How much I have changed since the #CAICW story (Part 4)

protesting over the Baby Veronica case

By Trace A. DeMeyer

The story Christian Evangelical Groups involved in Federal IndianAdoption Policies was published in 2013, and blog readers are aware that Elizabeth Morris and her group CAICW were (and are) still lobbying to end the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA), which is still disturbing to me and the thousands of Lost Birds who were adopted out in the last 100 years. We are called the Stolen Generations for a reason. Our Indian parents were harshly judged by non-Indians, then children were taken away to boarding schools and for adoptions.

What would happen if this was reversed and America suddenly decided that evangelicals are too radical so their children are taken? Wouldn’t that throw a twist in this debate and debacle? What if religious fervor, a savior complex and Christianity was judged in courtrooms and they were judged for not being good enough people to raise their own kids? Evangelical parents too fanatical about religion to raise their own child? What if anyone who is too religious was judged to be inadequate to raise a child?

This thinking throws a monkey wrench into the argument. I can imagine how easy it is for a non-Indian to say we don’t need ICWA protections. Many didn’t live through having their child taken. But Morris and others sure can believe and espouse they would be better parents than Indian parents.

Where did she get this notion? Morris was on the reservation and married to an Indian. Is she basing her belief that Christians are better than heathens? Is that what she thinks? Or is that Indians are too poor, too oppressed or depressed, or just plain savages?

Here was a comment from that article: cyanmanta

Allow me to explain what these people are really thinking: "We need to keep these children out of the hands of their heathen-devil redskin parents and save them through the grace of Jesus! We must steal their children from them in order to save their souls from eternal damnation for believing the false religion of the heathen devil red savage!" There, that's the only reason these people care about the children; not because they care about their actual welfare or living conditions, but because they want to wipe out the beliefs of the native people's of the US and turn them all into little obedient christians so they can use them to seize control of our government. Dominionism is hard at work trying to undermine secular democracy, make no mistake. 13 Sep 2013 4:31 PM

And this: Bill B. (alterego55)

We need to get Christian Dominionism out of our legal and political systems. It's been permeating it for so long that we've become desensitized to it.

The example case is a simple one. If the father is deemed unfit, then turn the children over to tribal authorities and let them determine the child's future.

This is a clear extension of the genocide of 30 million Indigenous Americans at the hands of Christians who wanted first their gold, then their land and then their heathen souls. Now that Indigenous Americans have no gold and have no land and Christians have converted as many adult heathens as they can, now they're after the adult heathens' children's souls. 13 Sep 2013 1:26 PM

And last: Kristine E. (KristineE)

I sure wouldn't want my daughter raised in an Evangelical home learning how to hate her Native American heritage along with other minority groups. 13 Sep 2013 12:46 PM

(to be continued)