For God's Sake: Religious and Secular Fanatics - On Faith at washingtonpost.com

Religious and Secular Fanatics

"Two Christian girls. Two sets of distraught parents. And two state courts smack in the middle of it." That's how William McGurn begins his Wall Street Journal coverage of two cases that could not be more dissimilar. And if we cannot make the proper distinction between the two, we are all in trouble.

It may be due to aggressively activist courts prepared to strip parents of their rights to shape their kids' religious upbringing, or because of overly timid courts who hide behind that very right to avoid protecting children from parents prepared to kill them over their religious choices. Either way, if the wrong decisions are upheld in either of these cases, we should all be worried.

In the case of Amanda Kurowski, New Hampshire judge Lucinda V. Sadler ordered that the 10-year-old child be forced to attend public school because the little girl's "Christian faith could use some shaking up". Huh? What's next, removing my children from their Jewish day school because "it's too Jewish"? Or perhaps we should have court-enforced attendance at the "right" houses of worship? In a word, this is nuts!

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that there are real down-sides to educating kids, including my own, in even the most open-minded religious private schools. And I know that too often those challenges are exacerbated by the home schooling given to kids like Amanda. But she was, by all educational and psychological measures, a well-adjusted child making appropriate academic progress. So the only reason for the judge's ruling is, as stated, that Justice Sadler felt like playing Theologian-in-Chief. That's so wrong, it's not even wrong!

Ironically, this is precisely the kind of spiritual arrogance about which I am sure Justice Sadler is concerned. And I think before she starts addressing that problem in others, she needs to take a hard look at herself and her own behavior. At the very least she should recall the old saying about the road to Hell and good intentions.

In the case of Rifqa Bary, it is her parents' intentions which are at issue because they may not be so good. The 17-year-old left her Ohio home for Florida because, she says, she feared for her life. Having converted from Islam to Christianity, Ms. Bary claimed that her father threatened to kill her. Now the court must decide whether to forcibly return the teenager to her parents' home.

While the courts will need to evaluate whether or not her parents pose a genuine threat to the new Christian, her fears are not entirely baseless. Conversion to another faith is a capital offense in most, if not all, Islamic states. And, Muslim parents have killed their children, especially daughters, over far smaller infractions time and again, even in the United States.

According to McGurn, In Texas last year, an Egyptian-born father (still sought by authorities) is thought to have murdered his two daughters because they dated non-Muslim men. A few months later in Georgia, a Pakistani man admitted to police that he strangled his daughter because she did not want to go through with an arranged marriage."

There is no specific evidence that the Barys are those kinds of parents, but at the very least, the court needs to address the potential hazard that arises given the larger cultural context to which they might return Rifqa. While her parents cannot prove what they won't do (nobody can), they can address how they will assure their daughter's religious freedom.

Perhaps they should pledge to drive her to church on a regular basis, or to meet regularly with one of her pastors. Of course, the pastor would need to keep from evangelizing them, so it would be an interesting experiment in honoring each other's choices for both sides.

But whatever decision is reached in the Bary case, let's not confuse the issue. While both do involve potential limits on parental rights the cases are not analogous, unless the analogy is between Judge Sadler and the worst possible version of who the Barys might be. The common denominator in that case would be people who don't appreciate that the free exercise of one's faith does not include the right to limit another's.

We should aim to maximize the freedom of all people's religious expression and the limitation on that freedom must not be when it becomes culturally or theologically problematic for someone in power - be they parents or officers of the court. In fact, when that happens is when the real test of our religious freedom begins. Let's hope that the courts in both New Hampshire and Florida remember that, for all of our sakes.

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Paarsurrey, Paarsurrey, Paarsurrey, (if that is your real ID),

We have previously addressed your Three B Syndrome i.e. being Bred, Born and Brainwashed in Islam. And we have tried to cure you with the Five Point Method of Deflawing and Deprogramming Islam. Unfortunately your mind is so closed, it cannot address the obvious realities of the 21st century. Get back to us when the light finally breaks through.

And as a reminder about the activities of your "peaceful", koranic-driven Islamic brothers:

1a) 179 killed in Mumbai/Bombay, 290 injured

1b) Assassination of Benazir Bhutto and Theo Van Gogh

2) 9/11, 3000 mostly US citizens, 1000’s injured

3) The 24/7 Sunni-Shiite centuries-old blood feud currently being carried out in Iraq, US Troops, 3,469 killed action and 871 non-combat and 93,040 – 101,537 Iraqi civilians killed, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ and
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf

4) Kenya- In Nairobi, about 212 people were killed and an estimated 4000 injured; in Dar es Salaam, the attack killed at least 11 and wounded 85.[2]

5) Bali-in 2002-killing 202 people, 164 of whom were foreign nationals, and 38 Indonesian citizens. A further 209 people were injured.

6) Bali in 2005- Twenty people were killed, and 129 people were injured by three bombers who killed themselves in the attacks.

