413 Comments
User's avatar
boo radley's avatar

THE FIRST AMENDMENT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. "She didn't leave him so pffft" is NOT a fucking argument against prosecuting abuse or the enabling thereof.

When you believe in a religion, that's that! Worse, when everything you have & everyone you're close to depends on you staying in your religion(cult), your options are drastically limited. Fuck these lawyers and the judges who sided with them.

Expand full comment
Sarah Smile's avatar

WHERE'S YOUR WIFE, MISCAVIGE???

Expand full comment
Mike_Cramer's avatar

Hey, that's "freedom of religion" for you. When you allow people to believe whatever bullshit they want, this is what you get.

Expand full comment
belfryo's avatar

The American legal system has made a joke out of 'benefit of the doubt'...When we fucking KNOW when something is wrong...When a BREATHTAKING amount of evidence proving a crime is heaped upon us..And we are FORCED to pretend that we don't know what we DO know...It's fucking gaslighting. I mean, I understand WHY these protections and high bars are in place. To protect the innocent. But those 'protections' are now used exclusively by powerful bad actors as loopholes,. If these protections were meant to protect the innocent, then why the FUCK does America incarcerate more innocent people than ANY OTHER first world country...

Oh, and about biased judges? Until we have ACTUAL robots passing down judgements and sentences, we're stuck with human beings who are by definition 'biased'...rule of law is in place to ameliorate the effects of bias...

Expand full comment
Teddy Barnes's avatar

I'm an Atheist, but was brought up in Mormonism.........and even WE thought those Scientology fuckers were some crazy sumbitches........

Expand full comment
Mike_Cramer's avatar

I don't know, at least Scientology didn't raise an actual army (i.e. The Nauvoo Legion) to overthrow the federal government and set up Joseph Smith as a theocratic dictator.

No, the SeaOrg doesn't count.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Apr 18, 2024
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Teddy Barnes's avatar

Sounds about right. I'm old enough to remember when airports were wide open and the Hare Krishna morons would be at the gates grifting. I had two cousins that went on missions. One to Taiwan, the other to Thailand. One came back able to speak Mandarin......the other came back with an STD......

Expand full comment
Bloodog's avatar

If you substitute Republican Party for Church of Scientology here you could just run it up to the Supreme Court for a favorable ruling.

Expand full comment
Jens TINGLEFF's avatar

(Apologies for riding my hobby horse all over the comments this morning. I've been doing this for 30 years, and I'm still triggered..)

Expand full comment
Mark Linimon's avatar

We'll allow it.

Expand full comment
beb's avatar

That Scientology is even considered a religion is an affront to all other religions.

Expand full comment
belfryo's avatar

That religion ITSELF is even allowed is an affront to all humanity

Expand full comment
Jens TINGLEFF's avatar

The use of the US legal system to trounce any opposition from ex-victims has reached a plateau of success with the "arbitration." The criminal organisation known as the "church" of $cientology has managed to convince far too many judges that civil law requires the ex-victims to be bound by the contract - contracts being very important for commercial law. At the same time, the same contracts are sacred religious texts which the same judges are forbidden from even reading, because first amendment and "church."

What a circus.

Much more at The Underground Bunker and here on substack at https://tonyortega.substack.com/

(This has not been a commercial break, subscription is not mandatory, but still a good idea, at both the Underground Bunker and Wonkette)

Expand full comment
Oblio's Cap's avatar

Scientology is such bullshit and run by truly horrible people. If they all fell off the face of the Earth, it would be a great start.

Expand full comment
Gary Seven in Space's avatar

This is fucked up in so many ways...

Expand full comment
Paytheline's avatar

FWIW, California courts have routinely thrown out one-sided arbitration clauses like this. The leading case is Graham v. Scissor-Tail, where the California Supremes ruled that Bill Graham did not have to arbitrate his dispute with Leon Russell before an arbitrator provided by the American Federation of Musicians (Russell’s Union). (Please insert Leon Russell lyric witticism here.)

Expand full comment
Teddy Barnes's avatar

Loves me some Leon Russell.......I played a recording of "A song for you" to my wife on our first anniversary........still going strong after all these years........and now it's a tradition. I cry every time......

Expand full comment
Jjamie's avatar

What is this case about? What was Leon's involvement?

Expand full comment
Paytheline's avatar

Graham and Russell agreed to a series of concerts. One of the concerts lost money. Graham said Russell should bear the loss without offset, Russell said the loss was Graham’s problem without offset.

Expand full comment
Cliff Hendroval's avatar

I'm curious why they have a cross on their building.

Expand full comment
Padraic Smithies's avatar

It's religious doctrine or ideology is a patchwork of unadulterated BS cobbled together from sci-fi and armchair psychology/pseudo science, with some equally low-rent metaphysics (hence the symbols) thrown in for good measure. The only thing even remotely original about it is how brazenly insincere and fraudulent it all is. Hubbard himself makes perfectly clear in his writings that he never actually believed in it as anything other than a money-making scam-cum-personal power trip.

Expand full comment
Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

Evil people like to hide behind violent symbols.

Expand full comment
Jjamie's avatar

Me too

Expand full comment
SunMoonStars's avatar

It is NOT a church it is a CULT. How do people keep falling for this shit? I don't know this 16 yo girl's background but dayum how did you get there in the first place. TAX THEM TO EXTINCTION.

Expand full comment
John Thorstensen's avatar

Or, sue them into oblivion.

Expand full comment
Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

She was born into the cult, her parents literally gave her to them.

Expand full comment
SunMoonStars's avatar

JFC she needs to sue her parents.

Expand full comment
mzf's avatar

And John Travolta and Tom Cruise.

Expand full comment
Sojourner Truth's avatar

Just for the record, and I suspect you feel similarly, I don't think that tax policy should be used as a weapon against disfavored groups.

I do think criminal law should be used against criminals, though.

Expand full comment
SunMoonStars's avatar

They have obliterated the line between church/state/politics. They want to act like a business and abuse the system then tax them.

Expand full comment
Up Here in the Clouds's avatar

I'm going to guess her parents were cultists and she was born into it. They also would not be the first set of biological DNA donors to either not care what happens to their offspring or actively urge them to destroy themselves to advance their DNA donors.

The poor girl probably never stood a chance.

Expand full comment
Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

She was, and they send the kids off to be slaves on their ship. She tried running away but they caught her.

Expand full comment
Mexfiles's avatar

How do you make the distinction?

Expand full comment
SunMoonStars's avatar

Ha! With the majority there is none and that's being generous since I'm agnostic.

Expand full comment
Bored nuke's avatar

Weather it's a church or cult either way tax them to extinction. Or atleast enough to fund recovery and cult/church exit groups.

Expand full comment
Sherry's avatar

Even the IRS is afraid of this organization. They started to investigate and got so harassed they stopped.

I will never forget the perfect timing of my Mormon coworker when we were looking out of the new We Work office window that overlooked the SF Scientology office and I said, "hey let's go mess with the Scientologists ,Jonathan." And he takes a sip of his beverage and said, "And they say my religion is weird"

Expand full comment
SunMoonStars's avatar

IRS needs to grow a set and do their fucking job.

Expand full comment
Jens TINGLEFF's avatar

and the FBI. Documents disappearing at police forces, like the LAPD, has gone past the levels where it is suspect..

Expand full comment
Eric  Anderson's avatar

Remember when another religion wanted to establish a religious "court" and the local mayor and the media had a mini-meltdown about "OMG, Sharia Law? We cannot have that!" https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jul/16/chain-email/chain-email-muslims-tried-open-nations-first-shari/

Expand full comment