Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle?

Thu Jan 24 06:32:48 PST 2008

I'm quite troubled by the idea that children are developmentally harmed by
exposure to more than one idea, religious or otherwise.  And that a judge
can decide that only one religion is not harmful, and decide which one.

How about -- step parents -- that is confusing.  Or remaining single. That
is confusing.  Or sexual orientation.  Or one is an environmentalist
minimalist and the other a hummer -level  consumerist.

Would it be the same if one was a catholic and the other episcopalian? or
two sects of judaism?  or two brands of evangelical christian? or mormon and
7th day adventist?

Barring a child from knowing a parent strikes me as not in the best interest
of the child.

As with anything else, there are, of course, limits -- but merely practicing
a garden-variety of paganism or wiccan hardly seems dangerous to the mental
health of anyone.

In our Unitarian Universalist congregation we explicitly teach the kids
about alternative views and beliefs and emphasize the individual and
collective search.  I guess we are harming all of our kids and they should
be taken away from us by child protective services!

No.  This one goes too far.

Steve

On Jan 24, 2008 7:18 AM, Conkle, Daniel O. <conkle at indiana.edu> wrote:

>  Maybe I wasn't clear.  I wasn't suggesting how these cases should be
> decided, but only attempting to highlight what I think to be the underlying
> issue or problem.  (Maybe my point was so obvious that it could have gone
> without saying.)
>
> I haven't studied this particular area with care, but I'm inclined to
> agree with what Vance writes in most recent posting.
>
> Dan Conkle
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu [mailto:
> religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] *On Behalf Of *Vance R. Koven
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 24, 2008 8:44 AM
>
> *To:* Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> *Subject:* Re: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's
> Wiccan lifestyle?
>
> I'm a bit confused by Prof. Conkle's last sentence. The judges have been
> explicitly ruling based on the "best interests" standard, which is the only
> one they are permitted to apply. The question is not whether religion should
> be exempt from the standard, but whether religion should be a favored or
> disfavored component of it. In the case Eugene brought up, it seems that the
> judge was very explicitly evaluating the impact of the father's religious
> conversion on the child's personality formation, which is quite appropriate.
> That such evaluations can serve as a subterfuge for a judge's personal
> predilections is certainly a danger that should be guarded against, but not
> at the cost of removing religious factors entirely from the evaluation; they
> should be part of the consideration, to the same extent as anything else
> that might affect the welfare of the child.
>
> On Jan 24, 2008 8:19 AM, Conkle, Daniel O. <conkle at indiana.edu> wrote:
>
> >  Ordinarily, the government, including judges, properly has little or no
> > say in parental decisionmaking, lifestyle choices, etc., even if those
> > parental choices or activities might not (in the view of the government,
> > including judges) be in the best interests of the child.  It seems to me
> > that the difficulty in the particular context of custody and visitation is
> > that the government, through judges, necessarily involves itself in these
> > matters.  The question then is whether or to what extent the religious
> > aspects or elements of particular parental choices or activities should
> > render them immune from the "best interest" evaluation that otherwise would
> > be applicable in this specific corner of the law.
> >
> > I think Carl Schneider has written helpfully on these questions.
> >
> > Dan Conkle
> > *******************************************
> > Daniel O. Conkle
> > Robert H. McKinney Professor of Law
> > Indiana University School of Law
> > Bloomington, Indiana  47405
> > (812) 855-4331
> > fax (812) 855-0555
> > e-mail conkle at indiana.edu
> > *******************************************
> >
> >  ------------------------------
> > *From:* religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu [mailto:
> > religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] *On Behalf Of *Vance R. Koven
> > *Sent:* Thursday, January 24, 2008 7:53 AM
> > *To:* Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> > *Subject:* Re: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's
> > Wiccan lifestyle?
> >
> >   Shouldn't the issue be framed as whether the judge is granting greater
> > solicitude to religious aspects of the child's upbringing than to
> > non-religious ones of comparable influence? If the father had suddenly
> > developed an extreme interest in, say, raucous rock concerts (weird people,
> > drums, dancing), contrary to the household ambiance when the parents were
> > married, would an order such as this seem so exceptional?
> >
> > I think in a lot of these cases, where post-divorce one parent undergoes
> > a lifestyle transformation (in either direction--harking back to the
> > original case of the father who became ultra-Orthodox or the mother who
> > recanted orthodoxy), the court is saving the parent from him- or herself by
> > limiting the child's exposure while the child could develop a strong
> > aversion to the wayward parent. Older children, of course, are well-versed
> > in rolling their eyeballs at their parents' idiosyncrasies (though I wonder
> > if that too is a feint).
> >
> > Vance
> >
> > On Jan 23, 2008 7:14 PM, Ed Brayton <stcynic at crystalauto.com> wrote:
> >
> > > The more I dig into cases similar to this the more I think that judges
> > > should not be allowed to consider religion at all. It's just too ripe
> > > for
> > > abuse, too open for a judge to be prejudiced against one party to the
> > > case
> > > because of their religion or (more commonly) their lack of it. I am
> > > astonished at the fact that appeals courts have refused to overturn
> > > such
> > > rulings even when they've been outrageously wrong.
> > >
> > > Ed Brayton
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
> > > [mailto: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh,
> > > Eugene
> > > Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 4:22 PM
> > > To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> > > Subject: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan
> > >
> > > lifestyle?
> > >
> > >        A recent New York state appellate court decision upheld a
> > > father's
> > > petition for overnight visitation, but stressed that this was done
> > > only
> > > because the father and his fiancee "agreed to refrain from exposing
> > > the
> > > child to any ceremony connected to their religious practices," and
> > > because
> > > the Family Court could mandate, in the visitation order, "protections
> > > against her exposure to any aspect of the lifestyle of the father and
> > > his
> > > fiancée which could confuse the child's faith formation."
> > >
> > >        I tracked down the trial court decision, and it turns out the
> > > father's and his fiancée's "lifestyle" and "religious practices" were
> > > Wiccan.  The trial court concluded that the child (age 10 at the time
> > > of the
> > > appellate court's decision) "is too young to understand that different
> > > lifestyles or religions are not necessarily worse than what she is
> > > accustomed to; they are merely different.  For her, at her age,
> > > different
> > > equates to frightening.  So when her father and her father's fiancé[e]
> > > take
> > > her to a bonfire to celebrate a Solstice, and she hears drums beating
> > > and
> > > observes people dancing, she becomes upset and scared."  There was no
> > > further discussion in the trial court order of any more serious harm
> > > to the
> > > child, though of course there's always the change that some evidence
> > > was
> > > introduced at trial but wasn't relied on in the order.
> > >
> > >        Given this, should it be permissible for a court to protect the
> > > child from becoming "upset and scared" by ordering that a parent not
> > > "expos[e the child] to any aspect of [the parent's] lifestyle ...
> > > which
> > > could confuse the child's faith formation"?
> > >
> > >        Eugene
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Vance R. Koven
> > Boston, MA USA
> > vrkoven at world.std.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > To post, send message to Religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Vance R. Koven
> Boston, MA USA
> vrkoven at world.std.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> To post, send message to Religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
> http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
>
> Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as
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>

-- 
Prof. Steven Jamar
Howard University School of Law
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