"Boy Erased" Based on a Harrowing True Story: A Review

Today a group of us went ans saw "Boy Erased" staring Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Lucas Hedges which is based on a true story and, if anything, is far, far too kind to advocates of conversion therapy and the now defunct "Love in Action "ministry" that inflicted harm on so many members of the LGBT community. Also among the cast was out gay musician Troye Sivan who played the role of one of the other victims of the fraudulent conversion therapy "ministry".   The performances were extraordinary, especially that of Hedges and Kidman.  Thankfully, at the end of the movie, the end credits noted that the real life "ministry" which lacked licensed doctors or psychologist had closed its doors and the villainous leader of the "ministry" played by Joel Edgerton had in fact ultimately left the conversion therapy scam industry and married his husband after admitting that no one had ever been changed from gay to straight. 

I am very passionate about exposing the fraudulent and harmful nature of these programs which are condemned by EVERY legitimate medical and mental heal association in North America,. They do very real harm and, as "Boy Erased" shows can and do lead to needless suicides.  A friend underwent forced participation in a conversion therapy "program" that involved and exorcism and physical abuse.  Believe me, it severely harmed him emotionally and psychologically. I recommend this movie to anyone that wants to learn about the evils of these programs and wants to perhaps glimpse the emotional and psychological challenges anyone LGBT still faces in America - but especially Trump/Pence America.

If you see the movie - which I recommend readers do - and believe that these dangerous and fraudulent programs need to be outlawed, be mindful that a bill - SB 245 - in the 2018 session of the Virginia General Assembly that would have banned licensed professionals from in engaging in the "therapy" was killed by a small cabal of Republicans in the  the Virginia Senate.  The bill provided that:

Prohibits any health care provider or person who performs counseling as part of his training for any profession licensed by a regulatory board of the Department of Health Professions from engaging in conversion therapy with any person under 18 years of age. The bill defines "conversion therapy" as any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.  . . . no state funds shall be expended for the purpose of conducting conversion therapy, referring a person for conversion therapy, extending health benefits coverage for conversion therapy, or awarding a grant or contract to any entity that conducts conversion therapy or refers individuals for conversion therapy.

These pawns of the anti-gay Christian right are State Senators Newman, Black, Carrico, Cosgrove, Dunnavant, Chase, Suetterlein, Peake.  John A. Cosgrove, Jr., is from Chesapeake and deserves  to be confronted for his anti-gay vote.  All up for reelection in 2019 and need to be targeted for defeat in November 2019..

Child Abuse Under the Guise of Religion

The growing problem of vaccinated children has thankfully brought some much needed attention to the abuse of children that masquerades as practicing religious belief.  Sadly, too many of those still following the dogma of ignorance based - and ignorance worshiping - religious traditions (the Bible was authored by unknown, ignorant writers with Bronze Age levels of knowledge and the Koran was authored by someone who would be institutionalized nowadays) continue to treat their children as chattel property and abuse them accordingly.  Sadly, too often the law gives undeserved deference to such religious based insanity/stupidity.   It is something that needs to change sooner as opposed to later.  Religious belief should never trump medical knowledge or child abuse statutes.  A column in the New York Times looks at the need to stop child abuse under the guise of religion.  Here are highlights:

Every kind of child abuse has been rationalized by someone as a religious practice: beatings, dangerous diets, forced marriages, slavery, exorcism, sexual exploitation, genital mutilation, conversion therapy for L.G.B.T. youth and medical neglect.

America has hundreds of religious denominations. We would have anarchy if everyone was allowed to act out his religious beliefs without restriction. It is well-settled case law that parents do not have a constitutional right to abuse or neglect a child. However, largely because of lobbying by the Christian Science church, states have given parents statutory rights to deprive children of immunizations, health screenings and, in some states, medical care.

Nearly all states have religious exemptions from preventive and diagnostic measures such as immunizations, metabolic testing, blood lead-level tests, newborn hearing tests and other screenings. Two have had religious exemptions from bicycle helmets.

The scope of statutory religious exemptions pertaining to medical care of sick children varies widely. Some are ambiguous, some give only the right to rely exclusively on prayer for trivial, self-limiting illnesses, while others, such as Idaho law, give parents the legal right to withhold lifesaving medical care. 

Many Idaho children have suffered and died without medical care because of the Followers of Christ beliefs. Arrian Granden, 15, died in 2012 after days of nausea and vomiting so much that her esophagus ruptured. Micah Eells, 4 days old, died in 2013 of a bowel obstruction, which usually causes excruciating pain and vomiting. Pamela Eells, 16, died in 2011, of pneumonia, drowning slowly as her lungs filled with fluid. Cooper Shippy died in 2010 of untreated diabetes shortly before his second birthday.

