Man, am I glad neither of my parents were religious. We were quite poor when I was young, and it wasn’t always easy to make ends meet; luckily, unlike this woman, my parents worked hard to provide for me rather than wait around for some invisible friend in the sky to fix their problems.

Estelle Walker is facing a total of 40 years in prison for child endangerment. It seems Walker had been staying at a cabin owned by a local church and refused to leave, find work, or do anything other than just pray for God to fix everything. At one point, her kids went 11 days without eating. When they were rescued, they apparently looked gaunt, malnourished and weak. Should she win Mother of the year, or of the century?

She’s even refusing to participate in her own defense. The prosecution offered her a pretty sweet deal: if she agreed to get psychiatric help, she would serve no additional time in jail. She refused, saying “God is my defense”. If this is the same God who failed to provide her with a job or food, I wouldn’t exactly hold my breath for him to swoop down during the court proceedings to whisk her away to magic land.

I detest how obviously mentally deranged people can so easily refuse psychiatric help when they mask their illness behind the protective veil of religion. This woman is quite obviously a loon, but because of her conviction even a judge found her competent enough to stand trail. This woman should be in an institute, not prison. When are people going to realize a belief like that is a sign of mental illness, not religious piety?

(Update: Estelle was eventually convicted and sentenced to an anemic 8 years)