism and acid attacks specific crimes under the law.

India's National Crime Records Bureau says more than 2,000 girls and women were raped in New Delhi in 2014.




“A 2 1/2-year-old girl who was playing outside her home was raped in a west Delhi suburb Friday evening, said Delhi Police deputy superintendent Pushpendra Kumar. Family members found the child lying unconscious and bleeding in a park three hours after she went missing during a power outage in the neighborhood. Police have detained a few men but have not yet made any arrests in the incident, Kumar said. Meanwhile, police said they were questioning three men arrested in the gang-rape of the 5-year-old Friday evening in east Delhi. Both girls were in stable condition at hospitals, police said. The rapes occurred a week after a 4-year-old girl was found dumped near a railway track after being raped and slashed with a blade.”

“In December 2012, the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus led to a national outcry. In response to that attack, the government doubled the maximum prison term for rape to 20 years, created special courts to prosecute cases more quickly, and made voyeurism and acid attacks specific crimes under the law.” Yes, antifeminism in the Eastern cultures is a chronic problem, and in fact a true tradition. As long as a whole society values the boy children at a much higher level than the girls, there will be hideous miscarriages of justice. The Middle East is bad, but India under both Hinduism and Islam are worse. It is especially sick, however, when the rape victims, as in this case, are 5 years old and less. The fact that the courts there have increased the penalty to 20 years from 10 is better than nothing, but it isn’t as stiff a sentence as they deserve.

In this country it isn’t usually called antifeminism, however, but simply child rape. It is the same unnatural sexual attraction in all cases – perhaps because these men hate their mothers or secretly fear grown women. They often do substitute sex with prepubescent children for women. If a woman is married to a man who never wants to touch her, there may be something like this going on. If a high percentage of the men in a country such as India hate women, or women are simply viewed with scorn, a result like this can happen. Pedophilia is the proper term, though. Many of them prefer little boys instead.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-mothers-quest-to-find-cure-for-rare-genetic-defect/

A mother's quest to find cure for rare genetic defect
By JONATHAN LAPOOK CBS NEWS
October 16, 2015

Photograph -- 1016enlapookgenetherapy3.jpg, Lori and Hannah Sames CBS NEWS
Photograph -- 1016enlapookgenetherapy4.jpg, Chrissy , Steve and Amanda Grube CBS NEWS



Eleven-year-old Hannah Sames has a can-do attitude and remarkable determination. At four years old, she was diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic defect called Giant Axonal Neuropathy (GAN). The disease causes nerves to die and muscles to stop working.

Hannah can no longer walk on her own. Children with GAN don't survive past their teens or twenties.

"This is a fatal disorder, so we picked ourselves literally off the ground and decided to fight," Hannah's mother Lori Sames told CBS News. "We knew we needed to raise a lot of money fast... There was nothing."

Out of nothing, Sames has conjured up hope -- Hannah's Hope, a grassroots charity dedicated to finding a cure for GAN.

"She can't dress independently. Her fine motor skills are now impaired," Sames said. "She has trouble balancing food on her fork. It's really taken her independence."

"I don't have the worst life in the world, but it's hard," Hannah said. "I just keep a smile on my face and I try to keep my head up."

Ten-year-old Chrissy Grube and her younger sister Amanda were both born with GAN. So far, five-year-old Amanda has hardly any symptoms while Chrissy now has trouble walking and problems breathing.

"It is this immense sense of powerlessness," their father Steve Grube said. "There was nothing we could offer my girls to save their lives."

Now there may be something. Hannah's Hope has raised millions for gene therapy research at the University of North Carolina's Gray Lab. Seven years after Sames began her crusade for a cure, a human trial is underway at the National Institutes of Health. Chrissy Grube is patient number one.

"She was excited but very nervous," her father said. "She understood that it might not work. She understood that it might make her worse -- but she also understood that it was a chance to walk again."

"They are really pioneers, in fact they are courageous pioneers," said Dr. Carsten Bonnemann, who is directing the trial. "The principle of gene therapy is to replace the gene with an artificial copy of the gene."

Doctors injected Chrissy with the gene packaged inside a harmless virus, to penetrate cells and restore nerve function.

"I'm very excited," Bonnemann said. "What we're doing here is opening the door for delivery of other gene therapies that would also have to go to nerve cells or the spinal cord."

Hannah could be patient number four.

"Hannah's been asking why this has been taking so long, and we've told her that we really need to make certain that it's safe," her mother said.

Hannah hopes she'll be able to walk again. The researchers say they will be watching over the next year or two to see if the therapy restores muscle function. But stopping the progression of the disease would be considered success as well.




“At four years old, she was diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic defect called Giant Axonal Neuropathy (GAN). The disease causes nerves to die and muscles to stop working. Hannah can no longer walk on her own. Children with GAN don't survive past their teens or twenties. "This is a fatal disorder, so we picked ourselves literally off the ground and decided to fight," Hannah's mother Lori Sames told CBS News. "We knew we needed to raise a lot of money fast... There was nothing." …. "I don't have the worst life in the world, but it's hard," Hannah said. "I just keep a smile on my face and I try to keep my head up." Ten-year-old Chrissy Grube and her younger sister Amanda were both born with GAN. So far, five-year-old Amanda has hardly any symptoms while Chrissy now has trouble walking and problems breathing. …. Now there may be something. Hannah's Hope has raised millions for gene therapy research at the University of North Carolina's Gray Lab. Seven years after Sames began her crusade for a cure, a human trial is underway at the National Institutes of Health. Chrissy Grube is patient number one. "She was excited but very nervous," her father said. "She understood that it might not work. She understood that it might make her worse -- but she also understood that it was a chance to walk again." …. . "The principle of gene therapy is to replace the gene with an artificial copy of the gene." Doctors injected Chrissy with the gene packaged inside a harmless virus, to penetrate cells and restore nerve function. .... Hannah hopes she'll be able to walk again. The researchers say they will be watching over the next year or two to see if the therapy restores muscle function. But stopping the progression of the disease would be considered success as well.”