Idaho public officials take no action about these deaths. Criminal charges are never filed. The legislature is not willing to repeal Idaho’s religious defense to manslaughter and criminal injury. The Canyon County coroner told the press she doesn’t even do autopsies when children die without medical care in faith-healing sects.

Medical neglect may not be as sensational as other religion-related abuses but it has been just as deadly. Religious exemptions discriminate against children, depriving them of protections the state extends to others. They should be repealed.

Throughout history, religion has brought death, wars, bigotry and evil.  There is no room for religious exemptions in child abuse laws.  The parents referenced in the column all deserve to be criminally prosecuted and locked up in prison and their other children permanently removed from their custody.  

Brutal Christian "Ex-Gay" and Reform School Exposed

When you are a Christofascist and find that American laws restrict your ability to inflict torture and torment on youths to "cure" them, what do you do?  You open up operations overseas where laws are less protective of minors, of course.  This type of move parallel's the efforts of Christofascists to export homophobia and anti-gay animus to Africa and countries like Russia since they are losing the culture wars here in America.  Thankfully, a new documentary, "Kidnapped for Christ" is exposing the horrors done in such offshore facilities which constitute nothing less than child abuse. Note the ties to hate groups and Republicans like Mitt Romney. The Raw Story has details.  Here are highlights:

“Kidnapped for Christ” is a new documentary that tells the story of teenagers sent to an evangelical Christian boarding school outside the U.S. where school personnel attempt to rid them of feelings of same sex attraction or other “ungodly” influences. 

“They mess your mind up,” said former student Deirdre Sugiuchi to Raw Story. “Prisoners have more freedom than we had.”

The “school” is Escuela Caribe, an evangelical Christian reform school that is run like a prison camp by an organization called New Horizons Youth Ministries.

Many of the students are the children of Christian parents who believe their sons and daughters’ nascent feelings of same sex attraction can be eliminated by the school’s program of Bible study, brutally hard work, exercise and physical punishment to break the students down.  

While only one student is known to have died at Escuela Caribe in a flash flood, Sugiuchi said that school officials pushed the students to the very brink of their physical endurance in order to make them more malleable and open to what she called a program of straightforward “brainwashing.”

LGBT students, however, were consistently singled out for abuse.  “That’s the thing,” she said, “the kids that were gay, most of the time they were picked on, and always kept on lower levels.”

Sugiuchi is currently working on a book, Unreformed, about her experience at Escuela Caribe. The film “Kidnapped for Christ” is premiering at the next Slamdance Film Festival, the rebel indie festival that now runs alongside the Sundance Film Festival in January. She hopes to raise awareness of these programs, which have deep ties to groups like Focus on the Family — who referred her parents to New Horizons Youth Ministries — and the Republican Party.

“If you follow the money, you’ll see that the Republicans are so, so in bed with these people,” she said. The Romney family contributes heavily to the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP), an umbrella organization for evangelical reform schools like Escuela Caribe — which was briefly closed down, then reopened under the name Crosswinds — and their Mormon equivalents.  

I'm sorry, but the truth is that religion is most often a pernicious evil.  The world would be a better place without religion, especially conservative and fundamentalist denominations.  Raising a child in a fundamentalist household is nothing less than child abuse.

Prosecutor: Parents' Religious Belief Led to Child's Death

We hear the disingenuous mantra from the National Organization for Marriage and anti-gay hate groups that "every child deserves a mother and father."   It's a line of bullshit and in the case of  Brandon Schaible, the young boy might still be alive if he had a gay couple as parents as opposed to Christianist whack jobs, Catherine and Herbert Schaible who withheld medical treatment, preferring to "pray."   Thankfully, the boys parents are being criminally prosecuted and will hopefully be convicted and spend time in prison.  Brandon Schaible again underscores the dangers of unfettered religious belief be it crazy Christian fundamentalism or Islamic jihadist.  Both are a foul and poisonous evil in the world.  Both need to be eradicated.   CNN Religion Blog looks at Brandon's murder by his "godly" parents (the murderers are pictured above).  Here are excerpts (NOTE: they had already killed another child):

When Brandon Schaible got a rash, his parents prayed.  When the 7-month-old became irritable with diarrhea and lost his appetite, his parents, Catherine and Herbert Schaible, prayed again.
When Brandon had trouble breathing and gasped for air, his parents called a pastor - this, in spite of the fact that a judge had ordered them to call a doctor.

