Posted on 08/27/2009 11:21:03 PM PDT by kingattax
The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has asked a New Hampshire court to reconsider its decision to order a 10-year-old home-schooled girl into public school.
"Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children," said ADF-allied attorney John Anthony Simmons. "In this case, the court is illegitimately altering a method of education that the court itself admits is working."
The parents of the girl are divorced, and the mother has been home-schooling her. In the process of renegotiating the terms of a parenting plan for the girl, the guardian ad litem concluded that the girl "appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith" and that the girl's interests "would be best served by exposure to a public school setting."
Judge Lucinda V. Sadler approved the recommendation and issued the order July 14.
"The New Hampshire Supreme Court itself has specifically declared, 'Home education is an enduring American tradition and right,' " said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. "There is clearly and without question no legitimate legal basis for the court's decision, and we trust it will reconsider its conclusions."
Mike Donnelly, staff attorney at the Home School Legal Defense Association, agreed this is "not the place for the courts to be inserting themselves."
In the cases I’ve seen where the non-custodial father has rights, when it comes to homeschooling, the father, who generally wants the kids he isn’t raising in public school, prevails at the discretion of the judges.
How can the father, who doesn’t live with the family, know what’s best for the child when he never sees the day to day interactions.
The general mentality is that public school is *normal* and that children should go there to be raised *normally*. While it is TYPICAL, it is not normal to spend the greater part of a day in an institutional setting like that.
And besides, the whole premise here is that someone decided that the child’s upbringing is to restrictive and needs to be broadened.
Who made that decision and on what basis?
What gives the courts the right to rule on the validity of any one religion? That means they have to define said religion and rule on the exercise of it. That violates the Constitution, which guarantees the free exercise of religion.
If the father is concerned about his daughter’s religious upbringing, instead of strong arming the mother into the action he desires, why doesn’t he make a good faith effort to reconcile the marriage and be really involved in their lives.
Homeshooling is being used as a weapon here since the courts have determined that .....
New Hampshire Court orders Christian homeschooled girl to attend public school
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2326201/posts
“According to ADF allied attorney John Anthony Simmons, the court acknowledges that the girl in question is doing well socially and academically, but he adds that the court went too far when they determined that the girl’s Christian faith was a “’bit too sincerely held and must be sifted, tested by, and mixed among other worldviews.’”
The issue isn’t that she’s not doing well socially and academically, but that they object to the religious views she’s being taught.
I agree, maybe the court did, the article was only a couple paragraphs long. We don't have a lot of detail.
Instead they paint this broad-brush, anti-religious statement, able to be useful in other venues, about how negative it is for churches to teach their members TRULY to believe the tenets of their faith (rigidity.)
I'm only guessing, but the judge is probably not some radical leftist. The judge actually is trying to protect the father's rights. Apparently, the daughter is being turned against the father and he can't be all that bad he does have joint custody.
In a divorce proceeding where the parents can't agree on where the child should be educated, the decision is left up to the courts. Here the parents could not agree, so the courts made the decision. If the parents wish to have the child educated at home, all they need to do is to tell the judge they have agreed to allow the child to be homeschooled and that will be the end of it. The point is they can't agree, so the courts are forced to make this decision.
The decision, as presented, was based on the religious exposure of the child, and the limitation thereof. It violates our constitution.
Especially knowing the child is being educated partially in the public schools!
The dad did this to be spiteful. How about that!
From the article.
We don't learn a lot, but it seems the mom is manipulating the child against the father who does not share the mom's religious beliefs. We don't know if the father is a Christian as well.
What would we be saying if the mom is Pentecostal and the father is Roman Catholic?
And the child always loses.
At least in this case the father is trying to be a part of the child's life. I've seen posts on this thread suggesting the mom should just pack up and leave with the child. What about the father? Shouldn't the courts be encouraging a relationship between father and daughter?
You don't understand Family Law. This is a dispute between private citizens and not a dispute between the State and an individual.