I had never heard of “Giant Axonal Neuropathy” before. I can see the presence of this disordered GAN gene as reason to abort a fetus if it can be diagnosed that early, as Down Syndrome can. This gene is especially problematic because many of those who carry it show no symptoms, and therefore may marry and have children, thus passing it on. Many people will disagree with me about this, but I do consider severely damaging genes of this type to be legitimate grounds for abortion. In ancient societies such babies were “exposed” or left out in the wilds to die. I wouldn’t condone that, but it does serve as a way of stopping the gene from passing on to future generations. I certainly think that a parent who is carrying the illness should be able to get gene therapy. Some conservatives are against gene therapy as being sinful because it is not leaving the matter up to God’s will. It also uses human foetal tissue, I think. I personally don’t think God is jealous of mankind over issues like that. He wants us to use our mind. See the article below:

http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/giant-axonal-neuropathy

Genetics Home Reference
What is giant axonal neuropathy?

Giant axonal neuropathy is an inherited condition involving dysfunction of a specific type of protein in nerve cells (neurons). The protein is essential for normal nerve function because it forms neurofilaments. Neurofilaments make up a structural framework that helps to define the shape and size of the neurons. This condition is characterized by abnormally large and dysfunctional axons, which are the specialized extensions of nerve cells that are required for the transmission of nerve impulses.

It progresses slowly as neuronal injury becomes more severe. Signs of giant axonal neuropathy usually begin in the peripheral nervous system, which governs movement and sensation in the arms, legs, and other parts of the body. Most individuals with this disorder first have problems with walking. Later they may lose sensation, coordination, strength, and reflexes in their limbs. Hearing and visual problems may also occur. Extremely kinky hair (as compared to others in the family) is characteristic of giant axonal neuropathy, occurring in almost all affected people.

As the disorder progresses, the brain and spinal cord (central nervous system) may become involved, causing a gradual decline in mental function, loss of control of body movement, and seizures.

How common is giant axonal neuropathy?

Giant axonal neuropathy is a very rare disorder; the incidence is unknown.

What genes are related to giant axonal neuropathy?

Giant axonal neuropathy is caused by mutations in the GAN gene, which provides instructions for making a protein called gigaxonin. Some GAN gene mutations change the shape of the protein, affecting how it binds to other proteins to form a functional complex. Other mutations prevent cells from producing any gigaxonin protein.

Gigaxonin is involved in a cellular function that destroys and gets rid of excess or damaged proteins using a mechanism called the ubiquitin-proteasome system. Neurons without functional gigaxonin accumulate excess neurofilaments in the axon, causing the axons to become distended. These giant axons do not transmit signals properly and eventually deteriorate, resulting in problems with movement and other nervous system dysfunction.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/third-female-army-ranger-on-graduating-theres-no-quitting/

Third female Army Ranger on graduating: "There's no quitting"
By SCOTT PELLEY CBS NEWS
October 16, 2015

Play VIDEO -- Third female Army Ranger graduates
Photograph -- pelley-female-rangerframe2832.jpg, Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver congratulate Maj. Lisa Jaster at Army Ranger School graduation AP


It was a challenge to spot 37-year-old Major Lisa Jaster among the 88 Ranger School graduates, but there was no camouflaging her smile. Receiving her Ranger badge was a mission accomplished.

"There's no quitting, I can't have quit in me. There was never an option to stop and quit," said Jaster. "When Kris and Shaye moved on and I didn't, that was one of the hardest moments at Ranger School for me."

Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver were the first women to finish Army Ranger School in August. They returned to Fort Benning, Georgia today to show their support.

Nineteen women began Ranger School in April as part of a Pentagon mandate to open combat units to women. It took Jaster 180 days to finish.

"Once you get in the field and start training, shoulder to shoulder, gender stops mattering very quickly," she said.

For inspiration, she carried a photo of her 3-year-old daughter Victoria and 7-year-old son Zachary in her pocket.

"All I had to do was look at that picture and remember I didn't come to Ranger School just to get a piece of cloth on my shoulder," Jaster said.

"I wanted to do something. I wanted to better myself as a leader and I wanted to help the Army in this endeavor."




"I wanted to do something. I wanted to better myself as a leader and I wanted to help the Army in this endeavor." Will it be Senator or President Jaster in ten or fifteen years? I hope she’s a Democrat.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/miracle-on-ice-94-year-old-hockey-player-dominates-in-the-rink/

Miracle on ice: 94-year-old hockey player dominates in the rink
By STEVE HARTMAN CBS NEWS
October 16, 2015

Photograph -- hartman-hockey-4.png, Mark Sertich CBS NEWS


DULUTH, Minn. -- In northern Minnesota, it's not uncommon to find a guy in his nineties looking back on his glory days as a hockey player - but it is uncommon to find a guy still living them.

Like his handle bar mustache, Mark Sertich's hockey days appear to be never ending. "You've gotta challenge yourself a little bit," said Sertich. "I think that's what keeps you going."

He started playing as a little kid and is still putting on pads and gloves at the unbelievable age of 94.

"Just putting all the equipment on is a miracle in itself for a lot of us, and he does it three or four days a week," one player said.

