The usual suspects (I meant that affectionately since in this instance I include myself) are horrified by the government busy-body-ism of the ruling. The case is a marital dispute. Everyone --including the court-appointed "marital master" (!) recommending this action-- agrees the little girl is bright, friendly and well-adjusted (so this isn't one of those slightly "off" families in which we understand the impulse even if we hate the government incursion into family life). The problem is, the mom's religious and the dad isn't.
Why the deserting parent should have any say at all in how the child is raised in her mother's home is my question. You want to influence your daughter's beliefs? Try living with her, [Expletive deleted]!
"Judge, Judge....I fled my home and have no influence with my daughter. Make it so her mother has no influence, either!"Yes, that sounds fair.
The "marital master" writes the child is:
well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising, and intellectually at or superior to grade level" and that "it is clear that the home schooling...has more than kept up with the academic requirements of the...public school system"However
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.
Has this "marital master," and indeed the NH court ever met any 10-yr-old children? Mimicry of their parents' views is intellectually appropriate for a 10-year-old. That's why the Scholastic school poll is such an accurate predictor of presidential elections.
(Indeed, as a former high school teacher I can tell you that real "thought" about any issue whatsoever sets in more or less Sophomore year. Earlier for some, but the cohort of the class will "wake up" one by one sometime Spring semester and get more interesting to talk to. Until then, they're just Perts, as Dorothy Sayers puts it. That is, they like to "catch people out," but they know only by rote and can't engage arguments. But I digress.)
But anyway, please note it is the considered opinion of a New Hampshire court that the "cure" for Christianity is public education. Well, duh. But it's nice to have it out in the open at last.
