Civil Rights: Was the Punishment a Crime?

For the 300 or so members of the Northeast Kingdom Community Church in tiny Island Pond, Vt. (est. pop. 1,200), corporal punishment of children is part of their Fundamentalist creed. But to their neighbors, it looked like child abuse. There were reports from former church members that babies less than six months old were hit with wooden rods. One 13-year-old girl was said to have been beaten for eight hours, until her body was covered with welts, as punishment for telling a lie. Said Linda Schneider, a former church member: "A child would cry,...