A New Hampshire court has ordered that a ten-year-old girl must immediately enroll full-time as a student in the public schools. That's right, she must go to public school--not a private school. She cannot continue homeschooling--in spite of the fact that she is academically superior to her peers as reported by standardized testing and the accounts of her teachers (she is already taking a handful of classes in the public school). Why would the court do this?

According to the court's decree, her parents are divorced. The girl, Amanda, shares her mother's religious beliefs--to the apparent chagrin of her father. Yet, according to the court documents, her father testifies
"that he and Amanda both enjoy his parenting time; Amanda particularly enjoys contact with Mr Kurowski's other daughter. They rarely discuss religion, although they have, several times in the past. He believes that exposure to other points of view will decrease Amanda's rigid adherence to her mother's religion, and increase her ability to get along with others and to function in a world which requires some element of independent thinking and tolerance for different points of view" (emphasis mine).

Mr Kurowski's claims (and the court's findings) seem to me to be less-than-genuine, and would be more properly described as "bogus." As evidence for this statement, I present exhibit A: the fact that all testimony concerning the girl's social abilities points to the fact that she is perfectly well-adjusted:
"Beginning in January 2009, Amanda attended art, Spanish, and physical education classes in the Meredith public school. Statements obtained from her teachers in March 2009...reflect that she is an active participant in the classes and is adapting well and making friends and keeping up with the work."

As for the religious angle, I can sympathize with the father who is sad that his daughter is not sharing his religious views but has rather chosen her mother's. However, the testimony in this court decree states quite plainly that they only talked about religious issues in the past; and it does not seem like he has made any further attempts to convert her (or otherwise get her to accept his own views). Having apparently lost whatever argument he did have (some time in the past, according to testimony), he is now attempting to get the court to change the girl's beliefs for him. Moreover, since the ruling is that she be sent to a secular school, it is obvious that the court intends to do just that.

It is clear that neither the father nor the court has the girl's own interests in mind. Nowhere in the entire document is it even remotely suggested that the girl's religious views are actually harming her in any way (the court actually states the opposite), yet the court states that
"Amanda's vigorous defense of her religious beliefs...suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view."

Of course, it is not possible that Amanda's "vigorous defense" of her faith has anything whatsoever to do with whether or not that faith might be right. It is utterly impossible that she has been exposed to other religious beliefs in any of those classes in which she is already enrolled. CLearly, she defends her faith only because that's all she knows. One wonders whether her father ever broached the subject before the divorce--she clearly favors her mother's faith, and not her father's (apparent lack thereof).

Of course, all of this is irrelevant either way. If she had never been exposed to other faiths during the course of her lifetime, perhaps that's the worse for her, but it's really not the court's call. For all intents and purposes, the courts is ordering that the girl's faith not be taken so seriously (at the least) or that it be dropped or changed entirely (at the worst). There is not one shred of evidence that her religious beliefs--or the sincerity of those beliefs, or the level at which she holds them--nothing which shows that the girl's religion is the least bit detrimental to her. The court decree goes so far as to note that
"To the contrary, the evidence support a finding that Amanda is generally likable and well-liked, sociable and interactive with her peers, academically promising, and intellectually at or superior to grade level."

Fortunately, the Alliance Defense Fund has stepped in to take up the cause for defending this girl's (and her mother's) rights--in both the educational and religious realms.

Update: Surprisingly little is being said on the blogosphere on this one. Looks like the Aggie Catholics and the Creative Minority Report have covered this, briefly, and it seems that we're all of the same mind. To summarize: the courts are ordering this girl to go to public school because she is too Christian. A few people seem seem to be commenting that the real problem is divorce. I agree that this is a very serious problem, and it certainly was what started this whole thing. Perhaps this should also serve as a warning to people who are considering marrying spouses of different religious persuasion. However, the real problem of this case is that the court saw and acted upon an opportunity to force the girl into a system in which she will likely be indoctrinated with moral relativism.