NH Court rules that girl is too Christiany

[MechAg94]

So what was the problem? The court-appointed guardian was troubled over Amanda's adamant Christian beliefs. From the court order:

"...the counselor found Amanda to lack some youthful characteristics. She appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith. Amanda challenged the counselor to say what the counselor believed, and she prepared some highlighted biblical text for the counselor to read over and discuss, and she was visibly upset when the counselor (purposely) did not complete the assignment."

I saw this section from one of the links.  I find this very funny.  The young girl was actively trying to witness to the court appointed guardian and he was bothered by it.  :)  Regardless of her beliefs, I get the impression she is a pretty smart girl. 

[roo_ster]

Funny, I always thought of public school's "exposure diversity of viewpoints" as meaning I would have to lock up my bike and not let my back pack out of sight.

I saw this section from one of the links.  I find this very funny.  The young girl was actively trying to witness to the court appointed guardian and he was bothered by it.  :)  Regardless of her beliefs, I get the impression she is a pretty smart girl. 

Yeah, I caught that.  The uppity little urchin doesn't understand that the all-knowing gov't agent needs no enlightenment from the likes of her.

[Jamisjockey]

 

Maybe the court appointee had his own religion, and didn't want any of hers? 

Don't want the court meddling in how you raise your children?  then work out the details of the divorce without the court.  This is no different than being upset over who the court awards the family pet to in a divorce.  If these two would act like adults themselves, this would have never happened.

[El Tejon]

Yes, I've run across the Court Appointed Special Athetists telling parents how to properly raise children.  Funny how they always have problems with the Christians and not the Muslims or Jews, at least I find it funny.

We will NEVER see a headline "Court find that girl is too Muslimly"

CASAs always have issues with their own parents and use their appointments to write grievances from 30 and 40 years ago.

If these two would act like adults themselves, this would have never happened.

Very true.

[Firethorn]

I guess this is one reason why a lot of people say you should try not to marry outside of your religion (or denomination?) or at least find common ground in that area.  It might simply a few things. 

One problem is that some people become more religious as they age - For all we know the parents met at a church function, it's just that the Father is still a sunday church goer while the wife turned into a daily type - or perhaps a 'born again'.  It's happened.

[quote auther=El Tejon]We will NEVER see a headline "Court find that girl is too Muslimly"[/quote]

They're too busy giving shelter to the ones that aren't Muslimly enough such that the family wants to kill them.

On the matter itself, the Judge, on the advice of a counselor(presumably experienced/accredited), with far more knowledge than we have made the decision that this would be the best action for the child.  I'll just have to shrug my shoulders and trust the judge on this one unless further knowledge comes to light.

[MechAg94]

Maybe the court appointee had his own religion, and didn't want any of hers? 

The way the report was quoted, it sounded like more than just simple indifference to me; along with the way it refereed to the "mother's rigidity on questions of faith".  Read it as you wish. 

[Hawkmoon]

I saw this section from one of the links.  I find this very funny.  The young girl was actively trying to witness to the court appointed guardian and he was bothered by it.  :)  Regardless of her beliefs, I get the impression she is a pretty smart girl. 

I get the impression she's a nutter. Which is almost certainly explained by the training received from the female parental unit.

[red headed stranger]

The way the report was quoted, it sounded like more than just simple indifference to me; along with the way it refereed to the "mother's rigidity on questions of faith".  Read it as you wish. 

The phrase "rigidity on questions of faith" isn't particularly descriptive.  It could simply mean that the mother has the rather common belief that her brand of religion is the one and only way to salvation, or the mother could be like one of my Uncles, who can turn any conversation, however innocuous, into a diatribe about the imminent rapture and end times.

The details we have on this case are vague at best. Hence the large amount of speculation in this thread.   

[BlueStarLizzard]

i think i would have to side with the father and court on this one. yes, the child sounds like a smart girl, and as such, she (and i think every other child) should be encouraged to figure out what they believe themselves. Unfortunatly, mother seems like she is using religion as not only a way to discourage a relastionship between child and father, but as a way to control the childs independent developement, and thus the child.

[RevDisk]

Yes, I've run across the Court Appointed Special Athetists telling parents how to properly raise children.  Funny how they always have problems with the Christians and not the Muslims or Jews, at least I find it funny.

Ah, actually I have heard it in the realms of Judaism.  Divorces between ultra orthodox and lesser rigid brands of Judaism can get pretty ugly.  I don't think it's significant more rare, per capita.  It's just less noticable when it involves a significantly smaller population and generally unworthy of media attention (ie not a celebrity, sex crime, unusually violent murder, or other pre-defined acceptable criteria).

[BridgeRunner]

Ah, actually I have heard it in the realms of Judaism.  Divorces between ultra orthodox and lesser rigid brands of Judaism can get pretty ugly. 