Brandon Schaible died on April 18 from bacterial pneumonia, dehydration and strep, according to the district attorney’s office – all treatable with antibiotics.

On Wednesday his parents were charged with third-degree murder.  The Schaibles are lifelong members of the First Century Gospel Church in Philadelphia, one of several religious groups in the U.S. that relies on faith, and eschews most medical care.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams says the Schaibles’ failure to seek medical attention resulted in the death of their son.  “Instead of caring and nurturing him,” Williams said, “they ultimately caused his death by praying over his body instead of taking him to the doctor.”

The Schaibles are also charged with involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy and endangering the welfare of a child. In April, the couple admitted to police that their son had exhibited symptoms for several days before he died.

On Friday, Court of Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner ordered the Schaibles held without bail out of fear they were a flight risk.

The Schaibles are already on probation for the 2009 death of another son, Kent, who died from bacterial pneumonia. A jury convicted the couple of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced them to 10 years probation.

“How many kids have to die before it becomes an extreme indifference to the value of human life?” McCann asked. “They killed one child already.”

If convicted of third-degree murder in Brandon’s death, the Schaibles could face a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison, Lerner said. They also face an additional 7 to 14 years if a judge decides to revoke their probation in Kent’s death.

I hope they get the maximum.  Let's be clear.  Raising children in Christofascists homes is nothing short of a form of child abuse.  Groundless deference to religious belief needs to stop - especially when it endangers the lives and mental well being of children.

Gay Teens Starved, Tortured, Killed at Camp to Make them "Straight"

Graphic Photo of Raymond Buys - Why Aren't His Parents Being Criminally Prosecuted?

I realize that I often comment on - some readers might say rant - the horrors of the Christofascists who promote the myth that sexual orientation is a "choice" and that gays can become "straight" if they but want to do so.  Having tried to "pray the gay away" my self literally for decades, I know that the "ex-gay"myth is a lie.  But worse yet, these "ministries" can drive gays to suicide or, as a story out of South Africa documents, literally kill gay youths.  It is sick, it is obscene, and it must be stopped.  As noted before, in my view, any parent who places their minor child in an "ex-gay" program needs to be charged with felony child abuse and prosecuted to the fullest extent allowable under the law.  In this day and age, it is mind numbing that parents still cling to the ignorant writings of bronze age nomadic herders - i.e., the Bible and the Koran - and subject their children to the horrors of "ex-gay" ministries.  As Gay Star News reports, three young gays died as a result of their parents' ignorance and the batshitery of "ex-gay" ministries.  Here are some story highlights:

Three ‘gay and effeminate’ teens have died after being starved, tortured and killed at a camp that promised to turn them into 'men'.

A picture of Raymond Buys, 15, taken in April 2011 showed a skeletal, emaciated figure fighting for his life.

Just 10 weeks before, the teen’s parents signed him up to the Echo Wild Game Rangers training course in South Africa in perfect health.

In hospital, Buys was severely malnourished, dehydrated, his arm was broken in two places and there were burns and wounds all over his body. He lay in intensive care for four weeks until he died.
And now, the course ‘general’ Alex De Koker, 49, and employee Michael Erasmus, 20, are on trial for charges of murder, child abuse and neglect, along with two cases of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm in relation to Buys' death.

The teen’s death is alleged to have been the third among the Afrikaans children who attended the R22,000 ($2,400, €1,900) courses, which have been advertized since 2006.

‘I sent my son on this course to make him a better man, to give him a better future,’ Buys’ mother told The Daily Telegraph. ‘I trusted Alex De Koker with his life.’

Last week, the Vereeniging District Court heard the testimony of a boy who had shared a tent with Buys, the Daily Maverick reports.

Gerhard Oostuizen, 19, claims Buys was chained to his bed every night, was refused permission to visit the toilet and on one occasion was forced to eat his own faeces.  He also said he would be beaten with planks, hosepipes and sticks when he failed to carry out manual labor tasks.

Gender activist Melanie Nathan has said the three young men were all perceived as ‘gay and clearly effeminate’.

In reference to ‘gay conversion camps’, Nathan writes: ‘With a little bit of digging [into the story], the gay reparative undertones start to emerge.’

Eric Calitz, 18, and Nicolaas Van Der Walt, 19, had both died after being enrolled at the Echo Wild Game Rangers camp four years earlier.

