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Oregon Works To Acculturate Immigrant Groups In Light of Their Religious Beliefs

By Howard M. Friedman

Today's Wall Street Journal reports at length on the efforts of Oregon authorities to deal with the religious beliefs of some 150,000 evangelical Christians from the former Soviet Union who live in the state. In 2009, Slavic Christians Oleksandr and Lyudmila Kozlov were arrested, and their seven children placed in foster care, after the oldest children called 911 to complain about physical beatings from their parents.  The parents said they were disciplining their children according to Biblical law, and that the government was trying to destroy the family because of its religious beliefs. The court eventually sentenced the parents to over seven years in prison for criminal mistreatment. Oregon's Department of Human Services has now begun to hold forums with different immigrant groups and the agencies in charge of resettling them to discuss American law as well as standards for disciplining children and spousal treatment.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 22, 2011 (boomark / email).