Judge orders parents not to expose children to"non-mainstream religious beliefs"

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050526/NEWS01/505260481

I can't even see an argument for this judge's decision to be upheld.

 

Something like this showed up in a series of V.Wa. child abuse cases. There, the children were in foster care because each parent was killed separately by snake handling during christian religious rituals. The issue was whether the foster parents, the minister and his wife, IIRC, could be ordered not to take the children to these rituals. No one was suggesting that the CHILDREN either were, or would be permitted to, handle snakes themselves.

 

I say we just take children away from their parents and put them in a state-run child care facility! No! Wait a minute! We already do that! It's called the public school system! ~ Ted.

 

This not a simple thing

Remember there are religions out there that do not believe in medical care. I am sure most people would agree that this is out of the main stream and an abuse of the child.

In the case of joint custody the non-custodial parent may have some rights towards religion and that could be spelled out in the divorce decree.

This issue is not as clear cut as it looks.

 

I think it should be the perfect right of any parent to totally warp their kids with any type of religious bull they may choose. Hang the judge high as Haman!

 

DTechBA,

Unfortunately, refusing to provide health care to children is NOT abuse or neglect if the parents believe in treatment by prayer alone, at least in New Mexico.

This shows up more in challenges to vaccination than in life threatening acute disease but I have personal experience of cases where present disease WAS the issue.

Refusal to vaccinate isn't QUITE as serious a problem is it could be because the vast majority of parents DO have their children vaccinated. Thus, the population as a whole is less susceptible to infection. Also, in some cases where live, weakened viruses are used as the vaccine, the vaccinated children "infect" their unvaccinated playmates, effectively vaccinating them, too.

Still, one of these days a Christian Scientist is going to refuse to allow his child to receive treatment for rabies (100% mortality rate without aggressive medical treatment) and the question will come up in an unavoidable fashion.

 

It seems to me that the establishment clause prevents judges from prescribing what is and isn't acceptable religious belief.

But things get fuzzy when we move from belief to practice. Religious practices can have adverse effects on additional people beyond those who are exercising their faith.

(I can imagine the First Church of Holy Homicide, whose sacrament each Sunday is killing an unbeliever.)

I haven't studied the constitutional law on this, but I'd guess that if the state has a compelling and completely non-religious reason for legislating, then it can act even if that action impacts one religion more than another.

Another thing: There must be a body of legal precident surrounding the Mormons and polygamy. Even Utah outlaws that, and it's hard for me to see what compelling reason the state has to prevent men from having multiple wives, frankly.

 

Indeed. And the state, of course, should have no reason to concern itself with women who take multiple husbands.

 

Bill and Ted:

You are both perfectly correct. The trouble is, as a PRACTICAL matter, governmental restrictions on PRACTICE can too easily conceal attacks on BELIEF.

Polygamy has an interesting legal history in art because the Jewish bible nowhere forbids the practice. Polygamy, like slavery, has long been an accepted part of human existence. So what exactly WAS the basis for the U.S. government's violence against the Mormon Church? It isn't a constitutional issue; polygamy was, IIUC, a religious DUTY. Mostly, I think, the government expressed the unexamined sentiments of the mob. In short, the rule of law broke down.

 

Hasn't there been some sort of Supreme Court ruling(s) re religious freedom that had to do with the religious use of drugs (i.e., the use of peyote by Native American religions)? Also, didn't some bigots during the 1920s try to use prohibition laws to forbid the Catholic Church from having communion wine? If so, did the Supreme Court ever address that?

 

The Native American Church's use of peyote, yes.

During Prohibition, there was a sacramental wine exception. Interesting; Orthodox Jews continued using wine but Reform Jews switched to unfermented grape juice. I don't know why.

 

I LOVE it!!

 

Now wait a minute!

 

How was that case decided?

 

Yes, but if you read the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) carefully, nearly every polygamous ancient Jewish male who was worthy of a write-up in Biblical history had hell to pay for having had more than one wife. Think Abraham (look at all them cat-fights between Sarah and Hagar), Jacob (look at all them cat-fights between Rachel and Leah), David (gosh, I forget all the wives, but look how things turned out with his boys Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah), Solomon (1000 wives and look what a brat Rehoboam turned out to be - he who lost ten of the twelve tribes to the servant Jeroboam), and the list goes on.

 

Re: Re: Judge orders parents not to expose children to"non-mainstream religious beliefs"

You're a mad genius, Ted. I honestly like you. I mean that, no irony, no sarcasm.

 

In the year 1000 of the common era, A.D. to you Christian types, Rabbi Gershon issued an edict forbidding ashkenazi Jews from having more than one wife at a time. Sephardi Jews never had such a restriction; even today, though no Israeli citizen may have more than one spouse at a time, incoming sepharadim are allowed to keep their seniormost TWO wives...

ANYWAY, Rabbi Gershon's edict expired in the year 2,000 soooo...

 

Just out of curiosity, what's the distinction between Ashkenazim and Sephardim?

 

From what I know about Judaism, Ashkenazi Jews are those who have lived in Europe and are of more European descent.... for example, all those who fled Hitler's holocaust to Israel, the whole Exodus thing - Ashkenazi....

Sephardim are Jews who have never left the Middle East, and they tend to be much more "semitic" looking in general - indistinguishable from their Arab counterparts in appearance, and in many of their social behaviors..... (using squatting toilets, the thing about the 'left hand' being dirty - which is the one they wipe with apparently, more boisterous/noisy/unsophisticated than their Ashkenazi brethren).

How do I know this? From reading Michener's book "the Source" and Uris' "the Haj", among other things. Not sure if this is accurate, just what I have read and absorbed....