7) Spain in 2004- killing 191 people and wounding 2,050.

8) UK in 2005- The bombings killed 52 commuters and the four radical Islamic suicide bombers, injured 700.

9) The execution of an eloping couple in Afghanistan on 04/15/2009 by the Taliban.

10) Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan: US troops killed in action 562, 176 killed in non-combat situations as of 9/02/09

Posted by: ccnl1 | September 24, 2009 8:28 AM
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Hi friend Brad Hirschfield

The freedom of expression of one’s religion and to change one’s religion is the basic ‎right of a person, which Quran/Islam/Muhammad acknowledges.
‎
Quran/Islam/Muhammad says it very clearly; and those who are ignorant in this regard, ‎may read the following, text of the verse and also the context of the verse:
‎
‎[5:55] O ye who believe! whoso among you turns back from his religion, then let it be ‎known that in his stead Allah will soon bring a people whom He will love and who will ‎love Him, and who will be kind and humble towards believers, hard and firm against ‎disbelievers. They will strive in the cause of Allah and will not fear the reproach of a ‎faultfinder. That is Allah’s grace; He bestows it upon whomsoever He pleases; and ‎Allah is Bountiful, All- Knowing.
‎
http://www.alislam.org/quran/search2/showChapter.php?submitCh=Read+from+verse%3‎A&ch=5&verse=49‎

The important is that one should base one’s faith on true understanding of the Revelation ‎and the reason oriented argumente. If one is firm on that; then one should be able to bring ‎many people in the fold of one’s faith. One should not be harsh with the person who is ‎converting to other religion; there is no instruction of any violence in the verse above ‎mentioned from Quran or anywhere else in Quran.
‎
I love Jesus and Mary as mentioned in Quran.
‎
Thanks

I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim

Posted by: paarsurrey | September 24, 2009 7:35 AM
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The authorities in both Ohio and Florida have found no evidence that Ms. Bary's parents would kill her. We might as well take children away from Catholic families who want to sent them to Catholic schools because a priest might molest her.

Posted by: Garak | September 22, 2009 2:21 PM
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CCNL1 obvious irritation from the antics of JJ provide fresh new daily entertainment from the former's cutting and pasting ad nauseum.

Posted by: coloradodog | September 18, 2009 9:48 AM
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The judge's ruling can be found at:

http://www.telladf.org/UserDocs/KurowskiOrder.pdf

Reading it, it appears to be the model of moderation.

Posted by: FYIColumbiaMD | September 16, 2009 4:55 PM
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Rabbi,

Why the bearing of false witness?

Moses would not be very happy with you.

Posted by: Freestinker | September 16, 2009 3:05 PM
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Is Rabbi Hirschfield's quoted comment from the judge, i.e. "Christian faith could use some shaking up", accurate?

If it is, the judge does seem out of bounds. It is not the state's duty to decide what faith is appropriate.

Posted by: edbyronadams | September 16, 2009 11:21 AM
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The author and the rest of the religious right are deliberately lying about the Kurowski case. Parents agreed at the time of their divorce to make decisions jointly about their daughter's education, and if they disagreed, the decision would be made by an impartial mediator. That's the beginning and end of what happened here -- the mediator made the same decision the overwhelming majority of American parents have made, that the social education of a school environment is preferable to home schooling. Period. Facts never get in the way of religious rants, though.

Posted by: granadoskerry | September 16, 2009 8:16 AM
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It is unfortunate that any child is brought up with any form of religious indoctrination. The girl in Ohio is only choosing one religious faith less stifling than the other. If no one received a religious education until the age of 18 or older, we wouldn't have any such religious hocus pocus. Those who defend religion do so only because it provides for their livelihood and/or they've lived their entire conscious lives with these fairy tales and would be too traumatized to acknowledge there is no religious Santa Claus.

Posted by: harveyh5 | September 14, 2009 9:46 PM
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In case Rifqa Bary, I can hardly see whats the problem with it. The girl is 17 years old. She has taken a decision. If she doesnt want to live with her parents, so be it. She can easily find a christian husband and live happily ever after. Whats the court got to decide with this? Or is the Jewish writer of this article deliberately trying portray Islam and Christianity in a bad way? This is the same writer who was trying to incite americans to do more violence against muslims on the anniversary of 9/11 in his previous article. I for one, will take anything this islamophobe writes with a pinch of salt~!

Posted by: yasseryousufi | September 14, 2009 1:50 PM
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The Kurowski case appears to be much more nuanced than you describe.

The young girl (10) has divorced parents. They have agreed to jointly share decision-making and seek mediation when they reach an impasse. The father believes that the religious-based home schooling his daughter is receiving by the mother is insufficient both academically and socially. He doesn't believe his daughter should be educated solely on the world-view of her religious mother.

As part of the mediation on which they agreed, the judge agreed with the father's reasoning.

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