I hope the media and the voting public will look into the Mormon practice of shunning, and the way that the LDS church carves families apart, separating the Mormons from the non-Mormons. Nothing could be clearer than the way they coerce your adult children to exclude you from their wedding ceremonies.

The Mormons describe this as an issue of sacredness, but it is an insidious way of coercing converts to cross a psychological line, choosing the church over the convert's own family, knowingly creating permanent schisms.

Mormon scriptures repeatedly refer to other churches, other belief systems as "abominations" and "whores."

This is an extreme view that has no place in a government that guarantees religious freedom to all its citizens, and especially not in the White House.

As the father of four children who disappeared from Oregon into theocratic Utah in a Mormon shunning/abduction 16 years ago, I have much to say about this.

In 2005, the Oregon legislature passed Senate Bill 1041, known as "Aaron's Law" for my late son Aaron Cruz who died in the course of his abduction and forced immersion into Mormonism.

Mormon officials in three states planned and carried out the abduction.

With Aaron's Law, Oregon became the first and only state in the nation where abducting a child creates a civil cause of action, the right to sue your child's kidnappers for damages.

If Aaron's Law had been on the books in 1995, my family would still be whole and my son still alive.

Find out more at the Aaron's Law website.

I hope to see the principles of Aaron's Law applied nationwide.

This law is the direct result of a Mormon kidnapping.

This is a landmark case, the first filing under Oregon's Senate Bill 1041 (2005), known as "Aaron's Law" for my late son Aaron Cruz, who died in the course of his abduction from Oregon.

Aaron's Law is designed to resolve and deter abductions and to give victims new tools when law enforcement is unwilling or unable to act'

With Aaron's Law, Oregon became the first and only state in the nation where abducting a child can create a civil cause of action, a legal basis to sue for damages. The law reaches anyone or any organization who contributed to the crime, including providing logistical, planning or financial support.

My four children disappeared into Utah in 1996 in a Mormon shunning/abduction, and the law addresses systemic failures in both the criminal and family law systems that contribute to the US Department of Justice's count of more than 200,000 US children kidnapped by parents, family members and religious fanatics each year.

I hope to see the principles of Aaron's Law applied nationwide.

No one is ever prepared for the abduction of their child, and not for anything that happens afterward.

Speculation and idle gossip is of no value whatsoever.

I have been involved in this issue for nearly 15 years, ever since my four children disappeared in a Mormon abduction, taken into concealment at a series of remote Mormon enclaves in Utah.

The ordeal led to the death of my son Aaron Cruz.

My heart goes out to the family of Kyron Horman, to those that love this child. I understand how empty the world is without your child, how painful it is knowing that the child you love is suffering.

As a parent, you feel your own pain and your child's pain too.

The loss of a child can destroy even the strongest marriages.

The gossip and idle speculation is really tiresome. This is a real-life tragedy, not a soap opera.

No one is ever prepared for the abduction of their child, and not for anything that happens afterward.

Speculation and idle gossip is of no value whatsoever.

I have been involved in this issue for nearly 15 years, ever since my four children disappeared in a Mormon abduction, taken into concealment at a series of remote Mormon enclaves in Utah.

The ordeal led to the death of my son Aaron Cruz.

My heart goes out to the family of Kyron Horman, to those that love this child. I understand how empty the world is without your child, how painful it is knowing that the child you love is suffering.

As a parent, you feel your own pain and your child's pain too.

The loss of a child can destroy even the strongest marriages.

The gossip and idle speculation is really tiresome. This is a real-life tragedy, not a soap opera.

The idle gossip, ignorant speculation and hurtful remarks posted on these comment streams is hard to take. It's clear that none of these comments are helpful in any way.

The fact is that everyone lives messy lives, but they live them out of the public spotlight.

No one is ever prepared when their child disappears, not for anything that follows.

Every year, more than 200,000 US children are abducted by parents, family members and persons known to the victims, as opposed to about 100 stranger abductions.

The Oregon legislature passed its landmark anti-kidnapping statute, Aaron's Law in 2005, named for my son Aaron Cruz, who died earlier that year. He was the only one of my four children I was able to recover. The others are still out there in the world somewhere, each carrying a mountain of emotional damage.

If you haven't suffered the disappearance of a child, then you should withhold judgment. You don't know what you are talking about.

Just be glad it's not you.