Sertich plays in pick-up games, and every time he comes to the rink he is the oldest by a generation. Some of the guys could even be his great grandchildren. Yet he keeps right up with them, almost as if he's oblivious to his age.

Why not play something safer, like shuffleboard? "I've heard of it but I've never played it," he said. But it really would be safer. A few months ago he took a hard hit and ended up with two fractured ribs and a punctured lung.

At 94, doctors told him he would have to sit out at least six weeks. He was back in three. "I just love the game, I guess," Sertich explained.

He's good at it, too. The day CBS News visited, he scored six goals -- more than anyone else playing. "Well, I should have had more but I only had 6 today," he said.

Adding insult to injury, not only does Sertich beat the pants off the other players, he takes their money too. Way back when he was just 80, the other guys in the group offered to pay his skating fees for life, thinking how much longer could it be?

That was 14 years ago.

"It's killing us. It's killing our budget," fellow hockey player Dane Youngblom said.

"I figured, gee, that's a pretty good deal," Sertich said. He said he doesn't take the deal because he's cheap, but because he loves the game. "No, I so enjoy what I'm doing."

And he has no plans to stop. In fact, Mark invited CBS News to come back and watch him play -- when he's 100.

"You gotta think that way, don't you?"




“Like his handle bar mustache, Mark Sertich's hockey days appear to be never ending. "You've gotta challenge yourself a little bit," said Sertich. "I think that's what keeps you going." He started playing as a little kid and is still putting on pads and gloves at the unbelievable age of 94. "Just putting all the equipment on is a miracle in itself for a lot of us, and he does it three or four days a week," one player said. …. Adding insult to injury, not only does Sertich beat the pants off the other players, he takes their money too. Way back when he was just 80, the other guys in the group offered to pay his skating fees for life, thinking how much longer could it be? That was 14 years ago. "It's killing us. It's killing our budget," fellow hockey player Dane Youngblom said. "I figured, gee, that's a pretty good deal," Sertich said. He said he doesn't take the deal because he's cheap, but because he loves the game. "No, I so enjoy what I'm doing."

I’ve done very little ice skating, but when I lived in Chapel Hill, NC there was a skating rink there. I went sometimes, and though I fell down a number of times at each visit, it was a quick fall and straight down, so that I didn’t twist or injure any of my bodily parts. The exhilaration as I moved effortlessly across the ice made a few falls worth the effort. There’s really nothing like it because rather than the much greater amount of “work” involved in walking or running, all that needs to be done is to lift a foot and put it down again – straight down unless you want to fall. With ice skates, the act of putting the body’s weight down on the thin metal blade melts the ice instantly and causes the person to glide forward on a thin sheet of water. (See the interesting article below.) The result is so smooth and easy, with a breeze hitting my face, that I have rarely enjoyed any other sport as much.



http://www.pa.msu.edu/sciencet/ask_st/112091.html

Why can you skate on ice and not on other substances?
(Lansing State Journal, Nov. 20, 1991)

Ice skating involves contact between two surfaces - the metal blades of the ice skate and the ice - and the concept of friction. If a person is to glide over a frozen pond, there must be a minimal amount of friction between the skate blades and the ice. Friction is one of the least understood physical concepts and a lot of study has gone into answering the question of why the friction between skate blades and ice can be so small. Here's how most scientists explain ice skating: If you were to look very closely, you would see that the skate blade never touches the ice directly. A thin layer of water is formed between the two surfaces, so that the blades are actually gliding on the film of water. A skater exerts a pressure equal to her weight divided by the area of the skate blade on the ice. Since the area of each blade is very small, the pressure on the ice is very large. The large pressure melts a small amount of ice directly beneath each blade, forming a thin layer of water. Skate blades must be kept sharp, or the skater's weight will be distributed over too large an area, and the skater will be unable to exert enough pressure to melt any ice.

Skating is possible only on ice - and not on other substances - because of the unique properties of water. The density (mass divided by volume) of water depends on both the pressure and the temperature. Under standard atmospheric conditions, water is at its densest at 4 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit ). Ice, which forms at 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit ) is less dense than water. This is why a can of soda (which is mostly water) left in the freezer for too long will explode. The frozen soda has the same mass as the unfrozen soda, but frozen soda is less dense and must therefore occupy a greater volume. Most liquids contract when they freeze; water doesn't.

At a given temperature, increasing the pressure on ice causes it to melt. This is another unique property of water; most liquids solidify when place under higher pressure. The colder it becomes, the more pressure you need to exert on the ice in order to produce the film of water necessary for skating. This means that it can become too cold for skating. For ice skating to be possible, the temperature must be low enough for ice to form, but high enough so that the pressure needed to create a thin layer of water can be easily exerted by a person in ice skates.

Melting by the application of pressure is a property unique to ice which allows a skater to minimize the friction between the blades of the skate and the ice.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-bush-spat-ramps-up-over-911-comments/

Trump, Bush spat ramps up over 9/11 comments
By SOPAN DEB CBS NEWS
October 17, 2015

Play VIDEO -- Jeb Bush talks state of campaign, Trump and Afghanistan


The feud between GOP frontrunner Donald Trump and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush that erupted again on Friday did not come up in Trump's rally in Massachusetts Friday evening, but it did pick up afterwards over social media.

Trump led a rally on Friday evening in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, roughly a 45-minute drive from Boston. He did not address comments he had made in an interview with Bloomberg earlier in the day, in which he had said, "When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time."

Bush had responded by calling Trump "pathetic" over Twitter and said that his brother had "kept us safe."

After the event, Trump ignored questions from reporters, but that did not stop him from responding on Twitter later.

