Day: May 29, 2005

The following was reported at Indystar.com (the full link is posted below):

“An Indianapolis father is appealing a Marion County judge’s unusual order that prohibits him and his ex-wife from exposing their child to “non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals.”

The parents practice Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion that emphasizes a balance in nature and reverence for the earth.

Cale J. Bradford, chief judge of the Marion Superior Court, kept the unusual provision in the couple’s divorce decree last year over their fierce objections, court records show. The order does not define a mainstream religion.

Bradford refused to remove the provision after the 9-year-old boy’s outraged parents, Thomas E. Jones Jr. and his ex-wife, Tammie U. Bristol, protested last fall.”

This is a real new one on me. We don’t have a case of one parent complaining to a judge that the other parent is raising their child in a religious faith that they themselves object to, and it’s part of a custody dispute. This is a judge who unilaterally didn’t like the faith in which a child was being raised and endeavored to take action. The article goes on to say:

“The parents’ Wiccan beliefs came to Bradford’s attention in a confidential report prepared by the Domestic Relations Counseling Bureau, which provides recommendations to the court on child custody and visitation rights.”

Understand, there’s no Satanic rituals here. They don’t even practice skyclad. Nor is there the slightest indication that the child is being harmed.

I have little doubt that this ludicrous decision will be overturned, but the notion that it occurs at all…I mean, is there any more pure travesty of the First Amendment than the courts telling two parents in what faith they can and cannot raise their child? Maybe the parents should reconsider the whole divorce thing; if this is how they want to raise their child, they’re going to be a lot stronger together than separately.

Me, I’m wondering if Tom DeLay is going to be speaking up in outrage over this clear abuse of power by an activist judge. Unless, of course, he’s too busy whining about being ill-used on “Law and Order: Criminal Intent.”

PAD

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

In the June/July issue of the “Buffy the Vampire Magazine,” the news section talks up the “Spike” comic book, stating that the one-shot is being produced by “respected writer Peter David.”

And here I thought I was the Rodney Dangerfield of comics.

PAD