The Solar Temple Cults

Thirty-six years ago, on Nov. 18, 1978, 913 members of the People’s Temple Cult committed mass suicide in the Guyana jungle, under the direction of the Reverend Jim Jones. Most of the victims seem to have taken their own lives by ingesting grape Kool-Aid laced with cyanide, while a few had been shot. The grisly event was triggered by the ambush of U.S. Rep. Leo J. Ryan and other Americans who were attempting to investigate mistreatment of Rev. Jones’ followers; the cult apparently felt threatened by the potential repercussions of the ambush (Layton 3). In 1993, about 80 members of David Koresh's Branch Davidians died after cult members set fire to their own compound following a standoff with federal authorities. And within the past years, 74 members of a group calling itself the Order of the Solar Temple have gone to their death in Canada, Switzerland and France. In the most recent Solar Temple incident, Didier Queze, 39, a baker, his wife Chantale Goupillot, 41, her mother and two others of the faithful exploded themselves into oblivion in St.-Casimir, Quebec; they had attempted to take their three teenaged children with them, but at the last minute the three drugged teens dragged themselves out of the explosive-rigged house and hid in a storage shed. Members of the Solar Temple cult believe that the explosions that cause the fragmentation of their earthly bodies will propel them to Sirius, a star in the constellation Canus Major (Lacayo 44). And, of course, most recently thirty-nine people in matching clothes, members of the Heaven’s Gate cult in Rancho Santa Fe, California, were found lying peacefully in their beds at their rented hillside mansion, hands at their sides, dead. Cult members had taken their own lives on the weeken...

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...up of people who murdered for the devil’s sake.

The fact that these religions use sacrifices is inconsistent with this country’s doctrine of freedom. Thus, again, the individual’s right to live peacefully would supersede these archaic rituals. This is based on the assumption that killing is wrong. Who knows? Maybe murder is really okay as some cults claim. However, if we are to accept anything is okay, then no law or Constitution would be valid anyway. Thus, it is not against the Constitution to ban such activity on the basis of other law. Since Santeria and Voodoo do condone murder, they should be banned. One cannot practice the religion without doing harm; thus, it is not the belief that is banned, it is the acts associated with the belief. One should not be able to practice Santeria in the United States. And dangerous cults should be banned in the United States.