God is my codefendant. There are 32 states where parents can use a religious defense in court for abusing or neglecting their children. In Idaho that protection extends to manslaughter.

Courtesy of Vocativ:  

Currently, 32 states, including Idaho, provide a religious defense to felony or misdemeanor crimes specifically against children, including neglect, endangerment and abuse, according to state statutes compiled by Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD), a national advocacy group. There are 38 states that provide religious exemptions in their civil codes on child abuse and neglect, which can prevent Child Protective Services from investigating and monitoring cases of religion-based medical neglect and discourage reporting. 

Of the states that still provide a religious defense to felonies against children, Idaho remains in a league of its own. It is one of only six states that provide a religious exemption to manslaughter, negligent homicide or capital murder (the others being Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Ohio and West Virginia). But of those six, it is the only state where children are known to have died at the hands of faith-healing parents in the last 20 years. Rita Swan, CHILD’s co-founder, describes Idaho as “the worst in the country,” and she attributes the state’s high number of deaths to its overreaching religious exemption laws, which were enacted in 1972.

Swan and other child advocates argue that Idaho’s laws, and those like them, are in direct contradiction with the Supreme Court’s 1944 decision in Prince v. Massachusetts, which ruled that parental authority cannot jeopardize a child’s welfare, even in cases of religious expression. “The right to practice religion freely,” the court concluded, “does not include liberty to expose…[a] child…to ill health or death.” 

“Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves,” the decision continued. “But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children.”

Even though over the years numerous children in Idaho have died from medically treatable diseases or injuries, there is currently no plan to change this religious exemption.

Oregon also used to have a similar law in place, but then things changed: 

Outside of Oregon and Idaho, there have been 20 documented faith-healing fatalities of minors since 2008 in 10 different states, including Texas, Colorado and Pennsylvania, according to CHILD. But the death count among Followers of Christ puts Idaho well out in front as the deadliest state in the country. That distinction actually once belonged to Oregon, until a highly publicized child death in 1998 ultimately prompted prosecutors and lawmakers to act. 

Oregon, like Idaho, had a religious defense to manslaughter on the books when 11-year-old Bo Phillips died from untreated diabetes that year. His family, who were members of the Followers of Christ, prayed over him and anointed his body with oil instead of taking him to a doctor. It was the first time authorities felt they had a clear case of abuse in a faith-healing child death. But the district attorney for the county, Terry Gustafson, declined to prosecute the boy’s parents because of ambiguities in the state law. 

Gustafson’s decision triggered public outcry across the state. The Oregonian newspaper in Portland, the state’s largest paper, launched an investigative series on faith-healing deaths, which found that of the 78 children buried in one Followers cemetery in Oregon City since 1955, 21 had died from treatable illnesses. Shortly after, ABC’s 20/20 and Diane Sawyer brought national attention to the state’s faith-healing controversy with a prime-time segment on the Followers. By 1999, legislators had eliminated religious protections in cases of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment. 

Clearly what needs to happen in Idaho is the same kind of media scrutiny that took place in Oregon. However it would be incredibly sad if another child had to die in order to trigger that response.

Sometimes people ask me why I find religion so threatening. Honestly sometimes I just don't know where to begin.

Could it be that it is used as an excuse to hate those who supposedly the Bible deems worthy of hate?

Could it be how religion is used to oppress women?

Could it be how religion has negatively impacted our views of human sexuality?

Could it be that it is used to undermine our teaching of science?

Or perhaps it could simply be that it allows terrible people, to do terrible things, and defend their actions by using God as the scapegoat.