Tom! Jada! Will! So nice to see you here.

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*clap* *clap* *clap*

You just said what I was trying with a whole lot less success to say to Shanghai Lil above.

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1) Is the default assumption "innocent until proven guilty" true for all Americans except those engaged in the highly questionable and deeply disreputable practice of Scientology, in which case, screw it, start gathering wood for the stakes? and...

2) Distinguishing the question of responsibility for appropriate medical treatment for dependent children, the absolute need for which isn't as far as I can tell disputed by any of the participants in this discussion and which is hardly a discussion for which Scientology presents the most or even the most urgent challenges, doesn't the fact that the criticisms you're leveling at Scientology are well-established, extensively documented and widely known mitigate the need for other action? I mean, if you've been told a hundred times that Scientology is a shady pyramid scheme whose adherents might most appropriately be required by law to make little "quote/unquote" signs with their fingers every time they refer to it as a "Church" or "Religion," but nonetheless you decide to become a Scientologist and give them all your money, aren't you just exercising your right to make stupid choices? I mean, honestly, I'm practically a socialist in some ways, but to interfere with people's right to behave like absolute morons, as long as they're pretty much only hurting themselves, would be an important and serious intrusion by the government on the lives of its people. Certainly -- well, somewhat less so now, I hope, but at other times in my life -- it would basically have required that I wear a monitoring anklet and submit to 24/7 oversight.

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Gawker isn't a court of law. It's a celeb site, so I guess we are all here venting about celebs. To me, Bernie Madoff is guilty before his trial. To me, the Travoltas "seem" guilty, but right - they aren't until the fat lady sings.

I am fine with your "you know Scientologists are shady" point, and agree people can do what they want with their lives, be it Scientology or Heaven's Gate. But when you start messing around with others' lives, especially that of a child and his/her right to the best possible life given his/her needs, that is when I get upset.

I think we are in basic agreement. Special needs child had a seizure and died. Did the parents not have the child on meds he shoudl have been on? That is the question, and I guess I have less problem taking the "no, they didn't" side.

I believe that the outcome will be so spun, and stories changed (with or without payment), that it won't really matter what gets said now vs. later. We will never know the real story, so why not hypothesize.

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There is a big difference between the massive "smoke" of the photos of Jett (tiptoing, on headphones), videos of Jett (clearly not a normal teenager), and the story itself (Jett has a full-time nanny? and a baby monitor next to his bed? at age 16?) - and parents saying that he was off anti-seizure meds (and died of a seizure).

Not to mention which there was at least an 11 hour gap between his going to the bathroom and his being found. Even Travolta's lawyers are saying that one of the nannies "may" have gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night which would (I quote) "have compressed the time frame" from that 11 hours.

There are years and years of evidence to see what Scientology, through John T and Kelly P, did to this child. Not a one-time event that a local police department bungled.

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I am Jewish. I find it appalling to know that my own family's neighbors would either actively turn them in, or say and do nothing and let them be taken away.

I find it imperative to speak up against deaths or illnesses caused in the name of religion, period, and will until I die.

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With all due respect, it is possible to advocate for the deceased teenager (although...um...no particular rush now) without convicting his parents in the press based on what may, in any case, end up being a random smattering of possible evidence, which, I again assert as respectfully as possible, you are in no position to interpret whatsoever. You do not know the circumstances under which any photos or videos were taken nor the events which proceeded or followed. There are a number of conditions in which, even with the best of treatment, the patient's response is variable. In the absence of a systematic inquiry conducted by competent and experienced investigators, I am quite comfortable asserting that the best default assumption extends the benefit of the doubt.

And...again, respectfully, as a Jew (or anyone else), I would hope that the activities you describe would be shocking and repugnant. I would also hope that you would have a certain amount of -- not even sympathy, but at least awareness -- of the ways in which marginalized religions are readily and even usually recruited as scapegoats for the hatred of mobs. It is *because* I find Scientology to be a shady, silly little hodge-podge of 50s science fiction, used-car sales techniques and old-fashioned Middle-Ages Pardon Selling, that I believe a certain level of caution is needed when group attacks start to develop; the Presbyterians and Methodists, in my experience, just don't so much need to be handled with care. Freedom to Publish, I promise you, means much more to the publisher of HUSTLER MAGAZINE than it does to those of Harry Potter.

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I do hear what you are saying. I just do not know any child who has had a history of seizures who is not on meds.

I am speaking out of both sides of my mouth, wanting to defend a child against religious fanatics, yet condemning parents who have not had the right to a "fair trial", so to speak. This story just really hits my hot buttons - religious fanatics, an autistic and helpless child, and celebrity self-indulgence and self-delusion. It's like the Holy Grail of getting FormerEnglishMajor onto a soapbox. I'll go find my meds now.

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The problem with permanent or near-permanent issues like autism is that it's not a one-time-to-the-ER thing. It's specialized treatment, that is ongoing, for life. The court cases are mostly for those one-off "they need a transfusion", not a chronic "he needs anti-seizure meds".

And Scientology's double-speak scares me. They tell themselves things ("you don't need these medications" or "it's all in your head") and then spin stories ("he WAS on anti-seizure meds, and they were bad for him") that fly in the face of reality. They will spin Jett's death - as I am sure their PR people are hard at work right now doing - as something CAUSED by the medical profession.

It does make me happy though, that at the 11th hour, when it was life or death - they were at least willing to have him in a hospital.

That one-time visit did not make up for YEARS of non-medication for seizures (which actually makes me sick to the stomach to think about, poor kid), but as they say - no atheists in foxholes. I hope that last bit of "we need to do everything" wakes them up to what this "religion" had them do the past 16 years.

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And I'll soon be experiencing it, I guess.

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I've also asked this.

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- Albert A. Pejorative

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- Ryan B. Bad

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