Re: Donna.... Religious free exercise

No one should enter into such a lifestyle (under the radar) without really knowing what they are doing. The parents should find a really good religious freedom lawyer who could take your case to the supremme court of your state, if necessary. You need to know the law. Memorize the code or statute that gives you the legal right to do what you are doing. Scriptures don't stand up in court.

Be careful, too, of who you talk to about doing something like that. Most people don't understand, especially the grandparents or the ex-spouse. Make sure that your children are well-behaved in public and well groomed all the time with cute outfits, clean cut haircuts for the boys and bows in the hair of the girls. Never spank your child or yank on them or swear at them in public. Find a sympathetic doctor who has a staff of sympathetic nurses for when your boy bumps his head and needs stitches. Make sure that you are above reproach in every way possible, yourself. And make sure you explain to your children why you are doing what you are doing, or they will rebel against you when they become teens. Win their hearts when they are little, and then keep their hearts as they grow up, or you will lose them. Pay very close attention to your firstborn. Find like-minded friends. Have nothing to hide.

Why? Because people don't understand and some will report you to child welfare in the bat of an eye. They (child welfare) are bounty hunters. They represent the state's interest in the child. The state didn't deliver that child. The state didn't feed and clothe that child. The state didn't pray for the child and kiss him when it was time to be tucked in for the night. The state didn't stay up all night with the child when he had a stomach flu, and the state didn't rush him to the emergency room when he fell off his bike and broke his arm. But do something suspicious or different, and boom! The child belongs to the state.