Posted on 08/27/2009 11:21:03 PM PDT by kingattax
Ideally, you have the father directing the family, and you have to follow his direction, unless it is in direct conflict with God’s laws.
When you have a divorce though, you remove that umbrella of authority, and I think the wife then has to look to God for guidance, whether through her church or prayer. And, again, if the court found the child socially and academically well adjusted, we aren’t talking about “abuse” on the mother’s part. For the dad to drag the mother into court over this, I think is provocation on his part.
In my experience all homeschool challenges by non custodial parent are won and child has to go to school.
I suspect it is the narrowness and ignorance of the judicary and the guardian ad litums ( who are generally horrible towards homeschoolers and Christians) about homeschooling as well as the general prejudice against Christians. This is a favored ploy of non-custodial to torture the family.
The best thing that could happen to Christians is to have many Christians apply and become Guardian ad litums. It is a short training time, usually reimbursed and believe me Christians need advocates in the American family law system.
More info:
The parents of the child divorced in 1999. The mother has home-schooled their daughter since first grade with curriculum that meets all state review standards. In addition to home schooling, the girl attends supplemental public school classes and has also been involved in a variety of extra-curricular sports activities.
In the process of renegotiating the terms of a parenting plan for the girl, the guardian ad litem involved in the case concluded, according to the court order, 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” and “different points of view at a time when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief...in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs.”
Marital Master Michael Garner reasoned that the girl’s “vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view” and then recommended that the girl be ordered to enroll in a government school instead of being home-schooled.
folks there is a father involved in this too.
This is NOT ABOUT HOMESCHOOLING, this is a custody case.
There are other cases like this on subjects of religious upbringing and which private school and which summer camps and a host of other stuff divorced parents can’t agree.
THIS IS A DIVORCE case, homeschoolers are well advised to not make this a case a cause.
this is a divorce case not a homeschool case.
They have been divorced 10 years. The mom has been homeschooling her daughter the whole time. The mom won the previous court battle three years ago. The “guardian” thought that because the daughter has been raised as Christian, that justified taking the daughter away, so she could learn the godless way of the government schools.
The mom should appeal and stall until it is moot. I say this not because I am Christian, but because homeschooling is almost always better than going to a government school. Note that the daughter was attacked for defending her religion by our court system.
In addition to home schooling, the girl attends supplemental public school classes and has also been involved in a variety of extra-curricular sports activities.
with:
In addition to home schooling, the girl attends supplemental public school classes and has also been involved in a variety of extra-curricular sports activities.
and:
“vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view”
This is NOT a divorce case. The divorce happened a decade ago.
I don’t know all the details about this case, either. But, in disputes between two divorced parents - or even between two parents who were never married - the courts tend to rule in favor of public school, no matter how much evidence the homeschooling parent presents. This case made the news because of the religion angle. But, most cases don’t make the news. And HSLDA won’t represent a homeschooling parent in a divorce case.
Two of you are treating this case as if it’s a “father’s rights” case. But, if the story had been reversed, and the father had primary custody and was homeschooling, while the mother was fighting to put the child in school, and the judge ruled to put the child in school, how would the father’s rights crowd here react, I wonder?
Once in awhile, maybe a homeschooling parent might win the right to continue with homeschooling. But, ask yourselves: Why do we never hear of cases where a judge has ordered children to stop attending public school and begin homeschooling? There are some dangerous schools out there, with drugs, gang activity, etc., yet I’m not aware of a case where a judge ordered parents to stop sending their children to a dangerous school.
I can find no further details on this case, but it’s not a father’s rights case. It’s just another run-of-the-mill anti-homeschooling case. And, as ican’tbelieveit pointed out, this ruling might’ve violated one parent’s and the daughter’s rights to freedom of religion.
Yet the court found a reason to side with the father.
not enough information here.
quite frankly the level of incompetence in reporting of legal matters is staggering.
The fact remains, this is a divorce case. There is no reporting on what has happened in those three years. Nor does the story detail the demeanor of the mother or the father.
Imagine if this was a religion and divorce case and, as is the norm in nast divorces, the two different religion parents suddenly find their “god” and “remember” the agreement to raise the child one specific way.
This is not a homeshooling cause case. A proper test case is an intact normal family where the court orders public school.
Their own findings contradict your assessment. They didn’t side with the dad. They sided against the Christian influence on the daughter. Read what is written. Socially and academically well adjusted, in public school classes and extra curricular activities.
But needs to be in the public school MORE to counter the religious influence of the mother and challenge her beliefs.
That is not a ruling in favor of dad, it is a ruling against mom and homeschooling.
If the father is systematically destroying the relationship with the mother I would support the mother.
When my husbands case went before the judge (he has a daughter from a high school hussy) that judge made it perfectly clear to both of them that no matter where either of them moved to he (the judge) maintained complete court authority over the case.
Does this mean the father has a say as well, or is it only the mother.
My point is that from a strictly biblical viewpoint, and I assume the mother is a strict fundamentalist when it comes to the bible, the husband is the head of the household and the wife is obligated to be submissive.
Ephesians 5:
22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as
unto the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as
Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of
the body.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so
[let] the wives [be] to their own husbands in every thing.
While it might be argued that since they are divorced that this scripture no longer applies, I do believe that in the case of the child's best interests, the parents are still spiritually bonded and will ever so remain because they conceived a child together in marriage. Just because they are divorced on paper does not mean that for the purposes of raising this child they are not, in fact, husband and wife. Therefore if the mother was being strictly biblical in her approach to where her daughter is to be schooled, she would submit to the will of the child's father. The fact that she refuses to do so and was willing to take this issue to court and to complain about the ruling after submitting it to the court (after they had agreed to have these matters resolved by the guardian ad-litem) tells me that while her profession of faith is strong, her fundamental faith is weak.
Wrong.
I'm treating this as a child custody dispute where one parent wants what they think is best for the child and another parent wants what they think is best for the child and they are both acting like children and can't come to a reasonable agreement so the court has to step in and cut the child in half. I believe Wmfights is making the same point.
This has nothing to do with the father's rights versus the mother's rights. It has to do with the fact that neither the father or the mother are willing to compromise and this forces the courts to make the decision for them. In this case the court ruled in favor of the father. Usually when a judge makes usch a ruling that makes the other party more flexible and they can then work out a deal, if they are so inclined.
Instead the mother chose to drag in outside parties and the news media and make a federal case out of it.
This tells me that the court probably made the right ruling and if the court had suggested resolving the case by slicing the child in two, the mother would have preferred that method to allowing the father to get his way.
He took the case to court.
If he wanted to make sure that he could have that direction over her life, maybe he should have made his marriage work instead of running out.
“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.”
Because some fathers are controlling and obstructionist just to get back at the mother. Having just gotten out of a longterm abusive marriage, where the father of my child refused visitation for months and then suddenly started forcing the issue upon a child who wasn’t willing, I can tell you that not all men care about their kids as much as they care about punishing the child’s mother.
Are there good dads out there who are getting screwed? sure there are... but there are just as many moms who are getting bullied by the other side. Unless the child is clearly unhappy, doing poorly with her studies, or clearly abused, the courts need to stay out of her life altogether.
And if the mother disobeys this court order, he WILL have that control. Permanently.
Ain't love grand?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.