If you posted a praising video online, expressing your faith in Him, relating a religious experience you had, and tried to spread the good news, what would He do?
Would Jesus understand? Would He welcome your honest testimony of faith and belief—your witness—with open arms?
He certainly wouldn’t do what Alaska did: send two heavily armed policemen to drag you out of your home and transport you to a “mental health facility,” where you would be strapped down to a gurney, injected with psychotropic drugs, imprisoned for three days and have your “case” embarrassingly discussed in utter violation of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) laws, all against your will.
Jesus certainly would not treat you like that—as if you were a raving lunatic.
But that’s what happened to Mary Fulp, beloved teacher and the 2022 Alaska Principal of the Year, when she was hauled off to the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center.
And now, she has filed a lawsuit against the center that took away her rights.
“This traumatic experience is a free citizen’s worst nightmare.”
“This case is about abuse of power, disregard for the law and violations of basic human and constitutional rights,” Fulp said. “It’s also about inhumane treatment—treatment so dehumanizing that it stripped me of my dignity and caused profound harm to my body, mind and spirit.”
Fulp’s nightmare began on January 15, 2023, when she posted a lengthy video about a religious experience she had and said she had been gifted with “speaking in tongues,” a belief not uncommon among charismatic and Pentecostal Christians. It was, however, enough to worry her family. When they went to her home, she asked them to leave. Instead, they called the police. A female police officer showed up and determined that Fulp was not a threat to herself or to others and told her she was of “sound mind and body,” according to Fulp.
Fulp, in other words, isn’t crazy, but she is a dedicated Christian with a profound religious faith.
Her family left, but later called the police again with a document they claimed was signed by a judge, ordering that Fulp be examined. Police then showed up to take her to the “mental health center.”
“I’m actually being taken away because I love Jesus,” she said. “I’m in the back of a cop car for my testimony. And so here I am getting a psych eval because I love Jesus.”
It was two days later before police were informed that the document Fulp’s family presented was a forgery and that they had no authority to take her anywhere.
Oops.
“It appears that we made a mistake by transporting the adult female for an evaluation,” Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell said. “Our staff should have taken additional steps to verify the information presented by the complainant and the validity of the court order. We take full responsibility for this and want to assure the public that we are taking necessary steps to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.”
Well, that’s all very nice, but the damage is already done.
“My faith is not a disorder—it is my strength,” Fulp said.
“She was forced into a mental health facility without a court order by those with whom she and the community place their trust, the Department of Public Safety,” Fulp’s attorneys wrote in a statement about her lawsuit against Mat-Su Regional Medical Center. “She was traumatized by inhumane treatment. She was strapped to a gurney, held down by several staff and forcibly injected with psychotropic medication without her consent.
“She spent days in a cold, dark mental health hospital room, during which time staff breached her federally protected HIPAA rights by disclosing their ‘opinions’ as to her circumstances to individuals who did not possess any authorization.
“This traumatic experience is a free citizen’s worst nightmare.”
Even more disturbing, Fulp believes she was targeted solely because of her faith.
“My faith is not a disorder—it is my strength,” Fulp said. “Instead of respecting my right to freely express my religion, the defendants dismissed my beliefs, labeling them as ‘delusions’ and ‘religiously preoccupied.’ This discriminatory mindset shaped their reckless decisions, leading to the physical, emotional and spiritual harm I endured.”
“Involuntary detention and forced treatment policies in the US are unworkable and harmful,” the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) wrote, noting that the World Health Organization has urged abandonment of forcible psychiatric examination and institutionalization. “Involuntary commitment is a fate that can be worse than criminal incarceration—though in the case of a mental health commitment, the person has not committed a crime.”
“Through psychiatrists’ false diagnoses, stigmatizing labels, easy-seizure involuntary commitment laws [and] brutal, depersonalizing treatments all over the world, thousands needlessly fall into their coercive system every day,” CCHR International President Jan Eastgate said. “It is a system that exemplifies human rights abuse and denies individuals their inherent rights.”
The moral of the story? What happened to Ms. Fulp could just as easily happen to you. Any time, with no warning, you could hear a thunderous knock on your door, feel steel handcuffs snapped on your wrists, be tossed into the back of a police car, taken to a “mental health center,” mistreated, drugged, even electroshocked and deprived of your human rights—for no reason at all.
That’s why—“mistake” or not, apology or not—Fulp isn’t backing down. She has called for comprehensive reforms in the psychiatric industry, including that behavioral health centers “understand and respect patients’ legal and constitutional rights, including religious freedoms.”
“The people who are defending me are looking at every violation that has happened to me,” Fulp said. “We’re going to right these wrongs in a very public, powerful way.”
Go get ’em, Mary!