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
.@JebBush,
At the debate you said your brother kept us safe- I wanted to be nice & did not mention the WTC came down during his watch, 9/11.
9:07 PM - 16 Oct 2015
3,426 3,426 Retweets 5,097 5,097 favorites

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
No @JebBush, you’re pathetic for saying nothing happened during your brother’s term when the World Trade Center was attacked and came down.
9:29 PM - 16 Oct 2015
3,112 3,112 Retweets 4,774 4,774 favorites

Danny Diaz, Jeb Bush's campaign manager, also weighed in.

Danny Diaz @DannyLopezDiaz
"Pathetic" is @realDonaldTrump who has temperament of 1st grader issuing late night taunts. Past bed time for delusional narcissist.
10:29 PM - 16 Oct 2015
15 15 Retweets 14 14 favorites

In Massachusetts, Trump gave three separate speeches. The first speech was in front of a gymnasium holding nearly 1,000. Then, he walked across the hallway to an overflow room an addressed a cafeteria with almost 800 more supporters.

His fervent crowds showed up even in a traditionally Democratic state. His comments today didn't seem to dampen the enthusiasm.

"It doesn't bother me because I think the Bushes have a very different way of approaching politics," said Diane Boulanger-Prescott, of Haverhill, Massachusetts. "Back in Bush 41's day, it was more diplomacy. He was a diplomat. Then you graduated to George W. There's a lot of feeling that we should not have got in that war. I think that having Jeb out there is just too much. I know he was a good governor. Even his mother Barbara Bush agrees."

Boulanger-Prescott previously volunteered for both Bush's who became president, as well as former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential bid.

After two indoor speeches, Trump walked outside and delivered a final speech to an outside crowd that a fire marshal said was in the thousands.

Ron Villareale, a 69-year-old Brooklyn native who used to work in construction, dismissed Trump's comments and said he would vote for him.

"He's a New York guy. Okay? I get it," Villareale said. "He's not scripted. No one is coming up with the words that are coming out of his mouth. This is an honest response. It's not always perfect. In a normal conversation it never will always be perfect."

Paul Cote, a 55-year-old who drove from Londonberry, New Hampshire to see the speech, offered a different explanation for Trump's comments.

"I think sometimes he may speak and doesn't really think," Cote said. "H doesn't think about maybe the ramifications of what he's saying. Do I agree with everything he says? You know what? I can't find a candidate I agree with everything they do."

Cote says he will vote for Trump.

"I think it's time for a businessman as opposed to a politician to be at the White House."




I won’t vote for either of these guys, but Jeb Bush does have good basic intelligence, while Trump is like Wile Coyote. He goes ninety miles an hour after the poor Roadrunner and ends up running off the edge of yet another cliff. Bye bye, Donald!




CHURCHES AND PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT 2015



http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cultlike-practices-at-word-of-life-church/ar-AAfwRJ0?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=iehp

Cultlike Practices at Word of Life Church
Newsweek Max Kutner

Photograph -- Bruce and Deborah Leonard


Before this week, few people knew about what went on inside the brick walls of the Word of Life Christian Church in the village of Chadwicks, within the town of New Hartford, New York. But the recent beating to death of Lucas Leonard, a teenage church member, has begun to pull back the veil on the mysterious group, and details from law enforcement of the incident are consistent with what academics call “religious abuse” and possibly cult-like practices.

Police say that following Sunday Mass on October 11, six church members, including the 19-year-old’s parents Bruce and Deborah Leonard, beat him so he would confess his sins during a “counseling session.” The beating was so bad that family members eventually took Lucas to a hospital, where he died from blunt force trauma to his abdomen, back, thighs and genitals. Law enforcement later found that his brother, Christopher, also showed signs of assault. He too was hospitalized.

Deborah and Bruce Leonard face manslaughter charges and are each being held in lieu of $100,000 bail. A felony hearing was scheduled for Friday. Four more church members, including the boys’ half sister, face assault charges.

Mary Alice Crapo, author of the nonfiction book Twisted Scriptures: Breaking Free From Churches That Abuse, says the details of the Word of Life incident are “absolutely” consistent with those from accounts she has studied and indicate a fringe or cult-like abusive church. “In their minds, they’re thinking they’re helping him. And even though the parents cringe, they really don’t want to do it, they feel bad about it, they’re also pressured by that group.”

In the early 1990s, around the time when about 80 people at a religious compound occupied by the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, died during a standoff with law enforcement, experts in psychology, sociology and religion began writing about what they called religious or spiritual abuse. Cult-like churches are not always as overt as the Branch Davidians. Such abuse can happen anywhere—from small Bible-study groups to mega-churches, the experts say.

In 1991, the Spiritual Counterfeits Project published a 37-question checklist to help people discern if their churches or religious groups were abusive, with questions like: “Does your church interact with other churches?” “Does your church staff avoid secrecy?” “Are your children happy to attend church?”

“If you’re in that church, it’s so subtle,” says Crapo, who is the survivor of what she describes as a New Age cult. “People don’t understand their minds. They think, Oh, my mind’s strong, I’d never believe that.”

The New England Institute of Religious Research describes “aberrational Christian or Bible-based” groups as following “some [religious] principle of greater strictness, more single-minded dedication, or more intense renunciation of the world and its attractions.” Such groups often take scripture out of context, the institute says, separate members from the outside world and practice “spiritual elitism.”

In his 1992 book Churches That Abuse, Ronald Enroth identifies several characteristics of abusive churches, including controlling leaders who manipulate members and impose on them rigid lifestyles, and who make it difficult for members to leave. One victim told Enroth she felt leaving the church would “endanger her salvation, as well as the salvation of her outside friends and family.”

