Amorivora

I was reading an article in Newsweek tonight that freqently referred to Yates' demented obsession with "damnation" and Satan and his influence over her. Here's a couple things...

"...Andrea Yates saw damnation everwhere--even in the cartoon shows her kids watched on TV..."

"...Yates believed she was controlled by Satan..."

"The way I was raising them, they could never be saved," Yates told [the interviewer]"They had to die to be saved."

"...Yates told her she heard Satanic growling in the Harris County Jail and that she saw "satanic" ducks and teddy bears on the cinder-block walls of her cell."

"Yates thought she had killed her children because she was posessed by Satan, and sometimes because she thought she was carrying out a prophecy."

So is this woman sick simply due to post partum depression, too many kids, a chemical imballance...??? I've heard a lot of father trashing going on. "How could he leave his children with a woman he knew to be mentally imballanced?!" But I've yet to hear anything about the influence of Chrisitanity on this sick woman's mind. When are we going to get the headline, "Christianity deranged Andrea Yates"?

Monkeybot

I think I'll put this one in Miscellaneous Religion Discussions.

hezekiah jones

According to testimony yesterday, Yates was conferring with some local preacher, who told her that if kids weren't "saved" by the time they were 14, there was no hope for them, and Yates was concerned they were headed for "non-saved" status.

HelenM

When is Christianity going to be blamed for Yates' behavior?

Never, I hope...

I'd rather see the focus on her not having received adequate help and support from her immediate family and from professionals, given the evident seriousness of her mental health disorder.

In the hope that understanding about mental health disorders can increase.

If part of that involves realizing how people in mental illness can react in harmful ways to certain teachings, that's ok with me

But in general I am opposed to overly-simplistic attributions of blame, no matter what the situation.

love
Helen

The Resistance

If atheist liberals can be blamed for the moral bankruptcy of America, then why can't Christianity be blamed for this?

Echo

I'm not convinced that Christianity really had anything to do with this, although maybe one could argue that Roman Catholicism's teachings on birth control and procreation certainly made things difficult on her.

But as for all of this other stuff...well, I think she is looking for a way to make her insanity plea as convincing as possible, and what better way to accomplish that than by throwing in a bunch of scary religious imagery- Satan, Hell, demons, creepy prophecies. After all, others have been declared insane after claiming God told them to do this or that or they saw demons everywhere, etc., so it's a tried and true method.

I could be wrong, but I think she killed her kids as a result of unbearable depression, not because she saw demons or heard satan or any of that.

Beelzebub

From Echo:I could be wrong, but I think she killed her kids as a result of unbearable depression, not because she saw demons or heard satan or any of that.

Even if you are wrong, I think christianity only provided a framework for her to project her insanity on. What I find curious is, just this past week I read a story about a father who killed his children with a chacoal grill (set it up in the house and gassed them). Yet, I see nowhere near the publicity about this that I saw about Yates. Is it more acceptable for a man to kill his children then for a woman to?

ex-idaho

I would like to see the Fundy preacher that she was involved with on the stand. He needs to answer for the direction that he led her in. Telling her that women were worthless and only could be redeemed through childbirth and alot of other moronic stuff. I also feel that the father should be charged with atleast involuntary manslaughter.

christ-on-a-stick

Deleted double post.

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christ-on-a-stick

I agree, although I think a charge of "reckless endangerment" or "criminal negligence" (in knowingly leaving his children with a mentally unstable and arguably unfit caregiver) would be more likely to stick.

In all seriousness, I think that he should be charged with this. The fact is that if a parent knowingly and negligently leaves a child in a situation where the child is harmed/killed, they can be charged, or have the children taken away from them. It happens all the time.

Does anyone else think that the reason this may not be happening in this case is that there would be a fear of backlash from the public saying that the family's religious beliefs were being attacked?

In any case, it seems clear that while people seem to have a right to hold whatever cockamamie beliefs they chose, if it results in harm to a child they are still culpable.

And it seems pretty clear to me that Russell Yates' religions convictions caused him to recklessly endanger his children, by leaving them with a mentally unstable parent rather than have them go to a normal school while/until she was recovering, having another child after being warned by the doctor that this would cause recurrence of the mental illness, etc.

[ March 01, 2002: Message edited by: christ-on-a-stick ]</p>