Parents take their faith to deadly extremes

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/roeper/1699390,CST-NWS-roep04.article

August 4, 2009

BY RICHARD ROEPER Sun-Times Columnist

Your 11-year-old daughter is on the floor of your home, unable to walk, talk, eat or drink. Do you:

A. Call 911.

B. Pray.

C. Call 911 and then start praying.

Options A. and C. are acceptable. Option B. is stupid, cruel and criminal.

A Wisconsin man has been found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide in the death of his daughter. Dale Neumann, 47, faces up to 25 years in prison because, as he testified last week, he believed God would heal his child. Neumann's wife, Leiliani, faces a similar sentence.

According to news reports, 11-year-old Madeline Neumann died in the family home as her parents and others surrounded her and prayed. They claim they didn't know how sick the girl was -- but how can any parent NOT call 911 when their daughter is so obviously suffering?

"If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God," Neumman said.

Really? In that case, why don't you jump out of a 20th-story window and ask God to save you?

I'm all for praying, chanting, singing, whatever you think might help heal a loved one. But relying solely on faith healing is as negligent as wishing upon a star.

That poor girl. Madeline's parents aren't going to jail because they were religious -- they're going to jail because they were damn fools.

[D-Lee]

1. A number of states have legislation protecting "faith" on child health issues

Even when death ensues ...

Often, the children are diabetics (T1).

[Chemisse]

2. I can't fathom such a thing

I would take up with Satan (if I believed in such a thing) to save my child.

[SeriousEbony]

3. As ignorant and cruel as this act was,

It pales in contrast to the parents of children that strap bombs on their kids and send them off
to blow up more kids. And then there are hte honor killings and beatings or young girls who
stay out too late on a date or maybe look at the wrong person.

I have no faith these people will be culled from society any time soon.

[Dennis Donovan]

4. Oh yeah, that happens alot...

:eyes:

[BolivarianHero]

6. It's the same thing...

They're allowing innocents to die because they take their faith to unpalpable extremes. To say that its worse to strap bombs to a child and have them blow people up than it is to leave them die because you refuse to call 911 sort of misses the point. In arguing that the latter is not as bad as the former, you relegate the child to being nothing more than chattel, the property of his or her parents.

[dorkulon]

7. Are you serious?

This is silly. There is always someone who has done worse than someone else. Do you always use this ridiculous defense? "Sure, it was ignorant and cruel of me to chop your arm off, but it pales in contrast to the psychopathic murderers who chop people into little pieces. And then there are those who would torture and rape you first, for no good reason." Try that in court.

[KittyWampus]

5. Anyone who encourages this kind of crap is culpable too.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. The 'faith community' needs to work on itself

There are clearly some deadly problems in the faith community, and the whole community needs to work on solving those problems. They need to listen to the words of their teacher, and stop picking at the speck in the eyes of their GLBT brothers and sisters, and begin to deal with the plank in their own eye.
I am just so tired of the faith community's insisting that they are so perfect that all they need to address in life is stopping gay people from having equality, while each and every week one of their own kills for 'religious reasons'. The superior dance is getting to be simply too much to bear. They need to clean up their own damn house.