Salon 1

Another installment in the diary of Crazy World.
There was a story in the news today where the Texas Surpreme court ruled that a lower court erred when it sided with a 17 year old girl that sued a church for her physical and emotional damages as a result of an exorcism they conducted on her. The reason for the new ruling in favor of the church was due to the court’s belief that this crossed the line into religious freedom.
This is scary stuff. What this means is that the court feels the church is above the law, and not the other way around. This means that high level judges in our court systems have forgotten the very purpose of laws. Laws are rules that a society must live by in order to maintain the health and welfare of the people. Laws should be based on moral beliefs (sometimes they are based on tyrannical agenda). Those moral beliefs typically come from religion, but that is not neccessary (e.g., Confucionism). If your religion disagrees with the laws, then there is bound to be a problem, but it should not mean that society must avert its eyes to criminal actions performed in the name of religion. The laws of a society must trump the religious practices. Otherwise, someone who follows satanism could say that they should have the right to conduct human sacrifices. This would be no different than the decision above.
This is not the first such incident in recent news. Although polygamy is illegal in England, they are considering making exceptions for men that follow certain religious beliefs that condone it.