Pastor Sentenced To 2 Years In Prison For Teaching That Parents Should Spank Their Children

Do you believe that parents should be able to spank their children? Do you ever express that opinion to others? If so, then you could be sent to prison. Sadly, that is exactly what happened to one pastor up in Wisconsin recently. A minister named Philip Caminiti was sentenced to 2 years in prison for simply teaching that parents should spank their children when they misbehave. Please note that Caminiti was not accused of spanking anyone or of physically hurting anyone. He was put in prison simply for his speech. He was put in prison simply for what he was teaching others to do. Whether you agree with spanking or not, this should be incredibly sobering for all of us. Increasingly, speech is being penalized in the United States. Much of the time, the focus of the attacks by the forces of political correctness is on religious speech. If this trend continues, many of you that are reading this article might be put in jail for the things that you say in the coming years.

When many of us were growing up, once in a while our parents would take out a belt or a wooden paddle and give us a paddling on the behind when we did something wrong.

Yes, there is real child abuse that goes on out there, but in the vast majority of instances spanking does not do any lasting physical harm. Rather, it benefits the child because it helps them learn what is right and what is wrong.

I know that when I got a licking on the behind as a child that helped me to remember not to do the same thing again.

But Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi was absolutely horrified that some parents would actually use a wooden spoon to spank their little children when they misbehaved.

Perhaps that judge should actually try to spank someone with a wooden spoon some time. You simply cannot do much damage with a wooden spoon.

Instead of going after the parents who were doing the spanking, prosecutors chose to go after the pastor instead. They claimed that Caminiti was "the spoke in the wheel of this conspiracy".

Even after Caminiti leaves prison, he will be forbidden from having any contact with his old church....

Caminiti will be on extended supervision for six years after his release from prison. Despite objections on constitutional grounds by Caminiti's lawyers, Sumi ordered that he not have any contact with the Aleitheia Bible Church and have no leadership role in any church. What in the world is happening to this country?

Criminal predators are literally eating the faces off of people, and yet authorities want to go after pastors that are encouraging their congregations to follow the teachings of the Bible?

Sadly, this is not the only example of how our free speech is under attack these days.

Up in New York, a new bill was recently introduced that would outlaw all "mean-spirited and baseless political attacks".

The following is how a recent article by Kurt Nimmo described what this new law would require....

New York state government is attempting to pass the measure in both the Senate and the Assembly. The legislation has been referred to the Codes Committee in the Senate, and the Government Operations Committee in the Assembly.

Both proposals are identical and would effect messages posted on message boards, blogs, social networks, and “any other discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.” The law would require websites to post email addresses for “removal requests, clearly visible in any sections where comments are posted.” Those demanding the removal of content they find objectionable, however, would have their anonymity protected.

“Had the internet been around in the late 1700s, perhaps the anonymously written Federalist Papers would have to be taken down unless Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay revealed themselves,” notes David Kravets, writing for Wired. Will we soon see laws such as this nationwide?

Will all blogs and websites soon be at the mercy of the politically correct police?

Up in Buffalo, New York it is apparently now against the law to hand out Christian tracts on a public sidewalk. At least that is what one man was told recently when he attempted to hand out tracts outside of an Italian heritage festival. The following is from a recent WorldNetDaily article....

While handing out tracts to willing recipients on a public street during a public festival, Owen was approached by a police officer who declined to identify himself but told him that the Buffalo Police Department is “the law” and he should stop handing out tracts.

According to the lawsuit: “Subsequently, another police officer, Officer Slomka, arrived on the scene. She quickly informed Owen that they could not hand out tracts in the festival and explained that the prohibition was ‘by our orders.’ Owen asked for her name, and she replied: ‘Slomka, write it down.’ Owen advised that he believed the tracts to be free speech; nonplussed, Officer Slomka reiterated that they couldn’t hand out tracts there and had to go outside of the festival area to continue with their expressive activity.”

Then, “Owen inquired as to whether they would be arrested if they continued to hand out tracts in the festival area, to which, Officer Slomka replied: ‘Yes.’” That almost makes me angry enough to take a trip over to Buffalo and hand out tracts right outside the police station.

Even if you do not ever distribute literature, you should be alarmed at how our freedom of speech is being eroded.