If you haven't suffered the disappearance of your own child, then you have no basis to judge a parent who has.

No one is ever prepared for the disappearance of their child.

After that happens, you are on your own, figuring out how to cope, how to deal with one disappointment after another, how to survive yourself. Some parents lose all hope and take their own lives.

My four children disappeared more than 14 years ago, and I have learned a lot about this along the way, including the loss of hope.

Oregon's landmark anti-kidnapping statute, Senate Bill 1041, "Aaron's Law", named for my late son Aaron Cruz passed in 2005, shortly after he died. Aaron was the only one of my four children that I was able to recover.

Kyron's mother Desiree said what was on her mind in the best way she could under the circumstances. There is no script, and her son has been gone for four long months.

It's easy to criticize people from a distance, all the more so with web anonymity.

You should all be glad that its not you in Desiree's place, and try to think about how you might be helpful in some way.

If you haven't suffered the disappearance of your own child, then you have no basis to judge a parent who has.

No one is ever prepared for the disappearance of their child.

After that happens, you are on your own, figuring out how to cope, how to deal with one disappointment after another, how to survive yourself. Some parents lose all hope and take their own lives.

My four children disappeared more than 14 years ago, and I have learned a lot about this along the way, including the loss of hope.

Oregon's landmark anti-kidnapping statute, Senate Bill 1041, "Aaron's Law", named for my late son Aaron Cruz passed in 2005, shortly after he died. Aaron was the only one of my four children that I was able to recover.

Kyron's mother Desiree said what was on her mind in the best way she could under the circumstances. There is no script, and her son has been gone for four long months.

It's easy to criticize people from a distance, all the more so with web anonymity.

You should all be glad that its not you in Desiree's place, and try to think about how you might be helpful in some way.

My baby girl was just a week past her 8th birthday when she disappeared. I never saw another school picture of her or of her brothers and sister ever again. Her name was Alexis Cruz, but we always called her Allie.

That was nearly 15 years ago, and the last holiday I would ever celebrate.

I tell people that birthdays and other special days are just like any other day for families with a missing child, only more so. Only much more so.

It is not just the calendar day that matters to the parent of an abducted child. There's all the time that leads up to it, and then all of the time that comes after, all of that empty time. Thoughts and feelings about your missing child's birthday have a way of staying with you for most of the year.

I suffer episodes of depression whenever one of my abducted children's birthdays comes around, all four of them, but also when the seasons change, because that marks another season gone by without my children.

The beginning of the school year is always hard, and so is the end. So are the winter and spring breaks, and all of the events that normal families participate in, and the next thing you know, a year has gone by, then another, and then another.

It is good that so many people have come to care about Kyron Horman. He is a very special child, one of the very few Oregon abducted children who has drawn the continuing interest of the media, law enforcement and the general public.

In most cases, interest is so fleeting that most people won't even remember that your child is missing.

It makes me cringe whenever anyone wishes me a happy birthday. If they really understood, they would know that only the recovery of your child could make such a thing possible.

I think that the best thing about this day for Kyron's family would be to know that they are not alone, that they and Kyron are in the hearts of thousands of people across the country, but I would never use the word "happy" in connection with any day that was not the day that Kyron is returned to his home.

The "People" they need to be talking to are the police, and they need to tell them the truth and nothing more complicated than that.

Tell the truth about your whereabouts and what you were doing that day that Kyron was abducted.

Kyron did not "go missing" or "went missing." He was abducted.

Just tell the truth.

My baby girl was ten days past her eighth birthday when she, her sister and two brothers disappeared from Oregon 14 years ago. That's four children vanishing together, all on February 12, 1996.

Local law enforcement could not be stirred into action; media never took an interest, and the public never found out about the case. No tip line set up at all....

In 2005, the year that my son Aaron Cruz died, after suffering years of emotional abuse and medical neglect during his time of concealment in Utah, the Oregon legislature passed its landmark anti-kidnapping bill, Senate Bill 1041, Aaron's Law, named in memory of my son.

With Aaron's Law, Oregon is the only state in the nation where child abduction creates a civil cause of action. I layman's terms, this means that, in Oregon, kidnapping victims can hold their abductors financially accountable for the damage they wreak in the life of a child and the child's family.

With more than 200,000 cases each year of US children abducted by parents, family members and persons known to the victims, I hope that a version of Aaron's Law is enacted in every state, and knocks that number down to zero.