Religious abuse “is inflicted by persons who are accorded respect and honor in our society by virtue of their role as religious leaders,” Enroth wrote. “The perversion of power that we see in abusive churches disrupts and divides families, fosters an unhealthy dependence of members on the leadership, and creates, ultimately, spiritual confusion in the lives of victims.”

Little is known about the Irwin family, which reportedly ran Word of Life in Chadwicks. But its mysterious practices are consistent with accounts in Enroth’s book.

“I had never heard of [the church] before, and I’ve lived here in the area for 67 years,” says an employee at a church in New Hartford, who asked Newsweek not to name her or her church because she did not have permission to speak to the press.

“The parishioners at my church have always been puzzled by what kind of a church that is,” says Reverend Terry Sheldon of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Chadwicks. “People said nobody came in, nobody went out. So it was quite a mystery building.”

According to The New York Times, a prosecutor said Thursday the beating may not have involved the confession of sins, but rather may have occurred because Lucas planned to defect.

Difficulty leaving is a key aspect of abusive churches, experts say. Lois Gibson, an abusive church survivor who now runs support groups through her website Spiritual Abuse, says the mentality is, “You will be doomed if you leave. They’re not like a healthy church where if somebody decided to leave for whatever reason, they wouldn’t feel like they were leaving the ‘truth’ or leaving God or something bad was going to happen to them.”

Since she started her website in 1997, Gibson says she has heard from hundreds of people who said they were the victims of abusive churches across the United States and abroad, including Canada, Australia and England.

If the beatings did in fact involve confession, that too could be a sign of cult-like practices. “Confessions are really, really powerful in the mind to control people,” Crapo says. Gibson agrees, saying sometimes church leaders will later use confessed information against members in order to blackmail them.

The lengthy Word of Life beating, as police have described it, matches victims’ accounts from Enroth’s book. One victim told Enroth, “‘There was punching, hitting, children were whipped with belts, women were whipped with belts.’ This behavior was defined as ‘love’ for the victim, because, ‘if you really love someone, then you're going to pay the price for that person to be set free.’”

Another account from Enroth’s book said public confessions would last “anywhere from four to 20 hours. These sessions usually usually took place at night.… These intimate details, including those related to one's sexual behavior, were [later] brought up over and over again to produce feelings of deep guilt.”

Even the lawyer for Deborah Leonard, Devin Garramone, says the signs point to cultlike practices, of which he says his client was a victim. “In my meeting with my client, right away I had the distinct feeling that this woman had some sort of trauma about her. She was very meek and timid.” She was a member of the church for decades, Garramone says, “so that’s a long time to get indoctrinated.”

Garramone adds, “She’s very distraught and she breaks down and cries sometimes when I get into what went on. She’s reckoning with a lot and I think this may be the first time in a long time that she's been on her own away from the church and she’s dealing with a lot. Maybe she’s realizing for the first time how manipulated she had become.”

Donald Gerace, a lawyer for Bruce Leonard, paints a different picture of the church and its practices: “Everything I’ve learned about the church...has indicated that the church has regular Sunday services: It has Bible study; it has an outreach program to provide food to disadvantaged individuals; it has regular annual events.”

Referring to his client, Gerace adds, “What had occurred was as a result of a revelation to him by his son regarding some of his son’s past behavior, and it’s an unfortunate and tragic event affecting the lives of many people now.”



https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415969680

Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence
edited by Nicky Ali Jackson and published by Routledge
© 2007 – Routledge

820 pages

About the Book


The Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence is a modern reference from the leading international scholars in domestic violence research. This ground-breaking project has created the first ever publication of an encyclopedia of domestic violence. The primary goal of the Encyclopedia is to provide information on a variety of traditional, as well as breakthrough, issues in this complex phenomenon.

The coverage of the Encyclopedia is broad and diverse, encompassing the entire life span from infancy to old age. The entries include the traditional research areas, such as battered women, child abuse and dating violence. However, this Encyclopedia is unique in that it includes many under-studied areas of domestic violence, such as ritual abuse-torture within families, domestic violence against women with disabilities, pseudo-family violence and domestic violence within military families. It is also unique in that it examines cross-cultural perspectives of domestic violence.

One of the key special features in this Encyclopedia is the cross-reference section at the end of each entry. This allows the reader the ability to continue their research of a particular topic.

This book will be an easy-to-read reference guide on a host of topics, which are alphabetically arranged. Precautions have been taken to ensure that the Encyclopedia is not politically slanted; rather, it is hoped that it will serve as a basic guide to better understanding the myriad issues surrounding this labyrinthine topic.

Topics covered include: Victims of Domestic Violence; Theoretical Perspectives and Correlates to Domestic Violence; Cross-Cultural Perspectives and Religious Perspectives; Understudied Areas within Domestic Violence Research; Domestic Violence and the Law; and Child Abuse and Elder Abuse.





http://childrenshealthcare.org/?page_id=146

Religious Attitudes on Corporal Punishment
Children’s Healthcare Is A Legal Duty, Inc.
by Rita Swan
October 17, 2015


Corporal punishment, defined as discipline that intentionally causes physical pain, has been meted to children throughout recorded history in most cultures. However, nineteen countries, beginning with Sweden in 1979, have laws prohibiting all corporal punishment, while courts in two other countries have ruled it illegal.

A few religions have spoken out against corporal punishment while others not only permit it, but declare it to be divinely mandated.

The United Methodist Church is the first Christian denomination to take an official position against corporal punishment. The church passed resolutions in 2004 discouraging parents from hitting children and calling upon states to prohibit corporal punishment in schools, daycares, and residential facilities for children.