When Calitz requested to leave, De Koker reportedly told him he ‘wasn’t a moffie [gay] and he would make a man out of him’.

Calitz’s family was informed of his death via text message, saying he had died of a heart attack.
Afterwards, doctors said the cause of death was from a seizure, dehydration and found bleeding from the brain.

I'm sorry, but I have NO sympathy for the parents of these murdered boys.  They need to be prosecuted right along with those who physically murdered their sons.   As a parent myself, any parent who believes the lies preached weekly from pulpits and the lies promoted by "ex-gay" proponents over their own children are despicable.  They need to spend many years behind bars where they can contemplate the role they played in the murder of their own children.  As I have stated before, fundamentalist religion of all stripes is a toxic evil that needs to be eradicated from the face of the earth.  It contribute nothing positive to humanity and over the centuries has claimed many more lives than it has helped.  

Woman Faces Prison Time After Beating Gay Son

I have long believed that raising a child in a far right Christian home is a form of child abuse.  While adults are free to believe and live their lives as they desire, I have a real problem with children being forced to embrace a form of religion that has at its core a message of embracing ignorance, hate, fear and bigotry.  The children of such homes - and I would most definitely include far right Catholic homes - come out emotionally and psychologically damaged.  My own Catholic upbringing, despite the best intentions of my parents left scars that it took years of therapy to overcome and escape.  A woman in Texas has demonstrated that far right Christianist beliefs can carry physical harm for children as well, especially gay children.  Here are excerpts from a piece in LGBTQ Nation:

FOREST HILL, Texas — A Texas woman is facing felony charges for badly beating her 15-year-old son after she caught him receiving oral sex from a male cousin last December.  Police in Forest Hill have charged Erica Moore with assault with bodily injury to a family member and felony child abuse after she admitted to beating her son with with an electrical cord.

Moore said it is a form of discipline she was taught, and that she “doesn’t believe in homosexuality.”  “My cousin at the time, he was 18. My son, he was 15, and I had walked in the room on [my cousin] giving oral sex to my son and I started whooping my son, and I’m the one who got in trouble as a result of me whooping him,” Moore told KTVT-TV.

“The police department told me that it was consensual, but they was committing a homosexual act in my house and we are totally against that. So I whooped my son, and about three or four months later they came and arrested me for abuse,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Forest Hill Police department said that the incident was brought to their attention after the boy’s grandmother had taken him to a local hospital.  The staff there alerted Texas Child Protective Services who launched an investigation.

Police officials said that Moore’s actions went beyond legally acceptable standards of discipline as she caused bleeding and leaving marks on the boy’s thighs, forearms, hands, torso and back.

[A] spokesperson for Child Protective Services said, “If you are leaving the child with severe injuries or bruises, then obviously we might be talking about abuse.”  A spokesperson for the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment saying that there is still an active investigation into the matter, but did acknowledge that Moore faces prison time if convicted.

Frankly, I hope Moore does prison time.  Beating one's child to the point of hospitalization all because of a belief in the rantings of uneducated nomadic herders of 2,500 years ago.  There is no excuse and it is far past time that the Bible be recognized as a very toxic work that deserves little respect in the modern world.

"Ex-Gay" Snake Oil Merchants Sue State of California

Making good on their threats to challenge California's new ban that bars charlatans' ability to peddle fraudulent "ex-gay" therapy to those under the age of 18 - a type of therapy which is condemned by virtually every legitimate medical and mental health association in the country - Liberty Counsel and Pacific Justice Institute have each filed lawsuits seeking to overturn the recently enacted SB1172.  A ready of the lawsuit filed by Pacific Justice Institute demonstrates that the real basis for the challenge is the Christofascist belief that their ignorance embracing hate and fear based religious beliefs should trump all else.  Related to this mindset is the belief that parents have some inalienable right to subject their LGBT children to what amounts to nothing less than a heinous form of child abuse.  It's a mindset akin to that of lunatic parents who withhold medical treatment to their children and ultimately murder them when their lives could have been easily saved by medical care.  All of these parents deserve to be criminally prosecuted for the wrongs done to their children.  NO ONE has the right to harm someone else based solely on archaic religious beliefs that science and medicine increasingly prove to be wrong.  Think Progress has two pieces that look at the Christofascists' attack against protecting children.  Here are highlights from the first Think Progress piece that looks at the Pacific Justice Institute lawsuit:

Following through on its promise to challenge California’s new ban on ex-gay therapy for minors, the Pacific Justice Institute has filed suit on behalf of a self-proclaimed “ex-gay” therapist-in-training, Aaron Bitzer, and two other therapists, Donald Welch and Anthony Duk, who provide reparative therapy. The suit is rife with spurious claims and meritless demands that essentially equate to whining about the law’s limitations, none of which comes close to meeting a Constitutional challenge. Here is a sampling from the complaint, aptly filed under “Plaintiffs’ Beliefs”:

Forced to discriminate?

