Luna del'Corvo

Sure. But let's consider a few points: First, let's be realistic - a significant percentage of the crap that comes out of the Christian lunatic fringe would *never* be tolerated if it came from other religions. What's done and said with Bible in hand gets passes and get-out-of-jail-free privileges that the same thing done or said with Quran, Bagavad Gita, or (for lack of a better comparison) The God Delusion in hand will never get.

Secondly, religious freedom *does not* equal the freedom to abuse children, nor, in my opinion, the freedom to make child abuse somehow a protected religious doctrine. Free speech yes, and I know this is problematic territory in that regard as well. But...it seems that the authors & promoters of things like "Train up a Child" and "No Greater Joy" have to be held to some kind of responsibility for advocating this stuff, and then standing back and waving their hands when someone who has taken it on religious authority ends up seriously injuring a child.

As fervently as I believe in free speech, I also believe in responsibility, and words have consequences. Along with the freedom to speak those words needs to be the responsibility for the consequences of them. Just like all those who bandied about a rhetoric of violence bear culpability in the deaths of abortion doctors, the Pearls and others with similar programs bear culpability when some damned fool, fired by the religious conviction on which these authors so blatantly play, ends up beating a child to death.