Adoption checks and missed marks

Yesterday, we added yet another case of abuse in adoptive families, where the adopted children were subjected to disciplinarian cruelty. The case in question involves three children adopted from foster care by John and Carolyn Jackson, a devout Christian home schooling couple, at the time living at Picatinny Arsenal Installation, New Jersey.

After having added nearly 600 cases of abuse in child placement, some desensitization has kicked in. When we first started our archives every case was new and different, but with case 598 things have become eerily familiar.

Does the case involve infants or toddlers? Check! Was the child adopted less than 6 months ago? Check! Did the child suffer head trauma? Check! Did the parents claim the child fell down the stairs? Check! Did the coroner conclude the head trauma could not be self-inflicted? Check!

Does the case involve a girl between the age of 9 and 16? Check! Did the adoptive father sexually abuse the girl? Check! Did the adoptive mother turn a blind eye, call the girl a liar when being told about the abuse, or did the adoptive mother blame the girl and call her a slut? Check!

Does the case involve children between 5 and 9? Check! Is the adopter a single man? Check! Does sexual abuse almost immediately start? Check! Does the adopter have a specific preference for girls or does he prefer boys? Check!

Does the case involve more than one adopted child in the family? Check! Are there biological children in the family? Check! Are the biological children treated properly, while at least some of the adopted children are maltreated? Check! Were the adopted children withheld food? Check! Were the adopted children forced to consume hot sauce ? Check! Were the children regularly beaten? Check! Were the adopters strongly religious? Check! Were the children home schooled? Check!

The most recent case we added, sadly conforms exactly to the last mentioned description. There are literally dozens of cases of adoptee abuse involving cruel punishment and in the vast majority of those cases, the unusually harsh discipline was administered by devout home schooling Christians.

Unfortunately this mere observation will likely trigger the persecution complex found among this particular group. Already the Home School Legal Defense Association and news websites like WorldNetDaily have jumped to the defense of the Jackson family, claiming the Jackson children are being held hostage due to anti-Christian bias by the Department of Youth and Family Services of New Jersey.

Of course martyrdom and the notion of persecution is deeply engrained in Christianity. After all the bible can be read as an account of persecution from cover to cover. However, the fact that ones religious inspiration comes from a book based on the struggle against oppression doesn't mean one is actually being oppressed and persecuted.

The idea that Christians are persecuted in the United States, a country that has the highest level of religious freedom in the world and where Christians make up the majority of the population is preposterous.

It is safe to say that the persecution argument is nothing more than a defensive knee-jerk reaction by those who want to see themselves as above the law. Religious freedom means that one cannot be persecuted for having a particular belief, it doesn't mean one can do whatever one feels like, simply for adhering to a faith. The US has the highest level of freedom of religion in the world, yet 75% of its prison population consists of Christians. This is not a testament of religious persecution. It is simply a reflection of the fact that Christians can break the law, just like people of other persuasions.

According the allegations made by the Federal prosecutors, John and Carolyn Jackson broke the law by administering cruel punishments on their adopted children.

The Jackson case is not an isolated incident. Cruel punishment by fanatical homeschooling Christians is too common to be overlooked.

Couple	Food/water deprivation	Beating with objects	Forced confinement	Forced ingestion of soap or hot sauce	Forced ingestion of urine, feces or vomit
Brian and Edith Beebe
Joseph and Evangeline Combs
Ernest and Cynthia Davison
Michael and Karen Diehl
John and Linda Dollar
Neil and Christy Edgar
Kimberly and Bob Forder
Samuel and Diana Franklin
Michael and Sharen Gravelle
Dwayne and Pamela Hardy
Raymond and Vanessa Jackson
Robert and Brenda Matthey
Samuel and Donna Merryman
Diane and Dennis Nason
Johnny and Lynn Paddock
Earnest and Windie Perry
Steven and Mikelann Renwick
Joseph and Jessilyn Robinson
Kevin P. and Elizabeth H. Schatz
Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock
Couple that adopted Carmina Salcido
Jessica Banks
Eunice Spry

If we include abuse cases of fanatically religious adopters that don't home school, we can include the following cases.

Couple	Food/water deprivation	Beating with objects	Forced confinement	Forced ingestion of soap or hot sauce	Forced ingestion of urine, feces or vomit
Theresa and Reed Hansen
David and Renee Polreis
Steve and Deborah Mark

The cruelty in each of these cases is hard to convey in a single blog post. However, if one goes through all the articles and court documents, it becomes clear that some children placed through adoption, effectively see themselves trapped in a place that resembles something akin to hell.

Please consider that for a moment. Life of an adoptee before placement often already is not exactly paradise. Abandonment, abuse, neglect, often has already been experienced. Then an adoption takes place within a family that effectively shuts you off from the rest of society and treats you less than an animal. With no way to go, endurance is all that is left.

The children in these cases have all endured tremendous suffering at the hands of certified lunatics who somehow found approval to adopt children through the court of law.

It remains unimaginable how these families ever found approval for adoption. These are all people who really wear their religiosity up their sleeves and who are proudly convinced that their child-rearing methods are superior.

For social workers it isn't hard to spot this particular type of adopter. The abuse may be hidden, but the hiding itself is blatantly obvious.

Then what is the excuse that adopters like these are being approved for adoption?

Could it be the opposite of persecution? Could it be favoritism, actually playing a role in this? Are Christians so much favored in child placement that there is too much tolerance of religion related excesses?

We realize, we are begging the question here. Being Christian opens child placement doors, closed to others. There is hardly a denomination in the United States or it has at least one associated adoption/foster-care agency, and there are many smaller and larger non-denominational agencies active in the field of adoption. Local governments even contract out work to these religion based organizations and have done so since time memorial.

Instead of meeting persecution, Christians in general meet positive-bias when seeking adoption. Just do a Google search for Christian Adoption Agency and hundreds of pages of adoption agency listings appear. Christians are welcomed with open arms when they seek adoption.That's not at all a problem when it comes to decent Christian families with loving attitudes towards children, but it also sets the doors wide open for the kind that uses religion as an excuse to torture children.