The Texas Supreme Court threw out, on First Amendment grounds, an abuse and false imprisonment jury verdict against a church that performed an exorcism on a 17-year-old girl. She received cuts, bruises, and carpet burns while being pinned to the floor for hours during the exorcism. She later hallucinated, self-mutilated, and attempted suicide. Finding the church liable "would have an unconstitutional 'chilling effect' by compelling the church to abandon core principles of its religious beliefs."
Yes, finding liability would force these people to change their religious practices. Yes, their current religious practices cause real harm. How do you resolve that? Many people assume that there is little harm in a broad free exercise clause in non-governmental contexts because most forms of religious expression don't cause direct harm to others. However, there's nothing inherent in religion to prevent it from being a force for evil; even if God is a wholly benevolent god, the people who worship are not. In fact, history shows us that the free exercise of religion almost inevitably leads to the weight of oppression falling on a minority. Children who do not satisfy their parents' religious expectations are particularly at risk, as this story suggests. Of course there are very real slippery-slope dangers associated with allowing any governmental body to decide which religious practices are so extreme that they can be banned, but shouldn't there be some point when people should be restricted to religious practices that don't cause physical and psychological damage to children?
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