Oregon has finally started coming to its senses, and all it took was a bunch of kids dying of highly preventable deaths. The State is introducing a bill that would end religious immunity for parents who rely solely on “faith” to heal their children.

I’ve written about the “Followers of Christ” on many occasions; it’s a church that so far has an appalling death toll, all from illnesses that were extremely treatable. The parents, who had previously been able to get off scot-free or with an extremely light sentence, would no longer be able to hide behind their stupid dogma to defend their parental failure.

Legislators and prosecutors hope the threat of long prison sentences will cause church members to reconsider their tradition of rejecting medical treatment in favor of faith healing.

“This will level the playing field so all parents will be operating under the same rules,” said Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote. “It’s going to make it easier to hold parents accountable who don’t protect their children.”

What I like about this proposed bill is it finally recognizes the lives of children supersede improvable and dangerous dogma. Now, if we could only make people realize religion is itself a form of child abuse, we’d be halfway there.