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Indiana Mother Kin Park Thaing Cites Indiana’s Religious Liberty Law After Allegedly Beating 7-Year-Old With Hanger [Video]

By Patricia Ramirez
Published on: 13:05 PST, Sep 4, 2016

Many would call it a horrific case of child abuse when, on February 3, Indiana mother Kin Park Thaing allegedly beat her 7-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter with a plastic hanger. Reportedly, the Indiana mother didn’t beat her toddler as hard as her school-aged son, who ended up with nearly 40 blackish bruises across his arm, thigh, and back. The bruises were so deep and disturbing that after a teacher saw them, the Indiana Department of Child Services was called to the school.

According to the Washington Post, the boy’s teacher became aware of the child’s injuries when she patted him on the back and he reacted as though he was in incredible pain.

When confronted by authorities regarding her son’s brutal injuries, Indiana mother Kin Park Thaing didn’t deny that she’d beaten the little boy. Indeed, the Indiana mother reportedly admitted to officials that she’d severely beaten her child because she’d witnessed the boy and his little sister showing one another their private parts in the bathroom. Furthermore, Indiana mother Kin Park Thaing reportedly believes that she was well within her rights under Indiana law to beat her son black and blue.

According to Indiana mother Kin Park Thaing and her legal team, Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (which was signed into law in 2015) gives her the right to beat her child as she sees fit and to avoid prosecution for child abuse. The court doesn’t see it that way, and the 30-year-old Indiana mother has been charged with two felony crimes related to the abuse she admitted to doling out to her 7-year-old son: battery on a person less than 14-years-old and neglect of a dependent.

However, Kin Park Thaing and her lawyers are aggressively fighting the charges against her using the newly-enacted Indiana “religious freedom law,” making Thaing the first person to use the controversial Indiana law as a legal defense for abusing a child.

As the Indiana mother and her attorneys argue, according to the Indiana law, the police and/or the government of the State of Indiana is required to prove a compelling interest before it infringes on a citizen’s religious liberty. If the government does choose to meddle in the so-called religious liberty of a resident, the new Indiana law requires it to take the least restrictive measures possible.

Because she believes that her arrest and the charges levied against her are a direct violation of both her religious liberty and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Indiana mother Kin Park Thaing demanded in July that the child abuse charges against her be dismissed. The court declined to do so after some deliberation and announced that decision in August.

According to Indiana mother Kin Park Thaing, it is her strong Christian faith that caused her to decide to viciously beat her 7-year-old son with a plastic hanger. In court, the Indiana mother called her Christianity the guiding values that compelled her to hit her son repeatedly and so hard that his small body was riddled with pain and deep bruises afterward.

In the defense’s court filing, Indiana mother Kin Park Thaing even cites biblical verses to bolster her defense that beating a child is protected behavior under the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act. She chose to pull from the book of Proverbs, 23:13-14.

“Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.”

Kin Park Thaing reportedly told prosecutors and investigators that, following the severe beating, she took her children (ages 3 and 7) downstairs to “pray for forgiveness.”

According to the Christian Indiana mother, her children’s behavior required “strong corrective action” to ensure that her son would “earn his salvation.” Her defense attorney says that she did nothing wrong and that Kin Park Thaing certainly didn’t violate Indiana law, which allows parents to use corporal punishment on their children. He further stated that the violent beating of the 7-year-old at the hands of his mother, Kin Park Thaing, was a reasonable exercise of the Indiana woman’s parental rights.

According to Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry, the law doesn’t clearly define what is reasonable punishment and what is abuse in the State of Indiana. Many experts believe that the rules become even more ambiguous when the religious freedom law is factored into the equation.

“In our mind, what would make it unreasonable is the severity of the injuries that resulted to the child’s [being] subjected to that.”

Marion County Deputy Prosecutor Matt Savage publicly agreed with Curry, adding that the law doesn’t protect the Indiana mother from prosecution in a case of clear child abuse.

The Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act has been a source of contention since it was signed into law by Governor Mike Pence (currently the running mate of Donald Trump). Critics always insinuated that the Indiana law, which was enacted just before the Supreme Court’s historic same-sex marriage decision last summer, was created to legalize discrimination against the LGBT community.

That argument may get some more validity if the State of Indiana doesn’t uphold this mother’s right to discipline her child in accordance with her strongly held religious beliefs.

Following allegations of child abuse, Kin Park Thaing’s children were taken into state’s custody, and she was forced to undergo parenting classes. It is unknown whether or not the children have been returned to the custody of their parents at this time. Indiana mother Kin Park Thaing is scheduled to stand trial for the alleged abuse of her son in October.

[Image via Indianapolis Metro Police Department]

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