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The Washington Post exposes a common Christian parenting tool: hot sauce
Some parents use hot sauce "in a different recipe, one they think will yield better-behaved children: They put a drop of the fiery liquid on a child's tongue as punishment for lying, biting, hitting or other offenses," The Washington Post reported on the front page of its health section yesterday. Writer Alison Buckholtz says the technique "has roots in Southern culture," but it quickly becomes clear that the debate is more or less focused in conservative Christian circles.

"Pediatricians, psychologists and experts on child care and family life contacted for this story strongly recommend against the practice," Buckholtz writes, quoting Christian parenting expert Tim Kimmel as one on the "no" side.

On the advocacy side is Lisa Whelchel, parenting columnist for Christianity Today sister publication Today's Christian Woman, who quotes Proverbs 10:31: "The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off." The magazine itself has also gently supported the activity in an advice column by Susan Alexander Yates: "When our children were young and tried talking back, we simply washed out their mouths with yucky-tasting soap. One friend uses white vinegar, another a drop of Tabasco sauce." (A very similar 2000 article by Yates only included the references to "yucky tasting soap" and white vinegar.) Another one of our sister publications, Christian Parenting Today, apparently hasn't addressed the subject.

Of course, the voice you really want to hear on this subject is evangelical parenting heavyweight Focus on the Family. The organization published Whelchel's book where she supports saucing, but an article on its website seems to support "positive reinforcement" instead.

For the record, Paul McIlhenny, president of the company that makes the Tabasco brand hot sauce, called the practice strange, scary, and abusive. No big surprise there: Who wants their product used for disciplinary purposes? Potentially turns off future customers, doesn't it? Take it from Weblog, who got "sauced" once growing up. Hot mustard? Love it. Wasabi? Delicious. Tabasco? Still not a fan.

Jerry Falwell wins another website battle
Last year, Jerry Falwell lost a court battle for control of JerryFalwell.com, a parody website. Then he won control of the website when his lawyers remembered that they'd trademarked his name. Now the Southern Baptist minister, who turns 71 today, has actually won in court. This time, it's for ownership of fallwell.com (note the misspelling), a gay site that says the Southern Baptist minister's preaching on homosexuality "causes pain, suffering, and the breakup of families." (Google still has a cache of the site; the Internet Archive may also have one but it's blocked by my filter.)

The ruling isn't online, but the Associated Press has a summary:

In a ruling released Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton in Alexandria said the domain name for the site, fallwell.com, was "nearly identical" to the registered trademark "Jerry Falwell" name and was likely to confuse Web surfers.

Hilton said the operator of the site, Christopher Lamparello of New York, intended to "tarnish or disparage" the Lynchburg minister by diverting people from the Jerry Falwell Ministries' Web site, falwell.com. Hilton said it was likely Internet users will believe the two sites "share a common affiliation or sponsorship."

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August (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48