Child Custody​—Should Religion Be an Issue?

KARON “has love for the children and attempts to properly provide for them. However, her beliefs as a Jehovah’s Witness come first, and by her actions and beliefs she is jeopardizing the health, welfare and best interests of the children.”

This statement by a circuit court judge hit Karon like a thunderbolt. It meant that she had lost custody of her two small children​—one an 11-month-old infant. Her husband, who before their divorce had taunted, “It’s Jehovah’s Witnesses or me!” now had custody. Karon could see her girls only every other weekend.

“My lawyer had assured me that my children could not be taken away from me because of my religion but that I had to be proved an unfit mother,” explained Karon, a housewife in the state of Missouri, United States. “I was devastated.” And no wonder, since undisputed testimony was presented in court that she was a loving mother who ‘regularly spent quality time with her girls.’

To visit her girls, Karon now had to travel to a city a hundred miles [160 km] away. “Each time I left from the visits, my ex-husband’s parents, who were keeping the girls, literally had to drag them off my legs so that I could go,” recalled Karon. “They were kicking and screaming, ‘Why can’t we go home with you?’ There were times I had to pull over on the roadside on the way home because of my tears and pray that Jehovah give me strength.” Karon appealed to a higher court.

In a unanimous decision, the six judges of the Missouri Supreme Court gave her girls back to her. Appellate judge John Bardgett expressed the “firm conviction that the trial court was wrong” in concluding “that the members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion, as a class and because of the tenets of that faith, are unfit to have custody of children.”a

Some lower courts in Australia, the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, Canada, South Africa, and other countries have also denied parents custody because of their beliefs. Though many of these decisions have been reversed by higher courts, such injustices have continued.

Noncustodial parents too have been victims of religious bias. One Massachusetts lower court judge went to the extreme of ruling that a father during his visitation “was not to read [the] Bible with the children or take them to church services (or even cite to them the Ten Commandments).”b One journalist commented: “The whole affair might strike you as ludicrous​—unless the beliefs involved are your own.”

Yes, what if they were your beliefs? The implications of a court’s judging a parent’s religious ties are ominous. “Some who care little for Jehovah’s Witnesses still wonder whether a court has any business telling a father he cannot cite the Ten Commandments or read the Bible to his children,” stated the Los Angeles Times.

The question that this raises is, How far should the State involve itself in the private affairs of its citizens? In fact, one law commentator warned that such practices could “end in adoption of judicial standards for orthodox child raising for all families.” Would you want a judge, perhaps of a different religious persuasion, deciding this for you?

The Court and Religion

Courts themselves have recognized the narrow scope properly available for judicial inquiry into religious beliefs and practices. Commenting on one case, Justice Jeffers of the Supreme Court of the State of Washington explained: “We do not doubt the right of the state to suppress religious practices dangerous to morals, and presumably those also which are inimical to public safety, health and good order, but so far as appears from the testimony in this case, the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot, in our opinion, be classed in any one of these categories.”c

Thus, when religious practices do not injure “public safety, health and good order” or there is no “factual determination that the child’s temporal well-being is immediately and substantially endangered by the religious practice,” then the court properly should not favor the religion of either parent. The Court of Appeal of Ontario, Canada, succinctly stated: “It is not for the Court to decide as between the two religions.” To deny custody because of such favoritism is “a heavy penalty [for a parent] to pay for the exercise of a religious belief, neither illegal nor immoral.”d

At times, religiously biased “experts” have introduced discrimination. Consider the testimony of one psychologist: “I say it is unhealthy for this child to be raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. . . . Living in this society, she needs to adapt herself to the mainstream of culture. She is growing up and it is not a country of Jehovah’s Witnesses. If the majority of the country was Jehovah’s Witness, we would not have any problem.”

If such advice were followed, it would mean that any parent of a minority faith should be denied custody of his or her children! It is shocking that some judges in the state of Florida were persuaded by that very testimony to deny the mother residential custody of her four-year-old daughter despite undisputed testimony that the girl was “extremely attached to her mother.”

Significantly, Judge Baskin refused to endorse this unjust decision reached by the other two judges on the Florida District Court of Appeal (Third District). Judge Baskin explained: “What does emerge from the record is a demonstration of the experts’ personal biases against the mother’s religion. Their disdain for the mother’s religion induced them to speculate as to the possibility of harm to the child in the future even though no evidence of harm existed. The trial court was obviously persuaded by their less-than-objective considerations . . . and its judgment should not stand.”e

What was done by this court in the United States parallels what was done in a totalitarian country during the regime of Hitler. In 1937 a district court in Nazi Germany removed the children from a family of a religious minority. How was this justified? The court stated: “If parents through their own example teach their children a philosophy of life which puts them into an irreconcilable opposition to those ideas to which the overwhelming majority of the German people adheres, then this constitutes an abuse of the right of guardianship . . . [so] the evil educational influence of the parents [must be] eliminated and broken.”f

Children Prosper

Are children psychologically damaged by association with a minority group? In the case of Karon, mentioned earlier, the trial judge speculated that her daughters’ “development as productive citizens” and ‘adjustment to school and community’ would be hindered by being raised in their mother’s minority religion. Was he right? Consider the situation now ten years later.