It doesn't matter if religion is part of the mix, the court has jurisdiction, just as they would have jurisdiction over a dispute over whether the child was going to go to a fundamentalist Islamic madrassa or a public school if the Father was a christian and the mother was a fundamentalist Muslim.
If the mother were a fundamentalist Muslim who wanted the child to go to an Islamic Madrassa and the Father who was a Christian convert wanted the child to go to public school, how would you rule?
Dad trying to be a part of the daughter’s life? Really, you can get this from this article? Really? You mean like Michael Newdow?
In favor of the parent who has custody.
Thank God you’re not a Family Court judge.
From what little information we have. Why would any of this be an issue if the father didn't want to be involved in his child's life. The courts would not even be involved.
What occurs to me is how right our LORD is when He tells us to not be unequally yoked.
You mean like Michael Newdow?
Don't know the reference, was this some beast that abused his children?
In a dispute between a mother and the father about the raising up of a child, what does the bible say about how that dispute is to be resolved?
Never an intention of mine. But I am sick and tired of people on this forum railing on how bitter and vindictive mothers are against the child’s father. It is a two way street. The court found that this child was well adjusted socially and academically, she was attending public school for supplemental education. And the ruling was presented as she is too religious and needs to test that in a more
“secular” environment.
She is being exposed to the secular environment already. So the real reason for the opinion is to limit religious freedom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Newdow
There is no way Newdow as doing this in the best interest of his daughter; it was all about him and possibly about making his ex-wife miserable.
I completely agree about the unequally yoked. That is why I wish more people home schooled their children. Five years, or less when you consider day care, preschool, headstart, etc. is not enough time to train up a child in the way that they should go. We are making grave mistakes with our children when we turn them over to others to raise and, as someone else posted on one of these threads, hope to undo the damage done to them in those environments when they get home at night.
whenever i tell other homeschoolers that we decided to homeschool before we even got married, they are usually shocked... as much as i loved the man who was to become my husband, i would not have married him had he not been completely on-board with homeschooling our children...
i know most people don't realize they want to homeschool before they become parents, so talking about it in advance is not an option... i'm just sharing my experience...
I'm not sure.
Eph 6:1-4 Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right."Honor your father and mother", which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth." And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
Children are to obey their parents. In this case the daughter is trying to obey what her mother is teaching, but is in conflict with her father. Is the father, or the mother the one "provoking" the conflict?
We probably agree on much more than we disagree about.
The children of divorce, or worse no marriage at all, is complicated in large measure because of our declining Christian values. We have problems with fathers not providing for their children, sometimes because mothers don't let them see them. We have problems with mothers moving away with the children. We have problems with the children being used as pawns for the parents to war with one another. The one constant is the child suffers.
One thing I'm certain of is children are a lot better off with their father in their life than not.
1 Kings 3:25 “And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.”
Which, I might add, has been the rule for all settlement conferences in civil court.
Is this the thread you have chosen to hijack O LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o* for our Friday Neener evangelistic picnic ?
Well, let's bring out the old checklist (sounds of rummaging)...
1. Story is filed by an advocacy group .... Check.
"CitizenLink" is Focus on the Family's "Action" arm.
2. All of the details are provided by the lawyers from one side ... Check.
3. Alleged reason for "bad" ruling is not stated in full, and is posted without the context or rationale in which it was made ... Check.
4. Important details of the story (messy divorce stuff) are missing ... Check.
Yup -- it's at least 95% certain that this is one of Those Stories .... the ones for which full details would get in the way of the outrage that the author would like to provoke.
There is almost certainly a WHOLE LOT more to this story, and I'll bet the full facts are not helpful to the trustworthiness of this story.
FOtF and the lawyers want to make this a story about faith and home-schooling; not surprising, as that's a large part of their target audience, not to mention their financial support.
I'm willing to bet that "faith and homeschooling" are secondary to the real issues ... such as, the mom may well be a whackadoodle, and the ruling was really about that.
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