Religious faith cannot protect you from prosecution. Especially for murdering your own child.

Courtesy of NBC News: 

A deeply religious Wisconsin couple who prayed over their dying daughter rather than seek medical help were properly convicted of homicide, the state Supreme Court decided Wednesday. 

Kara Neumann, 11, of Weston, Wis., died March 23, 2008 — Easter Sunday — of complications of untreated juvenile onset diabetes. 

According to the case records, Kara had been showing symptoms of exhaustion and dehydration for more than a week, but her parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, refused to take her to a pediatrician, and decided to respond to her illness with prayer, not medicine. 

A pediatrician testified that Kara's disease was highly treatable and that her chances of survival were high until "well into the day of her death." 

The Neumanns don't belong to any particular church, but they identify as Pentecostals, according to factual findings in the court record, none of which the Neumanns disputed. Some Pentecostals — but by no means all — believe that prayer and strong religious belief can cure all illnesses, a tradition that helped give rise to famous "faith healers" like Oral Roberts and Benny Hinn.

Sometimes I think that certain people should not be allowed to breed. And these kind of religious zealots are at the top of that list.

The depth of their religious deception was incredible.

Dale Neumann testified that he knew Kara was sick but never thought she might die. In fact, he testified that he thought that Jesus would bring her back from the dead, as he did with Lazarus in the Gospel of John. 

That is pathological. 

And the Benny Hinns and Oral Roberts of the world are complicit in reinforcing that pathology, and should be punished accordingly.