In the 19th century the founder of the Baha’i faith prohibited corporal punishment of children in his scriptures. Some scholars say Baha’i was the first religion to oppose corporal punishment.

While few denominations have taken a position against corporal punishment, individual clerics and devout believers have written that Jesus’ teachings advocate respect for children and training without striking them. End Physical Punishment of Children posts several such statements on its webpage at www.stophitting.org. Teresa Whitehurst’s How Would Jesus Raise a Child? and her webpage at www.jesusonthefamily.org, Christians for Nonviolent Parenting at www.nospank.net, and the Lawrences at www.parentinginjesusfootsteps.org present Jesus as leading by example with the qualities of the beatitudes to nurture the internal moral compass of individuals, including children. Jesus valued affirming, nurturing relationships above legalistic rules, they say.

The Catholic Church does not have a national policy on corporal punishment, but the Ohio-based Center for Effective Discipline wrote to 174 Catholic dioceses about their policies. All of the 132 dioceses that responded either prohibit corporal punishment in their schools or said that none of their schools use it. Several diocesan spokespersons told another researcher that their policies against corporal punishment related to theological teaching on the dignity of the human person.

Several studies have shown both the practice of and belief in corporal punishment to be much higher among fundamentalist Protestants. Researchers for www.religioustolerance.org found they are the only religious group that publishes doctrinal justifications for corporal punishment.

Many fundamentalists believe that hitting children is sanctioned or mandated by the Bible. They cite these verses in the Old Testament’s Proverbs as authority for their belief: 3:11-12, 13:24, 19:18, 20:30, 22:15, and 23:13-14. The latter claims that if you beat a child with a rod, he will not die, but instead will have his soul saved. One tape-recorded sermon advises parents to “wound” the child with corporal punishment because Proverbs 20:30 says a wound cleanses away evil.

Punishment by putting tabasco sauce on the tongue or clipping a clothespin on the tongue is recommended for verbal defiance, biting, and lying in Lisa Whelchel’s Creative Correction. She cites Bible verses as authority for her disciplinary methods. The publisher is Focus on the Family founded by James Dobson, the most prominent advocate of corporal punishment.

No recorded words of Jesus recommend corporal punishment of children or subjugating them. No New Testament verses say that children should be struck with the hand or with implements. In Hebrews 12, St. Paul speaks of fathers “chastening” and “correcting” their sons as an analogy for the trials Christians encounter in their spiritual growth, but the verses do not indicate that chastening should be physical. Paul says that children should honor and obey their parents, but also says fathers should not anger or discourage children (Ephesians 6:2-4, Colossians 3:20).

Paul does, however, set forth an authoritarian model for the family with wives and children subjugated to the adult males. A few verses after declaring that women should keep silent in churches and be in subjection, he says that fathers must rule their households and keep their children in subjection in order to be able to take care of the church (1 Timothy 3:4-5).

Several scholars indicate that conservative Protestants’ approval of corporal punishment is based on their beliefs that the Bible is inerrant and has the answers to all human concerns, that children are born with original sin, and an apocalypse or “rapture” is coming soon. Many fundamentalists advocating corporal punishment read Proverbs as a literal injunction to hit children with implements. They reject advice from secular parenting books because the Bible has the correct advice on all matters. Their determination that the Bible is the literal, absolute word of God throughout leads to insistence on authoritarian relationships. They fear that sensuality and libertarianism in popular culture threaten their ability to impart religious values to their children. They do not see the government as supporting their parenting ideals, but rather as interfering with them. They believe that babies are born sinful and naturally inclined to rebel against God and their parents. Reflecting the divine order, men should be in control of their wives and children. A child’s reluctance or refusal to obey a parent’s order is as offensive as Satan’s original rebellion against God. Corporal punishment is sacralized as a divine mandate. Parents must break a child’s will in order for the child and parents to be saved from hell when judgment day takes place in the near future. Fundamentalists are more likely than others to hold images of God stressing punishment and judgment.

Fear of rebellion is prominent among fundamentalists. Dobson recommends that parents be flexible and use various non-violent discipline methods for most problem behaviors of children. But for “willful disobedience” he believes corporal punishment should be a parent’s first resort and that a parent must “win decisively.”

Many, but not all, fundamentalist advocates of corporal punishment recommend striking children with implements rather than the hands so that the parents’ hands will be perceived as instruments of love. Some emphasize that corporal punishment must be continued until the child’s will is broken as shown when the child “accepts” the punishment. Some advocates warn that children may cry during corporal punishment as a strategy of rebellion and should then be hit harder.

Several present corporal punishment as a ritual with firm directions about how to do it, what to use, when to stop, and what to do afterwards. Dobson recommends holding the child close after he accepts his punishment, assuring him of the parent’s love, and then praying with the child in confession that we have all sinned and asking for God’s forgiveness.

Articles on the Christian Parents Network at www.christian-parents.net say parents have a religious duty to do battle against a child and win. Corporal punishment gives children “a foretaste of the potential terror and pain of eternal separation from God,” one says. Another warns parents not to have sympathy for the child when they hit him and accuses non-spanking parents of laziness.

Several fundamentalist advocates for corporal punishment place important caveats on its use. The majority say parents should never strike a child in anger or frustration for then they will be displaying loss of control. They say that children will develop their image of God from the parents’ behavior and therefore parents should show love as well as punishment of sin that is inevitable and consistent.

Dobson and others set age limits. Corporal punishment should not be used on babies younger than fifteen months and rarely if ever used on children more than ten years old, they say. Some fundamentalist leaders, however, recommend hitting infants with switches because they are born with the sin of rebellion and the earlier corporal punishment is started, the easier it will be to control them later.

