Judge's Actions Out of Bounds

Remember that family from Indiana where the judge said that they couldn’t expose their son to “non-mainstream” religions? The courts recently ruled that the judge was out of bounds and the couple has regained their rights to raise their child within the Wiccan religion.

I am glad that this decision has come about this quickly after the story broke back at the end of May. This family has been dealing with this issue for about two years, with the parents having to tell their son that he couldn’t participate in their religious practice. If you read about him on their website, nonmainstream.org, it is mentioned that there was recently a death in the family. Their son was hoping that he would be able to say goodbye to this family member at their Samhain ritual this fall, but he didn’t know if he would be allowed to do so. With the latest ruling he will be able to participate and say goodbye to his loved one.

My congratulations go out to this Indiana family for this new ruling. I would also like to say that I was very impressed with how they handled the situation. They seemed to present everything calmly, with all the facts, instead of throwing insults all the people who were keeping them from raising their son the way they wanted. They also encouraged others to focus on the positive, by asking people to write letters of thanks to editors who portrayed Pagan religions in a good light instead of writing letters of anger to the Indiana court system.