Suspended Exclusivity

No luxuries. Except vehicles it seems.

The SMH and The Age picked this up (and Sez got to it before me) – in Tasmania, 3 members of the Exclusive Brethren got suspended sentences due to criminal activity.

Seems a chap left the Brethren, and “extraordinary and appalling” steps were taken to ensure he never had a relationship with his children. Seems its “emotional abuse.” Seems they flouted court orders.

To be fair, they did go through the proper channels to get family law changed, lobbying government - kudos goes to all parties for preventing that from happening. But, if the government you support won’t make your inhumane actions legal, you have little right to continue unabated.

The old Brethster is often accused of amassing “fighting funds” that are given to families to fight Family Court cases against infidel heretical parents. In this case, $50,000 was amassed for the case to be fought in the Family Court – but, according to the mother, it was just a loan.

Apparently, “it's a system of society of love that you (the father’s council) probably don't understand.”

I don’t know if it’s that difficult to understand. Love may be a four letter word, but it doesn’t usually involve tens of thousands of dollars to hire a QC to prevent your children knowing their father due to the fact he has made slight adjustments to his religious beliefs.

That’s more a system of society of reprisal, or possibly hatred.

During evidence, the mother laughed when asked if there was a photograph of the children's father in the house.

Asked if she had told him that he became a grandfather late in January, she said: "That's not my responsibility."

"That's extraordinary," Justice Benjamin said. "How sad it was that this house was so poisonous to the father that they could not even have a photograph of the father in their home."

Ice cold. And it doesn’t seem like it’s over yet – “The mother also gave evidence that if according to her conscience the law of the land conflicted with God's law, she would reject it.” I don’t know law, but if you violate the same order that resulted in a suspended sentence, I imagine you get a bit of jail time.

Be a martyr, anonymous EB mother, I double dare you.

Two finals notes – the mother’s other lawyer failed in an attempt to close the court to The Age (glad that failed), and why isn’t Family First championing this fight instead of the Greens? These are families directly under attack.