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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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 private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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 private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Vance R. Koven Boston, MA USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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 private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle?
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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 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 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo
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. [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** -- *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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
RE: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle?
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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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. [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *** From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 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
Re: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle?
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. [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *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. [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** -- *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *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
Re: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle?
I think Steve's message illustrates exactly the point. What's in the best interests of *the* child is a matter to be decided with reference to the particular child in question and to his/her family's unique circumstances. It is not a matter for ideology. If a child is raised in a household in which differences are extolled and exhibited, then being exposed to them post-divorce doesn't in itself seem likely to harm the child. But where a family has adhered to a particular framework, and that framework is suddenly jolted, not only by the divorce but by radical changes in what had been viewed as a fundamental aspect of child-rearing, then it seems perfectly consistent with the legal standard, psychology and the still largely accepted role of the family, for a judge to ascertain whether harm is likely to occur, and take reasonable actions to prevent harm. Imposing a Unitarian world view on, say, a Pentecostal child who had consistently been reared that way, while it may seem to Steve like a good thing, would be the worst kind of judicial bullying, as would an order for a child raised in a Unitarian household to be sent off to Catholic school, where in each case the judge reasonably concluded that this would create a cognitive dissonance that could adversely affect the child's emotional stability. Vance On Jan 24, 2008 9:32 AM, Steven Jamar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 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. [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *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. [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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
Re: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle?
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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@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 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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 private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. More new features than ever. Check out the new AOL Mail ! - http://webmail.aol.com ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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 private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle?
The judge is preferring one religion to another, which even Rehnquist conceded is a violation of the First Amendment. Judy Baer Professor Judith A. Baer Department of Political Science Texas AM University 4348 TAMU College Station, TX 77843-4348 979/845-2246 fax979/847-8924 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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 private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle?
But it is doing so (according to some) not on the basis of religion or a religion per se, but rather because of some erstwhile other basis. Does not intent matter here? To me it seems to be both an endorsement and entanglement and also it seems to stepping on free exercise. But it is very vexatious. Steve Sent from Steve Jamar's iPhone On Jan 24, 2008, at 12:41 PM, Judith Baer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The judge is preferring one religion to another, which even Rehnquist conceded is a violation of the First Amendment. Judy Baer Professor Judith A. Baer Department of Political Science Texas AM University 4348 TAMU College Station, TX 77843-4348 979/845-2246 fax979/847-8924 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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 private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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 private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle?
With all respect, I think Ed is confusing two different issues. Of course, a judge that awards custody or enters an order *because one parent's religion is better than the other's* is not supportable, and may have constitutional implications. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a considered judgment (presumably based on some psychological evidence) that without such an order the child will suffer psychological trauma. It's just not worth sacrificing the child to vindicate an ideological predisposition. On Jan 24, 2008 1:00 PM, Ed Brayton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I could not agree more with Steve Jamar on this. The assumption that being exposed to different ideas is a bad thing is simply wrong. I know this from my own experience, having been raised by a Pentecostal and an atheist (who are still married after many decades). A judge making a custody decision might well have looked at that and awarded custody to my mother to avoid having me confused and that would have been very bad thing indeed (there was no custody battle, we could live with whichever parent we chose and could change our mind at any time, and I chose to live with my father, who remarried to my Pentecostal stepmother). Not only was it not unhealthy to be raised in that allegedly confusing environment, I think it was a key to the development of traits I consider immensely valuable. And the real problem here, as always, is just how prone this kind of thing is to bias toward religion. Imagine a circumstance where a couple has raised a child without any religion or church attendance, but in the course of the divorce one of them has become a religious convert and wants to take their child to church with them. In case after case where the circumstances are the opposite, where the child has gone to church during the marriage but one parent is not religious and does not intend to take them to church, judges will consider this a strong point in favor of the religious parent getting custody on the grounds that it will continue his previous religious upbringing. But in this situation, where the previous upbringing was not religious, it is highly unlikely that a judge would consider this a point against the religious parent. Having now looked up an enormous number of these cases, it is obvious to me that the bias is nearly always in favor of religion and the pretenses on which that is based are applied in a highly selective manner to reach that outcome. Ed Brayton *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Steven Jamar *Sent:* Thursday, January 24, 2008 9:33 AM *To:* Law Religion issues for Law Academics *Subject:* Re: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle? 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. [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *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
RE: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle?
I dont think Im confusing those issues, Im saying that the latter issue inevitably collapses to the first. The idea that religion is to be preferred to non-religion, which is omnipresent in case after case in this area, IS an ideological predisposition, and it is one that exists without any solid evidence to support it. Likewise, the notion that it is psychologically better for a child to be exposed to only one religious viewpoint rather than several IS an ideological predisposition, and one that I am arguing may well be wrong, as it certainly was in my case. All of these things can be justified by reference to the best interest of the child, but is that justification really a valid one? Or is it merely a cover for the ideological predisposition against the non-religious? Do we really want judges violating the free speech rights and basic parental rights of a non-custodial parent, ordering them not to speak to their own child about their views on religion as has happened in many of these cases, some of them documented by Eugene in his research based on such flimsy ideological positions? I dont think we do. Ed From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Vance R. Koven Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 3:50 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle? With all respect, I think Ed is confusing two different issues. Of course, a judge that awards custody or enters an order *because one parent's religion is better than the other's* is not supportable, and may have constitutional implications. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a considered judgment (presumably based on some psychological evidence) that without such an order the child will suffer psychological trauma. It's just not worth sacrificing the child to vindicate an ideological predisposition. On Jan 24, 2008 1:00 PM, Ed Brayton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I could not agree more with Steve Jamar on this. The assumption that being exposed to different ideas is a bad thing is simply wrong. I know this from my own experience, having been raised by a Pentecostal and an atheist (who are still married after many decades). A judge making a custody decision might well have looked at that and awarded custody to my mother to avoid having me confused and that would have been very bad thing indeed (there was no custody battle, we could live with whichever parent we chose and could change our mind at any time, and I chose to live with my father, who remarried to my Pentecostal stepmother). Not only was it not unhealthy to be raised in that allegedly confusing environment, I think it was a key to the development of traits I consider immensely valuable. And the real problem here, as always, is just how prone this kind of thing is to bias toward religion. Imagine a circumstance where a couple has raised a child without any religion or church attendance, but in the course of the divorce one of them has become a religious convert and wants to take their child to church with them. In case after case where the circumstances are the opposite, where the child has gone to church during the marriage but one parent is not religious and does not intend to take them to church, judges will consider this a strong point in favor of the religious parent getting custody on the grounds that it will continue his previous religious upbringing. But in this situation, where the previous upbringing was not religious, it is highly unlikely that a judge would consider this a point against the religious parent. Having now looked up an enormous number of these cases, it is obvious to me that the bias is nearly always in favor of religion and the pretenses on which that is based are applied in a highly selective manner to reach that outcome. Ed Brayton From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ] On Behalf Of Steven Jamar Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 9:33 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle? 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
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 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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 private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: Shielding child whose mother is Catholic from father's Wiccan lifestyle?
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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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 private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@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 private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
