<p>I believe the difference in the homosexuality case is that there could be an “alienation of affection” element at work. </p>
<p>Parents who vilify the other parent or cause/pressure the child to pull away from the other parent are “alienating” the child from that parent, and this is against the law. </p>
<p>If religion is used as an alienation wedge, it would be wrong, because it would violate the <strong>child’s</strong> rights to continue to love both the people who have raised her and have unadulterated, authentic relationships with both of them.</p>
<p>There are certainly Christian curches that take a tolerant approach to homosexuality. There would be a way for Clark to expose her child to the religion she practices without violating the court order. </p>
<p>Her personal right to believe homosexuality is a sin probably has to stop at the borderline where it begins to conflict with her daughter’s rights to be lovingly bonded with the person Clark selected to co-parent her.</p>
<p>I think it would be the same if her ex-spouse were Islamic or athiest; you wouldn’t be allowed to tell a little kid their dad was evil and going to hell.</p>
<p>I’m not quite convinced on that. Sure, you wouldn’t want to tell the kid that the other parent was evil and going to hell, but what is wrong with saying that “in my religion, homosexuality is considered a sin?” What would happen if the other person were a pornographer? Would you be prohibited from saying that pornography is a sin?</p>
<p>In our area there are even Catholic schools that advocate tolerance and acceptance
But it is really hard to judge either mother.
Clark, the mother whose name was on the adoption papers, is the legal mother- because in Co you can’t have two homosexual adoptive parents.
She probably really believes what she is stating, that homosexuality is evil. If I believed ( which I do) that pedophilia was evil, I would do my dammedest to keep a person that I knew to practice pedophilia away from my child, even if the way I knew they were a pedophile was because I had been involved in those acts with them</p>
<p>There obviously is a lot of self hatred going on there- for someone who is bisexual to change and say that they are more comfortable no longer identifying as a sexual minority, especially the way the political climate in general has shifted, I can understand.BUt to go so far as to want to deny their child contact with her other parent, and preach against what brought them together is an extreme case of those who give up smoking and then are the most vigilant antismokers you would ever meet ( hiding head)</p>
<p>FundingFather:
I think there’s a real fine line between the statements “In my/our religion, homosexuality is considered a sin” and “Homosexuality is a sin”. I don’t think most parents (self included) will be perpetually PC, and always choose statement#1.</p>
<p>I guess I think it is abuse to denigrate to a great extent the other parent to a child.
The child loves them- they have a shared history, and they will continue to have a relationship. To have one parent harm that childs view of themselves and of the world, by damaging the character and worth of the other parent by associating them with evil and by trying to restrict or deny contact with the other parent- is of itself harmful and damaging.
It would be bad enough if the child was an infant, but the child is 8 well into the “age of reason”.
It would really depend in my mind- to what extent Clark is pushing that her former partner is evil. I would guess quite a bit, since she wants sole custody . I think even though her viewpoint has changed, that some attempt should be made to include Ms Mcleod in her life.
There are couples who have disparate views on parenting who still manage to have joint custody ( aren’t there?)</p>
<p>How do you know that Dr. Clark is saying her former partner is evil at all? Let’s say, for example, that Ms. Mcleod was a smoker and Dr. Clark had recently stopped smoking. It would certainly be reasonable for Dr. Clark to give the child her views on smoking, would it not?
I find it interesting that the consensus on the original post was government over-involvement and a break of separation of church and state, but this case is not regarded as breaking said separation.</p>
<p>Ok lets go with that. Consider a hetrosexual case - if it is known that the father ran away with another woman, are you guilty of “alienation of affection” if you teach or let it be taught in Sunday School that adultry is a sin? Bottom line - the court overstepped its bounds by prohibitting religious expression.</p>
<p>I think Clark is seeking sole custody and is citing as a reason that Mcleod did not adopt her. However joint adoption is not legal in CO for homosexuals so she wouldn’t have been able to anyway.
It does sound that Clark isn’t necessarily spouting off about homosexuality to the child although her church does interpret the Bible in that way- but that ( Mcleod) are using that as a wedge to get joint custody.