The truth is that whenever anyone has their freedom of speech attacked it is an attack on all of us.

At one high school up in Canada recently, a student was suspended from school for a week for wearing a shirt with the following message....

"Life is wasted without Jesus" The student was told that the shirt was "hate talk" and that he would be suspended for the rest of the year if he tried to wear it to school again.

They are not going to be satisfied until they have either shut all of us up or put all of us in prison.

It is imperative that we all stand up for free speech while we still can. Once our freedom of speech is gone, the loss of the rest of our freedoms will only be a matter of time.

I'm amazed and disappointed that so many people on a supposedly conservative forum are so abysmally ignorant of the constitution and what constitutes rights that they think it's a good thing to lock someone up for expressing an opinion, no matter how moronic the opinion. That my statist FRiend is the end of freedom, and you're advocating it.

I get what you are saying about merely “expressing an opinion” no matter how moronic the opinion. But then I would ask you how you might feel about NAMBLA?

So what if a leader of the NAMBLA organization expresses merely his own “opinion” that there is nothing wrong with adult men having sex with young boys? Even if that NAMBLA member has himself never admitted to or has ever been convicted of doing so himself, but actively advocates that others do so and also gives them explicit instructions on how and when and under what circumstances others can and should seduce young boys and rape them? Sure the other NAMBLA members are supposedly capable of making their own decisions but are you saying the person advocating such criminal behavior is in no way culpable?

Is that constitutionally protected Free Speech or is that actively advocating and abetting criminal behavior?

I agree it’s a very fine line and one that should be considered very carefully and constitutionally and being somewhat Libertarian, I usually side with the civil liberties and free speech side of these sorts of issues.

But he wasn’t merely expressing his own opinion on child discipline, he was “instructing (his) church members and his own adult children to beat crying infants and toddlers with wooden spoons and dowels on their bare bottoms”.

Do I think that occasionally “smacking” an unruly toddler on the hand or across the butt equals child abuse? No. Do I and most rational and right thinking people think that “beating” a two month old infant or toddler with a wooden dowel or spoon or any other object for simply crying is child abuse? Yes. Was he instructing and advocating members of his family and his church to engage in child abuse? If he was truly advocating and instructing others to “beat” and not merely spank toddlers and two month old infants, it sure would seem so.

“Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.”

What Justice Roberts was talking about regarding WBC was their protected free speech to demonstrate at the funerals of US soldiers while expressing a religious belief (or some would also argue a political POV as well). While standing around with signs saying “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” is inflicting great emotional pain to the families and is vile and contemptible in my opinion, what the WBC wasn’t doing was saying, “Do Like God Does And Go Out And Kill A Soldier And Members Of Their Families, These People Over There In Particular”. The first is protected free speech, the second; well it may still be protected free speech but is questionable and borderline. In the first they are expressing an opinion; if they said the second, they’d be advocating commission of a violent crime.

See my post #61. Is there a difference if a NAMBLA member advocates child sex rape and instructs others on how to do it, but doesn’t actually commit child rape himself?

Or think of it this way, a Mafia Boss may be correct in saying “I never killed anybody in my life” but if after expressing the opinion that “Vinny the Bagman is scum and a snitch and should die”, he actually instructs members of his family to kill Vinny, he is not at that point merely exercising free speech even if he himself does not pull the trigger.

Also consider that as Norseman pointed out, this was not simple spanking. And from the article he posted: “…Caminiti knew it was illegal, because he had advised his flock not to punish their children this way in public places because it might be seen as abuse.” And “Also facing child abuse charges are Caminiti's son and daughter-in-law, Matt and Alina; his daughter and son-in-law Maria and Timothy Stephenson; and Timothy and Andrea Wick. Some of them testified under immunity agreements during Philip Caminiti's trial.”

If his own children and other members of his church testified that Caminiti told them to beat their children and told them to do so in private so as not avoid child abuse charges, I think this is probably what got prosecutors a conviction on conspiracy to commit child abuse and not of committing child abuse himself.

Likely this gets overturned on appeal.

You’re probably right and after giving it some additional thought, it perhaps should be. However what made me a bit angry were the not so much the folks who were defending his right to say that two month old infants should be beaten for crying, but those seemingly supporting that what he said was not only free speech under the guise of religion but that he was correct in saying so.