Agreed.  As a teenager, I babysat for a family where the father became UO and in the process convinced the Catholic girl he'd been dating to convert to UO Judaism.  Seven or eight years and three kids later, He ditched her for a non-Jewish woman and a secular lifestyle.  She had a very hard time with the courts, and when she remarried, to an UO guy of pretty rigid personality, the court more or less handed the kids over to their dad entirely.

Last I knew, they were well on their way to a secular life.

Still can't sort out how I feel about that one.  I tend to think the kids are better off secular than UO, but the slimeball talked her into converting and then decided he was really just into the non-Jewish women after all, and then took the kids away from her too.  Bad situation all around.  But the courts were definitely not totally cool with the UO lifestyle.

[MechAg94]

i think i would have to side with the father and court on this one. yes, the child sounds like a smart girl, and as such, she (and i think every other child) should be encouraged to figure out what they believe themselves. Unfortunatly, mother seems like she is using religion as not only a way to discourage a relastionship between child and father, but as a way to control the childs independent developement, and thus the child.

Not know what she believes or much about the other people, I can't really assume "nutter" status.  I can just see how some of the harsher non-Christians can view normal Christians.  I guess everyone sees it there own way especially with so little information.  :)

[Hawkmoon]

Not know what she believes or much about the other people, I can't really assume "nutter" status.  I can just see how some of the harsher non-Christians can view normal Christians.  I guess everyone sees it there own way especially with so little information.  :)

I consider myself to be a "normal" (as in "mainstream") Christian. I do not consider a sub-teenage kid assigning religious education homework and a quiz to a social worker to be "normal" for a Christian.

I'll stick with nutter, but it's not the kid's fault.

[Jamisjockey]

Besides, wouldn't a good evangalist girl find public school to be a target-rich-environment?
 

[Balog]

Religious or not, I can't imagine any counselour letting the patient give them assignments and otherwise controlling the therapy sessions. 

[makattak]

Religious or not, I can't imagine any counselour letting the patient give them assignments and otherwise controlling the therapy sessions. 

Umm... what? I guessed I missed the point where the court-appointed gaurdian was doing "therapy" to help fix this poor, misguided girl who's just "too Christian".

[Balog]

Umm... what? I guessed I missed the point where the court-appointed gaurdian was doing "therapy" to help fix this poor, misguided girl who's just "too Christian".

/facepalm

Messy divorce, parents can't agree on how to raise her, allegations are made, so she gets shipped to a counselor. Sound right so far? She (the patient) assigns homework to the counselor, then freaks when it's not completed. Still tracking?

My point, was that any counselor with any patient would have done the same. If it's a court ordered eval, if it's therapy, whatever. It's all the same, and all the same reasoning. In this case it's especially beneficial for the counselor to ignore her demands, as how she reacts to people not acting as she would wish is a good thing to evaluate.

I honestly think this is at best a case of a poorly phrased judgement, and at worst a deliberate misinterpretation by people who want to feel persecuted. This pisses me off, as there is enough legitimate anti-Christian activity going on that one does not need to fake something up to support the point and doing so just embarrasses the rest of us.

[roo_ster]

Here is a foxnews.com story, part of which I have quoted:

But Simmons says the court has effectively taken away Voydatch's right, as the girl's primary-custody parent, to make decisions regarding her future, despite the fact that she enrolled the girl in three public school courses to assuage concerns of her former husband.

"It is not the proper role of the court to insist that [the girl] be 'exposed to different points of view' if the primary residential parent has determined that it is in Amanda's best interest not to be exposed to secular influences that would undermine [the girl's] faith, schooling, social development, etc.," Simmons wrote in court documents.

He says the court erred by agreeing with the guardian ad litem's assessment that the girl was found to "lack some youthful characteristics," in part because she "appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on question of faith," according to court documents.

"The line that the court crossed here is saying that you're too sincere in your religious beliefs," Simmons said. "That's the concern here."

...

"I don't see why her faith should have any bearing at all on the decision made by the court," London told FOXNews.com. "The fact that she is a devoted Christian should not in any way influence the court's decision."

The ruling reflects a "radical secularism" of sorts, where any public display of religion is considered to be "wrongheaded," London said. "With sufficient pressure, [the court] will have to reconsider. It's really inappropriate for it to be making decisions of this kind."

[roo_ster]

The father did not want the child to be homeschooled. Why should the right of the mother to have him homeschooled override the rights of the father? Or vice versa?

Mother has primary custody. 

The terms are not exact, but think, "Mom raises her from day to day and dad sees her twice a month on the weekend."

/facepalm

Messy divorce, parents can't agree on how to raise her, allegations are made, so she gets shipped to a counselor. Sound right so far? She (the patient) assigns homework to the counselor, then freaks when it's not completed. Still tracking?

My point, was that any counselor with any patient would have done the same. If it's a court ordered eval, if it's therapy, whatever. It's all the same, and all the same reasoning. In this case it's especially beneficial for the counselor to ignore her demands, as how she reacts to people not acting as she would wish is a good thing to evaluate.