If the main thing that Mcleod is protesting against is that the church had focus on the family brochures in the lobby, I think that is a stretch.</p>
<p>I think it she lost her right to freely explaining her religious views to her child when she chose to bring the child into a gay family and raise her with another Mom.</p>
<p>I would say she should keep her mouth shut about her views on homosexuality because her child’s rights should come before her own (maybe she could put aside Romans and read the story of Solomon for a while.)</p>
<p>A sensitive parent in this situation should be able to say something like, “I believe God’s plan for me is not to be gay. Your other Mommy is following a different plan, and that is her choice.”</p>
<p>The example of adultery is good. I would say that sins against others or crimes are different; to some extent a parent might actually HELP a child by defining a wrong act as wrong in such cases. In the case of adultery the kid has been victimized too… but still there are no easy answers.</p>
<p>This is more like a case where a Jewish couple raises a kid and then one of them decides to be born again as a Christian, and deems Judiasm sinful. Or two Christians, and one of them leaves and becomes an athiest. It is not fair to the child for one parent to demonize the other parent and a way of life that has been established; basically it is too late in the game; the kid should not be punished because the parent changed their mind.</p>
<p>Last point, this kid is very little; the ability of a kid to comprehend all of the angles will radically chanage with age. Little kids are less able to hear the subtleties. </p>
<p>I have custodial-parented a step child from age 3 to 18. Though the trying situations with her mom were remarkably consistent over the 15 years, the way we handled things had to evolve as her abilities, sophistication, questions, etc, all evolved. 15 year olds can handle shades of gray much better than 7 year olds can.</p>
<p>I do not think you can accuse Clark of bigotry or some other moral failing. She has obviously lived under both circumstances and for her own reasons decided that one of the two is not only not for her, but morally wrong. That is, to her way of thinking, and in her experience, it is/was immoral to behave in one of those two ways.</p>
<p>What if it was a heterosexual (traditional) couple and one partner came to believe they would be happier and more fulfilled with the same-sex and left their spouse to indulge these new (or repressed) urges. Would we prohibit the traditional parent from calling the lifestyle of the homosexual parent sinful and or wrong?</p>
<p>Could a judge rule that the heterosexual parent could not discuss their views on homosexuality with the children?</p>
<p>What if they simply felt that it was rationally wrong to engage in homosexuality, without and religious baggageno god; would it then be ok to say it was wrong?</p>
<p>As I said, I am a strong believer in individual rights and freedom of religion, but I always put the child first. </p>
<p>I personally think it is not the greatest for a child in a heterosexual marriage to be taught that homosexuality is a sin (I don’t teach this to my kids) but I do not object to someone else teaching it to their kids, EXCEPT when that is sucker-punching a child they have raised in the opposite way and it is a “victimless sin.” </p>
<p>So if a person robbed, killed or raped someone, I think the other parent has the <strong>repsonsibility</strong> to classify the behavior as wrong. </p>
<p>If both parents have a religious opinion about homosexuality, that should be freely taught. </p>
<p>If two criminals are robbing people or two alcoholics are driving drunk (not only subjective sins but crimes with victims) and one of them “goes straight” then that parent could talk to the child about right & wrong. </p>
<p>But if someone has a change of heart and there is no “victim” or crime, I think the child should be allowed to grow up with their admiration and love for the other parent intact until they get to an age where they are more able to analyze the information.</p>
<p>plus Clark is obviously bisexual at the least- that she is able to supress her attraction to woman isn’t that unusual. She has a lot of motivation to do so. Thats fine- I believe most people are on a spectrum and a combination of chemistry and chemisty determines their place on the spectrum.
But she lived with McLeod for 12? years? that is a pretty long time, a lot longer than some heteromarriages. What if she “changes” her orientation yet again? That needs to be taken into consideration as well.</p>
<p>I find it annoying that after someone has lived one way their entire lives one way, suddenly decide it was wrong. And want to bad mouth the people or the decisions they made themselves. </p>
<p>The born again mom loved the other woman, I am assuming, if they had a commitment ceremony. Then, they break up, and she dismisses that life she had. And wants to put down the woman she made that life with. She accepted it for herself and accepted who she was at the time. Its not like she was an alcoholic, or the other woman is a bad mother, she denies who she was.</p>
<p>She accepted this other woman for who she was for years, and suddenly, this woman feels all superior because she has been saved or whatever. </p>
<p>And is willing to hurt her daughter’s relationship with another caring mom. That to me is not Christian. That is hypocritical.</p>
<p>Willow, the first is the case I mean. Paganism <em>is</em> a religion, to <em>them</em>. Who is that judge to determine what religions are acceptable to teach our children and which are not? It is not child abuse.</p>
<p>I think that judge’s decision is horrendous. As a Catholic keenly aware of anti-Catholic sentiment, I would not want the evangelical Christian community, for example, dictating that my religion was not mainstream enough for them and thus I couldn’t pass my faith on to my own children.</p>
<p>So how is it that the judge can tell Dr. Clark that her religion is not acceptable to teach her child?
The cases seem very similar, and it seems to me that you can’t condemn the judge in the first case without condemning the judge in the second case. Personally, I think none of this is the government’s business; since when did they tell us how to raise our children?</p>
<p>As the child of divorced parents, I will chime in again.</p>
<p>I do think that the courts should put the interests of the child first. I’m very much a small-government, get-out-of-my-business type, but if parents are in divorce court (not mediation), they’ve demonstrated that, by themselves, they can’t handle this dispute. In every sense possible, those parents have said that, together, they cannot figure out how to amiciably part and share custody. In that case, the court can tell them, to a certain extent, how to act. That’s the whole point of being there.</p>
<p>Just me, but I think that the court has a duty to rule in the child’s best interests. As the child of divorced parents, I can say with certainty that one of the best things that parents can do in that situation is to NOT bash the other parent. My parents live/lived very different lifestyles, have very different values (hum, no wonder they divorced!), but were very good about not shoving their opinions about the other down my throat. I’m very aware that they often disapprove (“disapprove” being a very mild version) of each other, but I was not put in the middle and, as a result, I have great relationships with both of them. Years later, I am incredibly grateful that they took the high road. I didn’t have to hear about the other “living in sin” prior to remarriages, the problems with their values, or any of that. A lot of that falls under “religion,” esp. since they are both Catholic, but, IMO, religious values should NOT be an excuse to trash the other parent to a kid who can’t sort it out for herself.</p>
<p>To me, there is NO reason why a court can’t tell the parents to act like the adults that they are. It can be an interesting exercise to come up with other hypothetical situations, but it’s just that - a lively debate.</p>