Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Another Quote from a Child Custody Case,
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_09-2009_08_15.shtml#1250014590
D.J.T. v. L.S., 2001 WL 492492 (Del. Fam. Ct.):
This Court also has concern regarding Father's decision-making in
allowing [son] to watch certain R-rated movies. While Gladiator may
not be such a poor decision, clearly a movie that has sexual
content would be. Mother testified that [son] was allowed to see
the movie American Pie which has sexual content.
The son was 14 at the time of the court decision; I suppose he might
have been a year or maybe even two younger at the time of the movie
watching, but the court's discussion suggests to me that it's talking
about the son roughly at the age he is at the time of the hearing,
rather than when he was many years younger.
As I've suggested before, it seems to me that courts ought not make
such child custody decisions based on the parents' exercise of their
First Amendment rights, which include letting their children watch or
read various materials. Perhaps the rule might be different as to
hard-core pornography, but American Pie, whatever its merits or
demerits, surely doesn't qualify as that. Likewise, there is much more
of an argument for considering even speech (or exposure to
First-Amendment-protected materials) when there's serious evidence
that the speech is likely to cause imminent harm to the child. But
again, that's a very hard case to make about American Pie.
In any case, I've written much more about this [1]before, but I just
thought I'd pass along this one extra data point.
References
1. http://www.volokh.com/posts/chain_1171134308.shtml
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