Thaing’s case isn’t about LGBT rights, but it’s about something equally controversial. Many parents would condemn a decision to beat an elementary schooler with a coat hanger dozens of times, hard enough to leave significant bruises. When someone like Thaing tries to use the Bible and religious-freedom laws to justify her actions, “it makes the public and judiciary in general skeptical and hostile to those sorts of claims,” Dwyer said. While the RFRA argument may not hurt Thaing’s chances in court, “it will hurt the cause of religious parents who might want to assert the defense in the future,” he said, particularly because this was “such an extreme form of punishment.”
It’s not uncommon for parents to use religious justifications for the way they raise and treat their kids. Many states given religious families latitude on education, for example, or, more controversially, decisions to forgo standard medical care when a child is sick.
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