If a minor’s objectives are to bring his or her sexual conduct and desires into conformity with the religious traditions, cultural norms, and moral standards of the minor, Dr. Duk can provide treatment so long as the minor is heterosexual. However, under the statute in question, a minor who has unwanted same sex behaviors or attractions cannot be treated with either counseling or prescription medications. [...] Dr. Duk is therefore required to discriminate against minor patients for no other reason than their sexual orientation.

The complaint refers to such conduct as “sexual behaviors, desires, and addictions such as pornography.” Under the law, there’s no reason that gay youth could not pursue therapy for the very same things so long as it’s not in the context of denying, repressing, or attempting to change their sexual orientation. These therapists are basically admitting that they would intentionally discriminate against any gay kid who still wanted affirmation for his or her orientation.

Violation of professional ethics?

The statute materially interferes with the plaintiff mental health professionals’ exercise of their independent professional judgment in providing treatment to minors who have unwanted same sex behaviors or attractions… This is in violation of these plaintiff mental health professionals’ obligations under the rules of professional ethics to provide treatment to persons regardless of their sexual orientation.

Providing ex-gay therapy is already a violation of their professional ethics, as all major professional psychotherapy organizations have condemned the practice as ineffective and harmful. That they seek to provide it nevertheless demonstrates that their “independent professional judgment” is severely compromised.

Violation of free speech?

The prohibitions of SB 1172 unlawfully create a new category of banned speech, namely “sexual orientation change efforts” directed at minors. This includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, and questioning youth. The state does not have any governmental interest sufficient to justify SB 1172’s sweeping prohibition of speech.

The law does not prevent anybody from practicing anti-gay speech; it simply prevents licensed professionals from false advertising — selling a medical treatment that has no scientific merit. Ex-gay therapy is comparable to blood-letting in terms of its medical efficacy.

There's more to the piece, but you get the drift.  The second Think Progress piece focuses more on the belief that parents should be allowed to do whatever they want to their children as long as their abuse and mistreatment is motivated by religious belief.   Here are key highlights:

While the Liberty Counsel suit makes many of the same empty claims about patients’ right to “choose” therapies that don’t work and therapists’ rights to freedom of speech and religion, it also paints a more vivid picture of why the law is necessary to protect children. Among the plaintiffs are two families getting ex-gay treatment for their sons, and the lawsuit claims that continuing this therapy is important, because only by denying their homosexuality can these boys repair their relationships with their parents.

In other words, if this kid doesn’t keep participating in this quackery to repress his orientation, his parents will go back to rejecting him. That’s exactly what happened to Ryan Kendall, a former patient of Nicolosi’s who testified against Proposition 8 and in favor of this new law:

KENDALL: As a young teen, the anti-gay practice of so-called conversion therapy destroyed my life and tore apart my family. In order to stop the therapy that misled my parents into believing that I could somehow be made straight, I was forced to run away from home, surrender myself to the local department of human services, and legally separate myself from my family. At the age of 16, I had lost everything. My family and my faith had rejected me, and the damaging messages of conversion therapy, coupled with this rejection, drove me to the brink of suicide.

These lawsuits, along with the support from the most influential anti-gay groups, demonstrate the harmful propaganda still widely promoted against the lives of people who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual.

Make no mistake about what's behind these lawsuits: (1) money, which these charlatans suck like parasites from delusional, self centered parents, (2) maintaining the myth that gays can "change" to further ant-hate groups' political agenda, and (3) psychotic Bible thumpers who would rather attack gays than deal with their own strain illness.

Catholic Official Convicted For Covering Up Abuse Complaint

While he was acquitted on some of the criminal charges, Monsignor William Lynn of the Philadelphia Archdiocese was convicted yesterday of of child endangerment.  The conviction makes Lynn the first U.S. Roman Catholic church official to be convicted of a felon for covering up abuse claims as part of the worldwide criminal conspiracy orchestrated from the Vatican.  The trial made it very clear that one individual who should have been indicted for criminal conspiracy was former Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua who conveniently died in his sleep before the trial got underway.  The pattern revealed in the Philadelphia archdiocese is all to familiar: the deliberate cover up for sexual predator priests who were then reassigned to unsuspecting parishes where they could find fresh prey.  Nowhere in the equation did the safety of children and youths ever factor in.  It underscores the utter moral bankruptcy of the Catholic hierarchy all the way up the chain to the current Pope and his predecessors.  Here are highlights from the New York Times coverage:

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official was convicted of child endangerment but acquitted of conspiracy Friday in a landmark clergy-abuse trial, making him the first U.S. church official branded a felon for covering up abuse claims.