Judaism does not interpret the verses in Proverbs as authority to hit children with implements nor does it believe children are born into original sin. Israel prohibits all corporal punishment of children.

While several scholars believe that a hierarchical, authoritarian model of sacred and secular relationships and strict gender roles contribute to endorsement of corporal punishment, the Mormons are an interesting counter-example. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) has an all-male priesthood, to which every boy over the age of twelve may belong. Gender-prescribed roles are a map to salvation and the basis of hierarchy and distinction in church doctrine.

The child training literature of this patriarchal religion, however, is radically different from that of fundamentalist Protestants. The Mormon Church’s sacred scriptures do not express the doctrine of original sin, view children as inherently rebellious, nor recommend corporal punishment to break their will.

Joseph F. Smith, the church’s tenth president, advised parents to “use no lash and no violence” with their children. Gordon Hinckley, the fifteenth president, said, “I have never accepted the principle of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child . . . .’ Children don’t need beating. They need love and encouragement.” The church’s magazine Ensign publishes articles calling corporal punishment ineffective and promoting other methods of discipline.

Several studies indicate that religious belief is a better predictor of corporal punishment than socioeconomic status. Features of the larger society, however, may shape religious beliefs or parenting practices. For example, rates of corporal punishment and of religious belief are high in the African-American community. While there may be a causal relationship between those two factors, several scholars have found that racism, urban violence, and high rates of incarceration are causes of corporal punishment among African-Americans. Many of these parents spank their children severely because they want to protect them from street violence and from the punishments of a white power structure.

Critics of corporal punishment say that most injuries and even deaths due to physical abuse of children begin as discipline. Beatings have gone on for hours because children would not apologize or meet another parental demand. Some say that a religious rationale increases the emotional harm done by corporal punishment. Insisting that the physical pain comes because of love and that a supernatural being has ordered it compounds the assault on the child’s sense of self. The parent’s love is conditioned upon stripping the child of will.

Critics also point out that hitting children with implements makes the parent less aware of the force being used. They find the claim that parents may win salvation by hitting their children insidious. Some claim that even the conservative Protestants’ emphasis on hitting without anger is harmful. They feel that this religious group has made corporal punishment a ritual in which the parent becomes emotionally detached and irresponsible on the assumption that he is acting as God’s agent.

Furthermore, the doctrines of supernatural evil and original sin may lead adults to believe the child is demon-possessed and to attempt an exorcism. Children have been tortured and killed because of belief in demon-possession.

Most research on the impact of corporal punishment is criticized as unscientific and misleading by proponents or opponents. The many variables involved make scientific conclusions difficult. Elizabeth Gershoff reviewed 88 studies of corporal punishment with 62 years of data and found that corporal punishment was associated with ten negative outcomes for children and the only positive effect was short-term compliance. Robert Larzelere, however, found that corporal punishment confined to loving parents’ infrequently giving toddlers a few swats on the buttocks was beneficial. One study found that persons who believe the entire Bible is literally true have more unrealistic expectations of children and less empathy toward children’s needs than nonliteralist Christians. Another found that fundamentalist Protestants who are involved in their churches spend more time participating in their children’s activities and talking to them than other parents. The quality of the total parent-child relationship influences the impact of corporal punishment.

Public policy

Twenty-nine states prohibit corporal punishment in public schools. Most of them also outlaw it in state-licensed daycare and residential facilities for children. Only two of those states, Iowa and New Jersey, prohibit corporal punishment in parochial and private schools. New Jersey became the first state to abolish corporal punishment in the schools in 1867 and Massachusetts became the second state in 1972.

Many fundamentalists lobby for school personnel to have a legal right to hit children. The trend, however, is to prohibit it in more public schools, partly because of civil liability. In nine of the 21 states that allow corporal punishment by state law, more than half of the students are in school districts that have banned it. In the 1999-2000 school year, Texas had the highest percentage and number of children given corporal punishment by school staff with 73,994 instances. By 2005, however, the school districts of Austin, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and many other Texas cities had prohibited corporal punishment.

Forty Christian schools filed suit to overturn the United Kingdom’s ban on all school corporal punishment, charging that it prevented them from teaching morals to their students and interfered with religious freedom. The European Court of Human Rights and UK courts ruled against them. In South Africa 196 Christian schools brought a similar challenge; the South African Constitutional Court ruled against them.

Given the strength of religious conservatism in the U.S. and the lack of consensus in scholarship, the U.S. is highly unlikely to ban corporal punishment of children by parents in the foreseeable future.

References and Further Reading

Bartkowski, John and Christopher Ellison. “Divergent Models of Childrearing in Popular Manuals: Conservative Protestants vs. the Mainstream Experts.” Sociology of Religion 56, no. 1 (1995): 21-34.

Capps, Donald. The Child’s Song: The Religious Abuse of Children. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995.

Dobson, James. The New Dare to Discipline. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 1992.

Ellison, Christopher. “Conservative Protestantism and the Corporal Punishment of Children: Clarifying the Issues.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 35, no. 1 (1996): 1-16.

Ellison, Christopher and John Bartkowski. “Religion and the Legitimation of Violence: Conservative Protestantism and Corporal Punishment.” In The Web of Violence: From Interpersonal to Global, edited by Jennifer Turpin and Lester Kurtz, 45-67. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

Ellison, Christopher, John Bartkowski, and Michelle Segal. “Do Conservative Protestants Spank More Often? Further Evidence from the National Survey of Families and Households.” Social Science Quarterly 77, no. 3 (1996): 663-73.

Gershoff, Elizabeth. “Corporal Punishment by Parents and Associated Child Behaviors and Experiences: a Meta-analytic and Theoretical Review.” Psychological Bulletin 128, no. 4 (2002):539-79.

