“SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — Adult mothers who have been allowed to stay with their young children since they were taken from a polygamous sect will be separated from them after DNA sampling is completed next week, a child welfare official said Saturday.

Texas District Judge Barbara Walther late Friday ordered that parents and children of the Yearning For Zion Ranch submit DNA samples to help sort out family relationships that have confounded authorities since 416 children were taken into state custody two weeks ago.

The child welfare agency has said that the sect encourages adolescent girls to marry older men and have children, and that boys are groomed to become future perpetrators. Sect members deny the allegations.”

From the AP >

The continuing saga of the Yearning for Zion Ranch, where members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints settled, highlights how religion can be used to brainwash and negatively affect the lives of otherwise ordinary people. The children were taught from a very young age that rejecting polygamy would land them in hell.

It is true that people can be brainwashed without religion but there is no denying that this was a religious organization and that God, damnation, and the rest of the church’s belief system were the tools that were used to abuse the victims.

“No, not by radical Muslims but by our own military. This email was forwarded to me from a soldier in Iraq whose friend is being harassed at another base for organizing a meeting of atheists on the base. The email was originally sent to Kathleen Johnson, the military director for American Atheists, who is currently serving in Iraq herself. The full email is below the fold:

Kathleen Johnson:
Thought you’d be interested in this report of the first-ever meeting of Atheist service-members in Iraq under the umbrella of the MAAF-Iraq chapter of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. This meeting was put together by the same young MAAF member who recently had his second letter published in the Stars and Stripes.

One of our members, a young Atheist enlisted soldier, thought he would like to see if he could generate some interest in MAAF meetings at his Forward Operating Base (FOB) here in Iraq (not the base I’m at, by the way). He got things coordinated and started hanging flyers, and after weeks of having to re-hang his flyers almost daily because some vandal kept tearing them down, he finally succeeded in having a small MAAF meeting.”… (cont’d)

Read the rest here.

It’s sad that religion can even break down the ties and sense of “being-on-the-same-team” that exist between a tight knit, fraternal group like the military.

“GALVESTON, Texas — A baby girl was released from a hospital 11 days after police say she was burned in a motel microwave oven.
The infant’s mother blamed the devil for what happened, saying Satan compelled her husband to put the baby in the microwave. The devil “saw my husband as a threat” because of his efforts to become a preacher, Eva Marie Mauldin, 20, told Houston television station KHOU.

“He would never do anything to hurt her,” she said. “Satan was working through his weaknesses.”

Mauldin said her husband had a mental disability and her efforts to get him help have failed.

Doctors at the Shriners Burn Hospital performed at least two skin grafts on two-month-old Ana Marie Mauldin, who suffered burns on her face and hand May 10. She was released Monday and placed in foster care, and a custody hearing was scheduled later this week.

The baby’s father, Joshua Mauldin, 19, was charged with felony injury to a child and was jailed on US$250,000 bond.

If found guilty, he could face up to 99 years in prison.

Mauldin, of Warren, Ark., came to Galveston with his family earlier this month to be a preacher, authorities said.

When he first called 911, he said the baby had been burned when he tripped while carrying a pot of hot water in their motel room, police said.

He later told police he put his daughter in the microwave because he was under stress.

Police said the infant was in the oven for 10 to 20 seconds while her mother and grandmother were away.”

Read more @ The Edmonton Sun >

Just to be clear, I’m not posting this because it is a problem caused by religion - obviously this fellow has a mental illness that needs treatment. Rather, I’m posting it because it is an example of people blaming the influence of the devil; a particularly archaic and medieval point of view that needs to be left in the past.

The idea that there is an invisible being influencing our thoughts and actions is beyond ignorant and uneducated… its stupid.

“Members of the Gig Harbor Church of Nazarene are deeply shocked. Their former pastor Stephen Kerr, who they had trusted to teach them religion and values, now sits in jail, accused of molesting a 7-year-old girl.”

“Stephen Kerr was arrested for allegedly trying to have sex with a 7-year-old girl while making her watch videos of children playing with men’s private parts.

Kerr pleaded not guilty in court on Tuesday. Hughes said he was surprised by the plea, because Kerr told him something different.

“He openly confessed it, you know,” said Hughes. “There was no question to the fact that he had admitted to his guilt. But it was explained to me that there are technical, legal reason for that.”

Prosecutors believe the sexual abuse had been going on for at least two years.”

From KOMO TV >

After creating the “Abuse of Power” category for the last post I decided to search the web for similiar stories because I realized that “clergy abuse” is something that I had, up to this point, neglected. I’ve got to say, I’m not sure I have the stomach for this. I don’t think that I am capable of actively searching out stories like this one. It saddens me and it sickens me. If I run across them, that is one thing and I will post them, but this is too much.

“A Fort Worth pastor accused of paddling and raping women under the guise of scriptural teaching has been suspended by the national body of the Church of God in Christ.

The suspension comes more than three months after a Fort Worth woman sued the Rev. Sherman C. Gee Allen of the Shiloh Institutional Church of God in Christ, contending that he repeatedly beat her with a paddle from 2001 to 2005 and forced her to have sex with him.

Since then, eight more women have come forward with similar stories, according to the woman’s lawyers.”

From Dallas News >

What is even more disturbing than beating and raping women is using your supposedly sacred authority as leverage. Sickening. People innocently trust “men of God” almost by default. To take advantage of that to do harm to someone is corrupt in the worst kind of way. These women will be haunted by the memories of this abuse for the rest of their lives and may never be quite the same again. It’s too bad that there isn’t a hell for this fellow to burn in.

Thank you to reader Kriscinda for sending this story in. I decided to create a new “abuse of power” category just for this type story which is dissappointingly common.