🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <545n2r$d2r@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM>, ald@mises.Eng.Sun.COM (Al
Date) wrote:

> In article <53m8sp$pgl@noc.van.hookup.net>, Alleycat <opdi@netshop.net> wrote:

> >The thing is, who do you personally consider should be given the right
> >to draw that line?  Even the best psychologists have problem kids.
> >One person's line is markedly different than the other.  Don't you
> >feel the line should be drawn by what the majority believes is right,
> >rather than by a few human rights groups who tend to dictate to the
> >rest of us, or by a few politicians who think they're Gods? -- Alleycat
> 
> Well, WHO DECIDES is already decided, at least in the USA.  It comes down
> to whether a jury will convict an abusive or negligent, or even overly-
> zealous religious parent.  

It depends how you define "overly-zealous."  Overly-zealous must be
something more than just strenuous proseletyzing and indoctrination, and
would probably require something along the lines of traditional child
abuse.  That's not just the law of some state -- the Supreme Court has
frequently held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment gives
parents a rather broad leeway to indoctrinate children with whatever
religious values they want.  See, e.g., Wisconsin v. Yodder, 406 U.S. 205
(1972), which struck down a state statute mandating compulsory high school
education, as applied to Amish children, whose parents don't want their
children to exposed to "intellectual and scientific accomplishments,
self-distinction, competitiveness, and social life with other students,"
in other words, what almost every other parent would consider normal and
commendable.

The point is that you would need to show a little more than
"over-zealousness" of a parent's religious indoctrination of children not
only to convict such parents under various child abuse laws, but also to
take any action against the parents which would satisfy the Constitution.

-- 
Jake Minas
Columbia Law School
jam81@columbia.edu