The school report cards for the girls, now active Witnesses, speak loud and clear. Eleven-year old Monica’s card, which contained high academic marks, reported that her “Personal/​Social Development” was “satisfactory.” Her teacher wrote on the card: “Monica is a sweetheart and is very dependable. I’m glad she is in my class.” Karon’s other daughter, 13-year-old Shelly, received an award from the president of the United States for “Outstanding Academic Achievement.” She also was selected “Citizen of the Month” because of her good “personal relationships with staff and students, and good study habits.” Do these sound like maladjusted children?

Standing up for one’s beliefs builds good character and strong minds. Chief Justice Struckmeyer of the Arizona Supreme Court, in another custody case involving a Witness, commented: “We are not unaware that deviation from the normal often brings ridicule and criticism. . . . Criticism is the crucible in which character is tested. Conformity stifles the intellect fathering decadency.”g

Indeed, children who are trained from a young age to give reasons for their beliefs learn to use their minds. Rather than ‘stifle their intellect,’ this training is very beneficial, as is shown by the surprising results of a study of 394 12-year-olds. “A disproportionately large number of highly creative children were Jehovah’s Witnesses,” revealed the Australian researchers. “The girl who gained the highest total score on the [creative potential] tests, and the girl who was the only child, male or female, to be included in the top 20 percent of all five performance measures, were both Jehovah’s Witnesses.”​—Journal of Personality, March 1973.

It is because of their religious beliefs that parents who are Jehovah’s Witnesses take seriously the need to “love their children” and to encourage high moral standards. (Titus 2:4, 5) Many courts have noted such quality care. For instance, in a 1986 custody case at Muscatine, Iowa, U.S.A., the father and the so-called expert called to testify began to malign the religion of the Witness mother. Judge Briles remained impartial, stating: “The Court cannot take sides.”

Though Judge Briles gave the father generous visitation rights, she gave custody to the mother because, as she said: “The Court is satisfied that these children will not grow up to be anything other than happy children if left with the [mother], even though her religion may seem to be out of step with the American mainstream. The Court is also satisfied that to remove these children from the love, security and consistency of such quality care would be harmful to the best interests of the children.” This decision was confirmed by the Iowa Court of Appeals.h

Do Religious Differences Confuse Children?

In another custody dispute, the experience of Julie confirms the wisdom of the above decision. Julie maintained access to both parents, who were divorced when she was six. Now at age 20 she explains: “I feel it was a definite advantage. I got to see for myself the difference between Catholicism and the Witnesses. My brother and I went to the Kingdom Hall with Mom, but on Sundays we went to church with Dad because we spent the weekends with him.”

Even though exposed to conflicting religious views, such children have been found to experience few, if any, ill effects. A study by Canadian researcher James Frideres concluded: “Little difference is evident between children of [religiously] mixed and homogamous marriages. The data relevant to this point does not substantiate previous research which suggested that children from mixed marriages would be more psychologically ‘unstable.’”​—Jewish Social Studies, 1973.

A child has the right to understand the religious views of both parents. When he becomes of age, he can make his own choice. In Julie’s case, the court maintained its proper neutral position on religion and focused on the best interests of the child. Justice is served when courts permit the children to have input from both parents and ultimately to make their own decision in religious matters. How fine if courts will maintain this position!

[Footnotes]

[Box on page 7]

Are the Beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses Harmful?​—The Law Speaks

◼ “There is no basis on the evidence to conclude that the religious upbringing of the two children in the Jehovah’s Witnesses [faith] has proven to be detrimental to their health or emotional status.”​—Koerner v. Koerner, No. 002793 (Conn. Superior Court, October 2, 1979).

◼ “I cannot find that they will suffer from being with their father on his field ministry. . . . I have not been able to find evidence in this case which convinces me that a Jehovah’s Witness, by the practice of his religion, tends to destroy our social order.”​—Evers v. Evers, 19 F.L.R. 296 (Supreme Court of New South Wales, Australia, 1972).

◼ “To deprive Mrs. Ayers of custody . . . would be tantamount to finding that the life style espoused by non-Jehovah’s Witnesses is preferable to that of Jehovah’s Witnesses; that Jehovah’s Witnesses are not proper parents. Such a suggestion is patently preposterous and would be an intolerable restriction of religious freedom.”​—Ayers v. Ayers, (Provincial Court of British Columbia, Canada, Family Division, April 8, 1986).

[Box on page 9]

Are the Children Deprived?

In Quebec, Canada, a father claimed that his children were deprived and emotionally abused by the beliefs of his ex-wife, who was a Witness. He asked the court to intervene. The children had to testify. Notice the answers of his 16-year-old daughter:

Q.: What kind of life do you have as a Witness?

A.: I consider that I lead the same life that all teenagers do. I am not deprived of anything. I don’t consider myself different from anybody else.

Q.: What do you get out of those meetings at the Kingdom Hall?

A.: First of all, it gives me a goal in life. I know what to base my future on according to my beliefs. Second, I have many friends there, with whom I can associate.

Q.: Do your meetings help you at school?

A.: Yes, because at our meetings we give five-minute talks in front of people. At school when we have oral presentations to give, many of the students are very nervous. But because I already give talks, I have a sort of apprenticeship.

“What is the impact of such a religious practice?” asked the judge in his decision. “The court found positive things rather than the evidence that [the father] wanted to present in his argumentations.” After ruling in favor of the Witness mother, the judge said privately to both lawyers, “I wish I had children like that!”

[Picture on page 8]

Because of her religion, Karon was at first denied custody of her two daughters