I honestly think this is at best a case of a poorly phrased judgement, and at worst a deliberate misinterpretation by people who want to feel persecuted. This pisses me off, as there is enough legitimate anti-Christian activity going on that one does not need to fake something up to support the point and doing so just embarrasses the rest of us.

Evaluation != Therapy

This was a "court-appointed guardian."  If the critter is performing therapy, the critter is overstepping its bounds and ought to be bitch-slapped back into line.  Likely just another poorly educated psych major for whom a sheepskin and a gov't job translate into a license to meddle.

Frankly, if the CASA really wanted to understand the kid, he would have gawked at the materials rahte rthan writing , "Just another religious nutjob," in bureacratese in his notes.

<<<<SPECULATION WARNING>>>>

And, heck, since so many other folks are speculating as to her religious nuttiness, I'll speculate that she suggested the research to her CASA in response to a question as to why she believes what she does.  "If you want to understand why I believe the way I do, here's why..."  So, obviously the CASA was operating in bad faith if he stated he wanted to understand her beliefs.

Further, as long as we're speculating here, I'll speculate that the CASA was threatened not only by her religious belief, but by her ability to communicate on a plane the CASA had difficulty reaching.

<<<<SPECULATION WARNING>>>>

[roo_ster]

The volokh.com post is very interesting and has a link to the ruling:
http://volokh.com/posts/1251405593.shtml

From the ruling:

Instead, the debate centers on whether enrollment in public school will provide [the daughter] with an increased opportunity for group learning, group interaction, social problem solving, and exposure to a variety of points of view.... [T]he Court concludes that it would be in [the daughter's] best interests to attend public school....

Let me translate into reality:
"We want the child to babysit and do most of the work for the other students in her group projects, so the ritalin-soaked delinquents wont bother the teacher so much.  We also think it important that the child fear for her well-being by being threatened by budding thugs bussed in from the 'hood...finding ways to extricate herself from such situations would be a useful experience for later years at public high school.  And, besides, the public school could use more money, since they are funded on a per-student basis and an already well-educated and well-behaved student ought to be little trouble relative to the near $10,000 the school will rake in for her presence."

Some commentary from Eugene Volokh:

...it would in principle also apply to similar disputes over private religious schooling (or private ideologically grounded schooling), since there too the other parent might complain that the schooling is too limited in the "points of view" to which the child is exposed.

The broad principle might also apply beyond divorced families...

...if the legal system becomes genuinely concerned about the supposed lack of "different points of view" to which a child is exposed, that concern should if anything be greater when the child is in an intact family — where both parents are likely to be exposing the child to the same viewpoint...

And the decision strikes me as constitutionally troublesome, whether implemented in broken families or in intact families. It may well be in the child's best interests to be exposed to more views in public school — or it may well be in the child's best interests to avoid the views that public school will expose her to. Those are not judgments that courts should generally make given the First Amendment.

...it's hard to imagine courts actually adopting a facially supposedly viewpoint-neutral approach that "exposure to more viewpoints is better." I take it that if a racist parent was complaining that the other parent wasn't exposing their daughter to a wide range of viewpoints on the subject of racism, a judge wouldn't consider that; likewise for a wide range of other views.

...My inclination, though, is that a court should generally try to choose some neutral basis for the decision that would not require it to evaluate the merits of various viewpoints, or to evaluate whether the daughter needs exposure to more viewpoints of the sort she's likely to get in public school.

...Government decisions about which schools children should go to, or what they should be taught, shouldn't be based on judges' views about which views are unduly rigid, or atheistic, or racist, or pro-gay-rights, or anti-gay, or what have you.

A comment form the volokh link:

You can usually see through a judge's reasoning in cases like this if you tweak the facts and then predict how the judge would rule. So let's change the facts a bit:

Assume that the girl and her mother were strong athiests, and the father was a fundamentalist Christian. The father wants his daughter to go to a private, Christian school because he fears she is not getting any exposure to religion and is being brainwashed by her mother into believing there is no god. The daughter mocks the father for his beliefs and can't understand how anyone could be so naive to believe in such childish, rubbish. When the daughter is interviewed by a counselor, she challenged the counselor to tell her whether she believed in God and had prepared some quotes from The God Delusion.

Now, with that change in facts, are you prepared to tell me this judge would have ordered the girl to attend the Christian school so that she could be exposed to a variety of viewpoints and a more social setting at this critical stage of her development? No f'in way.

[El Tejon]

Now, with that change in facts, are you prepared to tell me this judge would have ordered the girl to attend the Christian school so that she could be exposed to a variety of viewpoints and a more social setting at this critical stage of her development? No f'in way.

No, of course not!  You'll never see a case like that where the child is ordered to attend private Christian school.

The socialization argument is always a one way rachet against Christianity, but never other religions.

These cases are designed for liberals to draft well-behaved, well-educated Christian students into the churches of the liberals, the public schools.