Gershoff Elizabeth, Pamela Miller, and George Holden. “Parenting from the Pulpit: Religious Affiliation as a Determinant of Parental Corporal Punishment.” Journal of Family Psychology 13, no. 3 (1999): 307-320.

Greven, Philip. Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.

Grille, Robin. Parenting for a Peaceful World. Alexandria, Australia: Longueville Media, 2005.

Hines, Denise and Kathleen Malley-Morrison. Family Violence in the United States: Defining, Understanding, and Combating Abuse. Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage Publications, 2004.

Kimmel, Tim. Grace-based Parenting. Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2004.

Larzelere, Robert. “Child outcomes of nonabusive and customary physical punishment by parents: an updated literature review.” Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 3, no. 4 (2000):199-221.

Straus, Murray. Beating the Devil out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families and its Effects on Children. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001.

Whelchel, Lisa. Creative Correction: Extraordinary Ideas for Everyday Discipline. A Focus on the Family book. Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House, 2000.

Whitehurst, Teresa. How Would Jesus Raise a Child? Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2003.

Web pages with material on corporal punishment

www.stophitting.org

www.nospank.net

www.jesusonthefamily.org

www.parentinginjesusfootsteps.org

www.religioustolerance.org

www.christian-parents.net

www.corpun.com

[A version of this article appears in Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence edited by Nicky Ali Jackson and published by Routledge.]




While my greatest fear surrounding religion is the tendency of fanaticism to emerge within doctrinaire religious groups of all kinds, which fosters community violence and often war with other groups. I see this kind of thing emerging within the US among Fundamentalist Christians since 9/11 and the influx of various types of Islamic groups into Western societies, and we’re seeing an absolute epidemic of that in the Middle East and other places right now. I’ve had two frequently forwarded emails from a more conservative friend of mine haranguing against these ultimate outsiders.

While I do see a genuine potential threat from the possibility of Islamic jihadists making their way here under the guise of escaping ISIS, I think we should let the police, FBI, Homeland Security, etc. deal with them. That is their job, in my view. When radically militant and different religious groups enter the country in large numbers as they have in Germany, France and other European nations, it is impossible to vet individuals sufficiently well to avoid having a national security issue. As a Unitarian liberal, I am only able to relate to people as individuals with differing characteristics because I don’t believe in group hatred; and I want to avoid buying into the current mood of “conservative” hysteria that is so much in the news. It is entirely possible for lynch mobs and church/mosque/synagogue bombings to occur here. That social reaction to the Islamic threat is equally as dangerous as the enemy we wish to fight off. City warfare is not impossible here and it would surely destroy what we hope is civilization.

This particular type of religious extremism is not as commonplace, luckily, as the anti-Islamic furor of the present. Most Methodists or Baptists would not treat a child of theirs in this way, or at any rate not to such an extreme. It has, however popped up in our country many times down through our history, from the witch burnings at Salem to the White Supremacist “Christian Churches” that are in mainly rural parts of the South and West, and are more closely linked with fascism than with religion of any recognizable kind.

These extreme Christian groups such as the Word of Life Christian Church are a natural outgrowth of the very common beliefs among Fundamentalist Christians in being saved based on how strongly held the individual’s “faith” is, as opposed to logic, gentleness, love and individual thought. They are indeed “Christian Soldiers marching on to war,” much more than true disciples of the teacher who preached love, acceptance, giving to the poor, helping the sick, and individual introspection. These groups are a direct result of the much prized guarantee of our “freedom of religion.” Personally, I think our federal and state laws should step in to stop things like this brutal “punishment” of a teenaged boy who admitted some sin, perhaps homosexuality or simply fornication. It’s like the Roman Catholic problem with sexual child abuse among the clergy. It isn’t just a “sin,” it is a crime, as these ignorant and unfortunate people the Leonards are finding out. I almost feel sorry for people like that, but not quite. The inculcating of rage, hatred, and violence as the ruling factors in our personalities is something that is at least half a voluntary personal decision. I would submit, however, that the parents who do something like this were probably treated the same way themselves when they were young, and are as a result mentally disturbed. Mrs. Leonard is described by her lawyer as being unnaturally timid. She has probably been the recipient of similar treatment many times. Much mental illness masquerades as religion.

Sexual sins are generally considered to be the worst by these churches. Their view is really very similar to the Fundamentalist Islamic position on all sexual misbehavior, and they also occasionally stone a sinner to death in a public place, just as the Jews were about to do to an unnamed woman when Jesus stepped in and stopped them by simply saying “He that is free from sin cast the first stone.”

If any of you feel that I shouldn’t have used the word “themselves” in the paragraph above, go to the following website and look it up. Here, I’ll do it for you:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/themselves

them-selves
[th uh m-selvz, th em-]

plural pronoun

1. an emphatic form of them or they :
The authors themselves left the theater. The contract was written by the partners themselves.

2. a reflexive form of they (used as the direct or indirect object of a verb or the object of a preposition):
They washed themselves quickly. The painters gave themselves a week to finish the work. The noisy passengers drew attention to themselves.

3. (used after an indefinite singular antecedent in place of the definite masculine himself or the definite feminine herself):
No one who ignores the law can call themselves a good citizen.

4. (used in place of they or them after as, than, or but):
no soldiers braver than themselves; As for the entertainers, everyone got paid but themselves.

5. their usual, normal, characteristic selves:
After a hot meal and a few hours' rest, they were themselves again.

Origin of themselves

1300-50; them + selves; replacing themself, Middle English thamself; see self


Usage note Expand -- See “myself.”