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."
Let me ask you something. Do you believe that when a man and a woman are married and bear children does the spiritual bonding that made them one flesh suddenly cease to exist merely because they have a piece of paper from a civil court saying they are "divorced"?
And when Jesus says, What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder" does that mean that judges can put that asunder by judicial declaration, or are they still joined together in the eyes of God?
And BTW, I homeschooled all my children.
I was thinking about this point too. Not to provoke children. Also applies to employers, but how many of us have had corrupt employers. Are we supposed to act illegally because we are to submit to authority? No.
There is no escape clause for the man either. That verse isn’t about loving your wife. Even ungodly men can love their wives. It is about loving your wife as Christ loved the church. He gave up His life to redeem us. Husbands are the head of the household. If more of them loved their wives in this way, in a way that made them put the well being of their wives and families above themselves, then most women would find it a pleasure to be submissive. If there is a problem in a Christian household, the man needs to look to himself first. A man that demands his wife be submissive is not a man that is leading his household under godly direction.
Well if the wife divorced the man on the grounds of "irreconcileable differences" rather than the specific ground of adultery, then I think that maybe the divorce was not valid on biblical grounds.
Most states have removed the ground of "adultery" from their books as a reason for divorce. Therefore most divorces (even those caused by infidelity) are not biblically valid because the grounds for the divorce are not biblical.
It is a technical point to be sure, but then by eliminating adultery as a grounds for divorce and replacing it with a no-fault system the states have made divorce too simple to obtain and as a result we have a generation of children who have more fathers and mothers than they do brothers and sisters.
This case is a perfect example of why states should not grant divorce too easily.
Several months ago, NM police located a car in Cochiti Lake. In the car was a man, and his 3 sons. He had killed them to spite his ex-wife. She had no “choice” but to let him take them for visitation, even though he was getting ready to be tried for raping her sister in front of the sister’s child.
You better believe I think she should have defied that ruling.
Please pay special attention to verse 15. This is my answer. She is not bound in these circumstances.
I Corinthians 7
10To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. 11But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.
12To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. 14For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
15But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. 16How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?
Touche’
Good point. But you didn’t answer my question.
No wonder Christianity has got such a bad rap with women, if the men who are supposedly "spiritual heads of the family" abuse that authority, behave shamefully and expect their wives to take it and worse yet, say God approves! Religion is here to help people, not to use as a weapon to make life miserable.
I believe that the Bible allows for divorce in some cases. This particular case met two of those circumstances (adultery and an unbeliever unwilling to stay). She is no longer bound to him like the verse says. I do believe that she should remain unmarried. This is the only instance that I can recall in the Bible that speaks to the bond being broken. I know of none that speaks to it still being there when they are divorced through a civil court.
Hmmm ... I wonder ... did they test the kid? Does she have an education that enables her to perform at the level one would expect for her age?
I pray for my daughter to know that kind of love in her life. I never had that experience, so I will be able to rejoice with her.
Then you would agree that what God has joined together, man CAN put asunder?
Kudos to both of you, my brothers in Christ!
Here is another story coming out that has me wondering:
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S1110066.shtml?cat=500
She was found to be academically and socially well adjusted.
That is not what I said. Obviously they were unequally yoked. The Bible doesn’t say that it CANT be put asunder. It says let no man put it asunder. Just like all of the commands of God. They can be broken but shouldn’t be. Besides God joins together Christians. If you are unequally yoked with a non believer, God has commanded against that. Do you think God joined them together after He commanded them to NOT be joined together?
My guess is that it's doubly hard for men, since on the average their egos are twice as big as that of women...(tongue in cheek)....and being men, Jesus and St. Paul knew that, too.
Yes, man can put it asunder. The verse is warning to not put it asunder. Do not damage those bonds. There is always the argument that it is ok for people to divorce because their marriage was not ordained of God to begin with (they weren’t the pair chosen by God). I don’t agree with that. But the verse doesn’t say no man can put asunder.
A marriage should not be torn apart, whether from infidelity, temptation, etc., because of the consequences. The spiritual damage to those in the marriage. And the damage to the children who bear the brunt of the divorce.
I have been arguing from a strict position of biblical and legal theory, which, as you know does not always compute in the real world.
If I have a point in all this it is that the Bible has given us strict guidelines in our dealings in Marriage and with our government. God has ordained both institutions and while we have commandments to submit in marriage we also have commandments to submit to the rulings of the magistrates and rulers. Sometimes our own notions or right or wrong conflict with those commandments, but in those cases I think it is imperative that when we claim the biblical right to disobey those to whom God has placed us under submission, that we had better be right that what we are doing is, in fact, the will of God.
Thanks for the discussion, but if I keep posting here, I will soon join the ranks of the divorced.
Come visit the religion forum sometime.
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