Arrow-right Camera
Subscribe now

This column reflects the opinion of the writer. Learn about the differences between a news story and an opinion column.

Shawn Vestal: Christianity already well-protected in Idaho

Hooray for the Kootenai County Republicans, who this week rejected a resolution to “formally and specifically” declare Idaho a Christian state.

The resolution declared that Christianity is under assault across the nation, a target of unique hostility from the country’s public institutions. Christians, it says, have been ejected from “schools, curricula, sporting events and public discourse.”

It’s like Russia in the 1920s.

“The State of Idaho and all its institutions will render full recognition to the Christian basis thereof, not permitting any diminution or rejection of its status nor any restriction on its presence or role in the public arena.”

This proposal was rejected by a large majority of the county party members at a meeting Tuesday night. Good on them. Such a resolution would raise a million questions about its application in governance. Would any particular branch of the Christian faith take precedent – first among equals? Which denomination would get the best parking spots at the Capitol? Would nonbelievers – a third of Idaho residents – have to be identified and registered by the state, perhaps with a symbol on their driver’s licenses or foreheads?

No, of course not. These questions are – as Vito Barbieri might say – rhetorical. But what about this: Could a Bible-citing parent legally deny medical treatment to a dying child? You might call this another extreme, hyperbolic example, but it’s as real as can be. As most of the country moves to limit religious exemptions to child abuse and neglect laws, Idaho’s lawmakers are standing firm behind the principles of parental rights and religious freedom.

Here’s what the state’s law says about faith healing and the death of a child: “The practice of a parent or guardian who chooses for his child treatment by prayer or spiritual means alone shall not for that reason alone be construed to have violated the duty of care to such child.”

These kinds of faith-healing exemptions are being eliminated around the country. But Idaho resists. In recent years, individuals and organizations who have attempted to change the law in Idaho have been rebuffed, while parental rights have been consistently portrayed as under attack.

In 2011, Idaho lawmakers voted on a resolution that declaimed: “Here in America, the role previously left to parents is being usurped by faceless bureaucrats.” (I always wonder, hearing this oft-repeated phrase, what happened to their faces.)

At the time, Rep. John Rusche, D-Lewiston, opposed the measure specifically because of his experience as a doctor with families whose faith-healing beliefs led to the death of a child. He said sanctioning that kind of parenting amounts to declaring children “inferior citizens.”

This year, a House committee has passed a bill that would make clear that parents have a “fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, education and control of their children.” It would prohibit any repeal of the faith-healing exemption – protecting the right of parents to let their kids die preventable deaths.

The Followers of Christ in Caldwell, Idaho, are part of a Pentecostal church that does not believe in using modern medicine. A former member has been trying, without success, to get the Idaho law changed, according to a story on this issue by Spokane writer Leah Sottile.

“You can’t beat a child,” the former Follower of Christ, Linda Martin, told Sottile. “To sit there and do absolutely nothing for a child except pray for them and watch them suffer? That’s just inhumane.”

A Republican legislator from their district, Rep. Christy Perry, defended the faith-healing exemption and the beliefs of the Followers of Christ: “They are comforted by the fact that they know their child is in heaven. If I want to let my child be with God, why is that wrong?”

She also said, “Children do die. And I’m not trying to sound callous, but (people calling for reform) want to act as if death is an anomaly. But it’s not. It’s a way of life.”

OK. The preventable but unprevented death of children is a way of life. A religious way of life, to be condoned by the rest of us, and exempt from the laws that require people not to injure or kill a child.

How much more official, formalized and protected could Christianity be in Idaho?

Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@spokesman.com. Follow him on Twitter at @vestal13.

More from this author