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

[rlcyr at aol.com]

 A few responses in this thread suggest that the father converted to Wicca after the divorce (or at least, after he got married).  I haven't hunted down the decisions here, so maybe it is in fact a part of the history here.  I'm thinking that it's more likely an assumption -- and an incorrect one.

It's not that unusual for someone of a more "traditional" faith to marry a Wiccan, and for it to not be an issue in the marriage ... unless/until the marriage ends.  At that point it becomes an issue during custody proceedings -- even though it was never an issue before or during the marriage.  Yes, even to the extent that the child had previously (i.e., before the separation/divorce) been permitted to attend Wiccan rituals and events.

Also, while I could see that attending a bonfire could be frightening to a child who'd never been to one before (which, by the way, would also be true in a secular context -- some towns still have annual bonfires that are *quite* large, not to mention the Federal government itself), the court didn't restrict the father from bringing the child to only that type of event.  Instead the restriction was on "any ceremony connected to their religious practices."  This would include even a private, household ceremony honoring the changing of the seasons, or the full moon, or just giving praise to the gods for some wonderful thing that had happened.  That's incredibly restrictive, to a level that I can't imagine a judge imposing in the context of any other religious faith.

Would someone be willing to share the relevant citations to save me a bit of search time?

-Renee


 


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Volokh, Eugene <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu>
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu>
Sent: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 4:22 pm
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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