I’m still looking at documents which will take a while.

You are correct in saying that not all of the SubGenius material is of the “over 18″ type. But much of it is. It is a reasonable compromise that she keep the art in an area the child does not have access to. At least until he is older.

I could point you to many, many cases where custody was modified because the other parent was openly hostile, mocking, etc of the other parent’s religion. That is seen as damaging the parent/child relationship and is a big no-no. Likewise if one parent is really trashing another parent in front of the child.

Do parents get away with such horrible behavior? Yes, if they have a crappy judge.

I will throw out there…the judge did seem to put a large amount of weight on the child asking to live with the dad and not the mom. That, more than anything, seems to be what tipped the judge in the father’s direction.

as to equity of belief…most judges just plain don’t care what you believe or what you are into. They just want the parents to be adults. Judges hear so much wild stuff – things you can’t believe. One guy who wanted custody admitted in court to screwing his cows. He got custody because he was the better parent, if you can believe that. It didn’t even really phase the judge too much. But that is a generalization of judges. There are some great ones, mostly ok ones, and some bad ones.

Cara

The two most recent decisions, while better than the previous ones, still prohibit her from displaying or talking about the SubGenius with her son if she wants visitation rights.

Given the mature nature of the material (and not only sexually, but also cognitively), that doesn’t bother me. The decisions didn’t ban her from participating, only from exposing her son to it. The judge who imposed the condition also awarded her custody, after all. The appeals court that awarded custody to the father did so on the grounds of expert psychological testimony concerning the child’s emotional development, not for reasons having anything to do with her SubGenius activities.

I’m alarmed at the willingness of UUs lately to see oppression and persecution in so many places where it doesn’t really exist. It makes us seem unnecessarily strident and paranoid and harms the validity of our legitimate religious message. It’s a personal tragedy for Rachel to lose custody of her son, and it was a low tactic for the father to raise her SubGenius involvement, but after the first whackjob judge (who obviously was prejudiced) was removed from the case (because his unfair bias was rightly recognized), it appears to me that the religious angle to the case was handled fairly.

“The last news I heard about the case, which from yesterday afternoon,
is that Mag’s lawyer will be filing an appeal immediately and isn’t
going to take “no” for an answer.

“I learned that what’s really behind a lot of this custody “battle” is
that the biological dad has for some time been telling the little boy
(now almost 12), “IF YOU GO BACK TO YOUR MOTHER, I’LL KILL MYSELF.”
Saying he’ll kill himself is apparently how he has managed to get
everything he wants so far. Magdalen was the one person who told this
guy, “I don’t believe you, and even if you do kill yourself, I DON’T
CARE.” And she was right. But the government and his mom believe he’ll
kill himself if he doesn’t get his way, and because of that, he’s
never had to work, or be anything but a whiney asshole. Amazing. I
should try that tack. “If you don’t buy my DVD, I’ll KILL MYSELF.”
There. I can just see the sale rolling in.”

First off, the whole of the SubGenius material isn’t “over 18″. Unless you are saying that a “Bob” head is somehow adult content. Secondly, if you read through all the court documents you can see the husband twice used her affiliation with the SubGenius as a reason to award him custody. The fact is that this entire case has been tainted by introducing pictures of Rev. Magdalen from an adults-only event her son didn’t attend as “proof” of her unfitness. The fact that she is still banned from displaying anything SubGenius related in her home (except in a locked office) if she wants her son to visit points to discriminatory behavior right there.

Also, several faiths (including Christianity) put competing faiths in a “negative light”, yet I don’t see custody cases where this is brought up as a reason to affect custody. Nor do judges tell parents not to read sections of the Bible to their children that contain incest, rape, and mass-slaughter, and yet it happens all the time.

It may be that you are assuming an equality of belief within the court system that just doesn’t exist.

Not done looking through all the documents, but this looks less and less like religion had anything to do with custody.

Cara

I think that the entire proceedings has been tainted by her belonging to the SubGenius. The two most recent decisions, while better than the previous ones, still prohibit her from displaying or talking about the SubGenius with her son if she wants visitation rights.