judicial activism
Here's an outrageous story of real judicial activism from my own town.
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.
Through a court spokeswoman, Bradford said Wednesday he could not discuss the pending legal dispute.
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. Jones' son attends a local Catholic school.
"There is a discrepancy between Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones' lifestyle and the belief system adhered to by the parochial school. . . . Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones display little insight into the confusion these divergent belief systems will have upon (the boy) as he ages," the bureau said in its report.
Great googly moogly! This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we'll get if we yield to the yo-yos who want to turn public schools into purveyors of prosteltyzing. It's simply appalling for a judge to rule that a child must be "protected" from his parents' religious beliefs. For all the yapping so-called Christians do about being "persecuted," they're only prevented from imposing their religion on others.
Update: Not surprisingly, Jeff Cooper says it better:
[I]t is inconceivable to me that, when divorcing parents are in agreement concerning the religious upbringing of their child, a court would reject their decision and impose its own in this manner. That the court would enter this ruling, and continue to adhere to it over the emphatic objections of the parents, reveals an astonishing arrogance, as well as a lack of insight into both the state and the federal constitution.
Word. Jeff is also pretty cranky about the recent deal averting the so-called nuclear option.
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