As we ponder this question, we should watch the outcome of this case. It’s interesting that the attempt to restrict religious freedom in this case comes by fiat of a court. Equally important, the ruling is also a repression of parental rights. Long have some considered public education to be an antidote for the influence of religious or conservative parents upon the worldview of their children.
Shades of totalitarian statism.
From the ALG website, more details:
“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. Judge Lucinda V. Sadler approved the recommendation and issued the order on July 14.”
Jaw dropper. Note the father isn’t in play at all, but an appointed overseer from the state is making the calls.
First, doesn’t the article clearly state the father’s position in this?
“The guardian also noted that Amanda’s relationship with her father suffered because she did not think he loved her as much as he said he did due to the fact that he refused to “adopt her religious beliefs.”
The father was at odds with the child regarding the girl’s beliefs.
This case would never have gone to court except for the professed faith of the child!!!!!!!
Do you really believe that the faith of this child will be shaken by attending public school?
Will her mother stop teaching the faith to her at home?
Will her mother stop taking her to church and Sunday school?
How many children this age do you know who would spontaneously witness to adults?
How many adults do you know who would spontaneously witness to their fellow co-workers and supervisors?
Don’t most of our ELS children attend public school?
Are they as prepared as this little girl to do so?
Don’t blame the courts if they’re not.
I believe that the public school that this girl attends is going to have their hands full, and is going to wonder how they can get her off their hands and back into home schooling.
May God bless this girl and her mother, and lead her father to the faith that she and her mother share.