The only actual cases of ritual abuse that I know of involve psychotic parents who were convinced that their children were possessed.
Pedophilia certainly exists. Brutal child abuse like the Gabriel Fernandez case exists. There is the rare self avowed Satanist like Richard Ramirez the Night Stalker. But I don’t know of a single case of Satanic Ritual Abuse that has ever stood up to scrutiny.
I suspect that the seeds of SRA credulity were sown in 1968 and 1973 with Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist. But the two characters that really lit the fuse were Lauren Stratford and Mike Warnke, both of whom were exposed as complete frauds in 1990.
I’m not as familiar as you are with the origins. As a member of the Skeptic Society and an admirer of Dorothy Rabinowitz and a student of my very commonsensical mother, I immediately doubted the ritual abuse stuff that started in the late 70s, early 80s as well as the “repressed memory” theory that ruined the lives of men who were accused, falsely, by their daughters of rape. Something that moron Roseanne Barr did.
In post #87, you wrote “ritual abuse is real in many places”
In post #88, in response to my post #86, you wrote “No one is saying that there isn’t child abuse and that there shouldn’t be a law against it.” We are not talking about child abuse, we are talking about RITUAL abuse, which is the specific subject of the state statutes.
In post #90, when pressed to give an example, you wrote “The only actual cases of ritual abuse that I know of involve psychotic parents who were convinced that their children were possessed.”, a position which is diametrically opposed to the one stated in post #87.
So you blame the parents. That is consistent with the position taken by cult members and Satanists themselves.
I ask again: if there is no such thing as ritual abuse, why are there state statutes on the books in California, Illinois and Idaho which deal very specifically with ritual abuse?