“Or think of it this way, a Mafia Boss may be correct in saying “I never killed anybody in my life” but if after expressing the opinion that “Vinny the Bagman is scum and a snitch and should die”, he actually instructs members of his family to kill Vinny, he is not at that point merely exercising free speech even if he himself does not pull the trigger.”

Then Caminiti would have had to have done a lot more than he did, more in the way of criminal intent, which would be a direct instruction to one of his members to go above and beyond what the law limits as far as discipline is concerned and order a specific act of physical abuse on a specific child that is excessive beyond what the law allows, which involves conspiring with an abuser and having that person act on his specific instructions to break the law and commit a specific violent act to the benefit of Caminiti himself. Just preaching about spanking like he did should not rise to that level. If an individual took Caminiti’s words and was excessive and broke the law, then that individual’s act should be prosecuted.

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And this is why I think he got convicted, because he did exactly what you suggest above. An assumption, sure, like the rest of us posting here, we were privy to neither the evidence in the case nor the jury instructions provided by the judge.

I am not thinking he uttered his instructions from the pulpit (and as I understand it, they met in homes, there was no pulpit), but standing with his flock, dowel in hand, demonstrating exactly what we wanted to them to do, perhaps even threatening them in some fashion if they did not do as he said (hey everyone else is speculating, why not me?).

According to these articles, that’s exactly what he did, instruct and even demand that parents of his “church” and his own family follow his examples and instructions, that and along with former church members who reported the abuse and family members who testified that Caminiti instructed that the beatings shouldn’t take place outside of their homes, lest someone call the police and report child abuse, that IMO is what got him convicted.

Authorities began to investigate the church in November, according to the complaint. Authorities say Philip expressed his belief the Bible dictates the use of a rod to punish children. He stated children only a few months old are "worthy" of the rod and that by 1 1/2 months, a child is old enough to be spanked.

According to church members, Philip would instruct parents on how to use rods to spank children's buttocks. He stated he "likes the immediacy of spanking" and "pain is a good way to teach children." The complaint also states Philip said: "If you spank early and it is done right, then kids will be happy and obedient."

Punishments would often occur during worship services when children would start crying or fail to sit still. Former church member Merry Hahn told authorities, "Phil was very strict about children being quiet during church," the complaint states.

The parent "was told to hold the baby tight and say, 'No' very loudly close to the ear. If the baby did not quiet down, the parent removed the child to a bedroom, which was usually close enough to the living room where you could hear the dowel hitting the baby."

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/118691089.html?source=error

Then there is this:

John Caminiti told investigators in November he uses a rod or dowel on his two youngest children at home or at church and the scriptures make it clear his behavior is allowed.

He said he does not allow his family to communicate with people outside his religious beliefs and has punished his wife and son by shunning, or confining them to their rooms to have no contact with other family members, until they corrected their disobedience.

That to me sounds more like a tyrannical monster and control freak, perhaps even the head of a cult than any sort of man of God.

While I don’t have a problem with a parent occasionally smacking a child on the hand or across the bottom for misbehavior or to teach them things like not to stick their fingers in a light socket or to touch a hot stove, but beating a 1 ½ month old infant with a wooden dowel, a quarter sized round to the point of it being audible from another room, inflicting pain and causing deep bruising just because the infant cries or gets restless, is not discipline, that’s child abuse.

My mother told me of the time when I was an infant, only a month or two old, when she, my father and older brother were attending Mass and I started crying very loudly.

My mother gathered me up in her arms and started hurriedly walking out of the church when the priest stopped in middle of the Homily and shouted to my mother, “Where are you going?” My mother said, “I’m so very sorry Father, I’m taking her outside because she’s fussy and crying.”

Then Father Joseph said, “No, please stay. Do you think our Lord and Savior is offended by the sound of a crying baby?

HE knows and understands that little babies cry and that the little tykes get restless sometimes, after all HE was once a little one Himself. She’s just making her own joyful noise unto the Lord. Jesus said and we should all remember: “Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such.” We should rejoice at the sounds of babies as God loves them so.

Besides if need be, I can talk just as loudly as she cries.” My mother sat back down with me and I quieted and Father continued.

That is in my opinion, an example of a man of God.

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