Monsignor William Lynn helped the archdiocese keep predators in ministry, and the public in the dark, by telling parishes their priests were being removed for health reasons and then sending the men to unsuspecting churches, prosecutors said.

Lynn, 61, served as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, mostly under Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.  “Many in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia hierarchy had dirty hands,” Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said. “They failed to realize that the church is its people.”

He was convicted of only a single endangerment count, which carries a possible 3 1/2- to seven-year prison term.

Despite Lynn’s acquittal on the conspiracy charge, the trial exposed how deeply involved the late cardinal was in dealing with accused priests.

Bevilacqua had the final say on what to do with priests accused of abuse, transferred many of them to new parishes and dressed down anyone who complained, according to testimony. He also ordered the shredding of a 1994 list that Lynn prepared, warning that the archdiocese had three diagnosed pedophiles, a dozen confirmed predators and another 20 possible abusers in its midst.

Lynn didn’t react when the verdict was read  .  .  .   The judge revoked his bail and he was taken to jail, although his lawyers plan to ask on Monday that he be granted house arrest until sentencing. No date was set, but the judge scheduled an Aug. 13 pre-sentencing hearing.

To me it is most telling that while the Vatican and other high level clerics have continued to refuse to clean their own putrid house, they launched a jihad against gays and gay marriage and fabricated the myth that "religious liberty" is threatened by the Obama administration.  Anything, apparently, to distract the sheep in the pews from the reality that they are supporting a criminal enterprise through their contributions to the collection basket.

Mom's Plea Deal for Child's Death Includes "Resurrection Clause"

The enemies of LGBT Americans among the Christian Right bloviate endlessly about how gays cannot properly parent children and pose a threat to the natural development of children's identity. I'd say better a gay or lesbian parent than a heterosexual religious nut case. A story out of Maryland makes this argument all too strongly. The mother - who is sad to have belonged to a "cult" rather than a small far right fundamentalist denomination - starved her year old son (shown in the photo) to death believing he was a "demon" and that he would be resurrected free of the affliction. While the story sounds too crazy to be true, all the sad details are available via CNN. Here are some highlights:

*

Maryland woman involved with a group described as a religious cult pleaded guilty in the starvation death of her son, but insisted that the charges be dropped when he is resurrected. The condition was made a part of Ria Ramkissoon's plea agreement, officials said. She entered the plea Monday in Baltimore, Maryland, to a first-degree felony count of child abuse resulting in death, her attorney, Steven Silverman, said Tuesday. Ramkissoon, a member of a group called One Mind Ministries, believes Javon Thompson, her year-old son, will rise again

*

Under the plea agreement, Ramkissoon, 22, must testify against four other One Mind Ministries members who are also facing charges, including first-degree murder, in Javon's death. At her sentencing, set for August, she will receive a 20-year sentence, which will be suspended except for the time she has already served behind bars, Silverman said. She must also undergo deprogramming and psychiatric counseling.

*

Ramkissoon and the others are accused of denying Javon food after the group's leader, a 40-year-old woman who goes by the name Queen Antoinette, decreed the boy was a demon since he refused to say "amen" after meals, Silverman said.

*

Javon is believed to have died in December 2006, court documents allege. Following his death, the group members put the boy's body in a back room, and "everyone was directed to come in and pray," according to the documents. "The Queen told everyone that 'God was going to raise Javon from the dead.' Javon remained in the room for an extended period of time (in excess of one week). The resurrection never took place." Authorities believe the boy's body was then placed into a wheeled suitcase along with mothballs and fabric-softener sheets, documents said. Prosecutors allege Antoinette opened the suitcase periodically and sprayed its interior with Lysol to mask the decomposition odor.

*

Court documents say Ramkissoon joined One Mind Ministries after Javon's birth in 2005. Silverman described her as a petite, soft-spoken woman who rejected her family's Hindu religion, became a devout Christian and wanted to raise her son in that religion. "She didn't want to have to work or go to school. She just wanted to take care of her son, and they offered her all this," he said.