Ignorance is the enemy of liberty. That truth has never been so forcefully made as it has been with the rescue of the hundreds of children from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints compound in Eldorado, Texas. As the clergy abuse crisis within the Roman Catholic Church has proved, Americans are all too willing to ignore evidence of child abuse when it occurs in the context of religious organizations.
Meyers Tax & Fax’s parking lot is often used as a dump zone for unwanted animals. Employees of the Moreno Valley business never expected to find a child curled up on the sidewalk outside. But there she was — a little girl, all alone. Meyers employee Nancy Neeley said the child had a black eye. Denise Meyers tried to get the girl to talk. “I said, ‘Where’s your mommy at?’ ” Meyers recalled. “She just looked up at us.” Now, a year later, the girl and her four sisters, ages 5 to 12, are in foster care, and their adoptive
Love hurts — yet broken spirits are seldom taken as seriously as broken bones. Abusive relationships are not always physical, according to Lisa Henricks, adult case manager at Gallahue Mental Health Services. Emotional bruises and mental scars bring at least one victim to the center, 7 E. Hendricks St., for counseling daily — with the majority of those victims being women, Henricks said. There has been increased public awareness of physical abuse in past years, but emotional abuse is harder to pinpoint. In the book, “The Emotionally Abused Woman” Beverly Engel defines abuse as “any behavior that is designed to