Not an exact parallel.

However, both should be prosecuted for child abuse for bringing a child into the world without a father.

Another troubling aspect of this case is the awarding of custody rights to a party who has no blood or legal ties to the child.

Is Ms. McLeod likewise barred from exposing the child to any negative statements about Christians?

Although I agree that this is judicial overreach, isn't it a good thing if neither guardian bad-mouths the other ?

In the end, if the girl remains the co-ward of these two women, she'll develop her own opinions about Mother A's lesbianism, and Mother B's Christianity.

Michael:

Parents have no more important purpose than to raise moral children. No court should be able to require a parent's silence on a moral teaching.

We had a similar case here in Nebraska. There was a hispanic man and he had a child with a caucasian woman, I don't believe they were married. He is a U.S. citizen, not a legal or illegal alien. He was involved in a life of crime and was subsequently caught, convicted and spent several years in prison for a drug offense. The mother never wanted nor received child support from the father. Obviously, he was never really in the child's life. After he gets out of the state pen, he wanted visitation rights with his daughter.

The court granted supervised visitation at first. It progresses in a very short time to unsupervised visitation. Mom doesn't like this for a whole host of reasons and they are back in court. Mom claims that dad is immersing child into hispanic culture too quickly. Mom claims that the daughter (who doesn't speak spainish) does not understand what is going on when she goes to these places where everyone is speaking spainish.

Court then orders dad to refrain from speaking spainish. This hits the newspaper and the airwaves. The thing is spun as the court being insensitive to hispanics because the judge won't allow the dad to teach his daughter his/her culture. The dad becomes a minor celebrity and the judge recuses himself because this thing has become a public relations nightmare and the judge (Judge Ronald Regan) has become so demonized. The judge claimed he was merely protecting the child by temporarily prohibiting the dad from speaking a language the 6 or 7 year old child didn't understand.

pchuck:

I can see barring the father from visitation because of his life of crime, but not barring his teaching Spanish once you grant visitation.

oj:

And if the mother now thought that it was moral to lynch blacks, and the other guardian was black, what then would you say ?

Can't the woman raise a moral child, without having to explicitly point out the supposed failings of the other mother ?

Sounds more like standard ex-spouse demonization to me.

November 6.

I think the court in Nebraska did the correct and legal thing by temporarily prohibiting the spainish speaking in front of the daughter. This is in the best interests of the child until she learns spainish or is at least comfortable with it. I don't think the judge intended it to be permanent; although that is how it was portrayed by the media and activists.

Michael:

Why should a court be able to tell the mother what to teach her child, even if it's racist?

Because she was such an incompetent that the state had to intervene in her family.

Would you close the Family Courts? (Not rhetorical; would you? If you would, then what?)

I don't see how the girl would ever learn Spanish if it can't be spoken around her, so that looks like a dead end.

Harry,

I think child should be slowly introduced to Spainish. Total immersion is probably not the best way in this case because the child barely knows her father. She has the one-two punch of barely knowing this man that is her father and then being thrust into the situation where everyone is literally speaking a different language. The judge was looking at the best interests of the child.

It is an interesting case in that the media angle of it blew a lot of it out of proportion.

Hmmm. And, given the mom's attitude, what do you think are the chances this child is going to be gradually introduced to Spanish?

I'm not advocating for the father.

I run up against these kinds of things all the time at work, and most of them are beyond the wisdom of Solomon. There are things that can be broken beyond repair, and kids are one of them.