against godless seclurists

Texas high court rules exorcism protected by law

FORT WORTH, Texas — The Texas Supreme Court on Friday threw out a jury award over injuries a 17-year-old girl suffered in an exorcism conducted by members of her old church, ruling that the case unconstitutionally entangled the court in religious matters.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices found that a lower court erred when it said the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God's First Amendment rights regarding freedom of religion did not prevent the church from being held liable for mental distress triggered by a "hyper-spiritualistic environment."

Laura Schubert testified in 2002 that she was cut and bruised and later experienced hallucinations after the church members' actions in 1996, when she was 17. Schubert said she was pinned to the floor for hours and received carpet burns during the exorcism, the Austin American-Statesman reported. She also said the incident led her to mutilate herself and attempt suicide. She eventually sought psychiatric help.

.....

Justice David Medina wrote that finding the church liable "would have an unconstitutional 'chilling effect' by compelling the church to abandon core principles of its religious beliefs."

But Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, in a dissenting opinion, stated that the "sweeping immunity" is inconsistent with U.S. Supreme Court precedent and extends far beyond the Constitution's protections for religious conduct.

"The First Amendment guards religious liberty; it does not sanction intentional abuse in religion's name," Jefferson wrote.

Assault and battery charges should be brought against the people involved rather than the church. That is unless the charges are a big lie and they are after money, then it makes sense to go after the church.

...I'd say that the Court needs an exorcism:

<link>

Never going to happen in the New America, even when the topic is less inflamatory. It would be a slippery slope... possibly creating my very favorite new wild ride. Would blatant bs about the "rhythm method" create liability when faithful wives found themselves with a bun in the oven? How about those fabulous recovery ministries claiming to "heal" homosexuals and the psychological damage they leave behind? Did the kids contract a disease because their "abstinence-only" faux sex-education leave them unprepared for reality? My proposition is that we penalize these institutions who use their tax-exempt status to promote clearly unfactual and misleading instructions to their flocks that deliberately ignore solid science. Fine the bastards and fund science education for the rest of the country -

BTW- did anyone arrest the moron parents of this child?

The Texas ruling is correct.

The courts have no place ruling as to what constitutes religious truth. One does wonder what caused the rug-burns and hallucinations, however. I could see cases where these could be a liability (if there she was dragged over the rugs or given drugs) but if they were the result of a hyperspiritual atmosphere, I just don't see it.

Sounds like child abuse to me. If it was organized by the church, it is the church's responsibility as a legal entity.

Again. my point is that if the spiritual experience itself caused the hallucinations and rug burns (or the rug burns were self-inflicted) then I would disagree with you. If however, something more was done to induce hallucinations or she was dragged across the floor, that would be child abuse.

Also I would wonder why they would have performed an exorcism in the first place. To my knowledge these are done with the intent to help, and are not generally done on stable, well adjusted individuals. Hence the depression may have pre-existed the experience.

A jury found for the girl after hearing all of the evidence presented. The Texas Supreme Court didn't hear the evidence but threw out the award to the girl. You are arguing facts which the jury already considered.

tiponeill:

Justice David Medina wrote that finding the church liable "would have an unconstitutional 'chilling effect' by compelling the church to abandon core principles of its religious beliefs."

But Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, in a dissenting opinion, stated that the "sweeping immunity" is inconsistent with U.S. Supreme Court precedent and extends far beyond the Constitution's protections for religious conduct.

"The First Amendment guards religious liberty; it does not sanction intentional abuse in religion's name," Jefferson wrote.

I wonder what supreme court precedent this dissenting judge was talking about? Is there a precedent for coming down against other religious practices that are abusive?

There must be but I don't know how to find it. God know that churches have gotten up to some real zingers in the past. Human sacrifice seems to still be unacceptable.

From the article:

"In a 6-3 decision, the justices found that a lower court erred when it said the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God's First Amendment rights regarding freedom of religion did not prevent the church from being held liable for mental distress triggered by a "hyper-spiritualistic environment."

As I said-- the issue was that the jury was allowed to award damages based on mental distress caused by the spiritual environment, and this is not a matter for the court.

The trial judge should have allowed ONLY evidence to specific abusive practices beyond the spiritual atmosphere and refused to allow one to consider distress due to the spiritual environment.

Your argument is like saying the supreme court in US v Yates was stupid because the court revisited evidence and exonerated Yates for the crime of sedition when in fact all they did was say that the jury instructions were wrong and therefore the conviction was void.

This is how the texas supreme court characterizes the case, true -- although it's not necessarily the reality. This article dating back to the time of the jury award, however, paints a somewhat different picture. Some relevant snippets from the article, italics mine:

Because of an earlier court ruling, jurors made their decision without hearing any religious aspects of the case, including Schubert's accounts of two exorcism attempts in 1996.

David Pruessner, an attorney for Pleasant Glade Assembly of God Church, said an appeal is likely. The pastor and some church members were found liable for abusing and falsely imprisoning Schubert, who was 17 at the time.

In 1998, the 2nd Court of Appeals in Fort Worth agreed with church attorneys that discussing the denomination's doctrine on demonic possession would violate the church's religious freedom.

Instead, jurors listened for three weeks as 49 witnesses sidestepped the religious aspects.

I don't know for sure which POV is right, ein's or the OP's, but who knows? May well take a trip to the federal supreme court to shake it out.

You may find the actual opinion interesting: <link>

The key question turns out to be a fairly technical point relating to estoppel, and the inability of the defendant's expert witnesses to be able to separate the damages of the secular issues (restraint, etc) from the religious ones (stories of demons in the church). In short the case was dismissed because:

1) The church was improperly barred from asserting religious protection in trial and

2) There was not sufficient separation of damages from the religious and secular portions of the case.

I'm reading the page you linked, ein. Seems the upshot of it is that after dismissing the physical injuries because the case was about psychological/emotional damage, the court concluded that's ok and summarily dismissed the case on the defense it thinks should have been allowed.

Yay for religion. They can screw you up to the point of ruining your life, make you suicidal, and that's ok! This case makes me sympathetic to Hitchens' case for religion as poison. Sheesh. Agreeing with that twit. That's saying something.

The point (as in the original article) is that there is ONLY liability for those portions which would engender liability in a secular context and that this case mixed them to the point that they could not be separated. The church is not going to be held liable because some girl was traumatized by STORIES of demons. To the extent that they are liable, it would be for that PORTION of the trauma that was beyond first-amendment protection. The plaintiff did not properly separate these, so the case was dismissed.