US Court bans Wiccan parents from exposing their child to their religion.

[Mr. Harley]

LOM, you are cutting to the second issue I've cited. Family courts and the lack of judicial review. The cases I know about make that one look normal, at least on the abuse side. It is utterly frightening when I see people screwed over by the family court system. I have seen cases where there are denied due process, the judge ignores the statute, etc. I don't know the solution, that would be for another thread with some of our legal types, because I know just enough about the law to be dangerous, versus knowledgable when it comes to complex solutions to that kind of problem.

[Elok]

What an idjit. Religions thrive on persecution. This stupid ruling isn't even enforceable. If Christianity could hide from Diocletian, I don't think the relatively restrained investigative ability of the U.S. is going to be able to control what this kid hears in either of his homes. This is too bass-ackwards to be properly called injustice.

[Mr. Harley]

Elok, here you are wrong, and I know this from our Sufi friend - and it matches what the father says in the article. If you are in family court and the judge gets even a hint you have disobeyed his injunction, you are f**ked. Royally, if he chooses to. You can lose you visitation or your custody, you can end up with an order severing all contact with your children, it can get really ugly. There is very little review, and appeals are highly limited, so the ruling is VERY enforcable. You can gamble on getting away with it, and some parents do. Some of those same parent lose custody, forever. It's a very bad gamble.

[MrFun]

On another note, I drove down to Springfield today, to do more research at the Lincoln Presidential Library for my thesis. I am stopping in their computer lab to Google for some facts before I go to work today.

Anyway, on my way down, I stopped at a rest stop and in the stall that I went into to take a piss, I saw a religious-literature pamphlet. I grabbed it to see what denomination it was -- it was a Baptist pamphlet.

So, I dropped it into the toilet and then pissed on it. I didn't flush the toilet after I finished, but just left the stinking pamphlet there in the toilet for anyone else to get my message.

I sure felt better when I left that rest stop.

[Whaleboy]

It's ****ed up that it can pass muster in any court... says a lot about the society we're dealing with.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
It's ****ed up that it can pass muster in any court... says a lot about the society we're dealing with.

do you have any idea how many judges there are in the United States? You're going to judge the US based on a decision by one? Says a lot about you, quite frankly.

[Mr. Harley]

LOM - I repeat, it is not that rare. I am in a Baptist state, and had initially assumed things like our Sufi friends ban were because we were south of the Mason-Dixon line. I was wrong.

Go to some of the Native American sites, and various foster and custody cases, and the history involved. While it has improved, there are still numerous cases on exactly this issue. Look at SCOTUS treatment of the Native American Church in I believe it was 1992. Look at the zoning case in Florida and the Santeria worshippers, which was thankfully overturned. Look at the fights the Sikhs have had in numerous juristictions in the US.

This is hardly a single judge. It is inevitable when there is a heavy bias in our histories that glosses over the history of religious discrimination in our country. The Puritans did not come over for religious freedom, they came over so they could found a community excluding any who were not Puritans. As I've commented, the founders found a need to put the clause in the constitution that there would be no religious test for office, as well as the first amendment. Is the US better than many countries? Yes. Are there countries more tolerant than the US? At this point in time, yes. We are no longer the cutting edge of religious tolernce in the world.

[axi]

and we were supposed to know what a wiccan is?

(Now i know what a wiccan is, I looked it up in the wikipedia, but what's your excuse anyway?)

No big deal really, the kids always do such things (card reading, believing in magic, dancing in prairies) on their own, just for fun.

At least they will be the most critical readers of Harry Potter, at their age.