http://glenkirk.blogspot.com/2008/01/kentucky-atheist-sues-over-sons.html
A father in La Grange, Ky., is in court trying to keep his son from attending a Catholic high school. David Ryan, the father, is an atheist and the mother, from whom he is divorced, is a Roman Catholic. Their eighth-grade son attends a Catholic school in Oldham County. Ryan’s attorney Edwin Kagin said when Ryan and his wife got divorced, a judge ordered their son to continue attending a Catholic school. Ryan, however, wants his son to attend a public high school next year, so Friday, he took the issue in front of a judge in an Oldham County courtroom, WLKY.com reported Friday. “David feels the orientation and the indoctrination of the church school is harmful to his child,” Kagin said. According to court documents, Ryan believes the religious school will attempt to indoctrinate his son into a belief system he as a parent rejects. Kagin said the case has larger implications. “The issue really does become one of what does church-state separation mean?” he said. Kagin said part of Kentucky’s constitution reads, “Nor shall any man be compelled to send his child to any school to which he may be conscientiously opposed.”
There is probably no better way to assure that your child remains an atheist than to send him or her to a Catholic school. Worked for me! I just wish I would have had an atheist role model to help me make better sense of everything I was being told and to give me the tools I needed to assert my point of view. I don’t think the father in this case should concede and allow his kid to attend a school he feels is harmful–just as the mother should not concede and allow her son to be taken out of a school that she feels is best for him. This kid is lucky that he’ll have exposure to both worlds–he’ll be less likely to become a theist.
Is Edwin Kagin working on this on his own or as legal director for AA? I hope it’s for former.
This sounds like a run of the mill domestic dispute that ought to be worked out between the parents and the family courts (if necessary).
Uhhh…the kid’s going to be in high school. What does HE want to do? I hope Mom and Dad aren’t playing “Pull the Kid” in a power struggle as a result of the divorce.
I understand Dad’s resistance to Catholic school, but I’d respect it more if there was any mention of his son’s wishes- the kid’s old enough to make an informed choice.
Oh, and Dad, another reason to avoid catholic school–catholic girls are easy. You might be a grandpa before graduation!
Yes, I am more interested in what the kid wants. He’s old enough to decide. This is an issue only in that it’s an ugly tug-of-war between two selfish parents.
The child is old enough to decide, as I suspect the judge will rule. Generally any minor 14 years of age or older is granted considerable influence on the court in these matters.
This is interesting, I just listen to the Fox Noise resident priest comment on the role of faith and politics…..which there should be no role…but anyways….
he said our rights in this country are god given….
hmmmmm…and all this time I thought they were document given….you know The Constitution and amendments of the United States document…..
not only did theologians sleep through science class…but history class as well….
whats really really interesting is that Fox News allows these absurdities to happen….Fox News….key word is News….licensed and regulated by the government…..thats the group that should be asking Fox News why they are posting erroneous information….like this priest. which is a fox news contributor, is allowed to say that our rights come from god….no they dont….they come from the bill of rights….
This is a great example of why to encourage the kid not to go to a Catholic School….
the decision should be his though
Charlie, this is the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, it is the foundation that justifies the constitution. As you can see, God is right there and His will is the reason for everything that follows.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ? That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ? That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends…
Hey, no need to thank me brah, just happy to stop ignorance when ever I can.
jack,
The declaration makes no mention of xianity and i would point out the obvious it could say jesus or it could say lord or it could mention the bible but it doesn’t.
Nature’s God??? That is not an xian reference, nor is their Creator. This is intentionally vague for a reason. You are dishonestly placing in your personal belief and trying to convince yourself it’s the xian god.
Nature’s god and a creator could be ANY religion or none at all. Everyone from a satan worshipper to a buddhist can read their beliefs therein.
Many of the signers of that declaration were free masons not xians so you are way off base with your interpretation.
Comment from: dawnisis
Of course it does…name another major religion that refers to God as the Creator…
It is exactly this reason that organizations like AA refuse to accept the Dec. of Ind. as a founding document…
You’ve made this claim often.
First, name those you claim were Free Masons.
Second, are stating that one can not be a christian and a Free Mason?
And…the Truth finally comes out and I’ll bet the major networks ignore the story…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3177653.ece
Charlie, our natural and human rights aren’t document given either. Those rights, by definition, cannot be granted. Not by a creator, not by a piece of paper, not by anything or anyone.
Rights cannot be revoked. They can be wrongly infringed upon, but they can never be taken from us. Well unless you believe in a cosmic totalitarian dictator of course. I think you are confusing rights with privileges. Privileges can be granted and revoked.
The founding documents of this country do not grant us our rights, they merely seek to affirm and protect them.
phreedm,
Every religious person claims god is their creator.
Regardless, the declaration says endowed by their creator, it doesn’t say endowed by god the creator. Even you have to twist the wording to make it fit your “god idea”.
Yes, freemasons tell their members to cloak themselves in the religion of the land. They believe that each man is his own god and judge (there is no superior governing god being) for a simplistic explanation.
Thomas Jefferson the guy the WROTE the declaration of independence was a free mason as were many others.
John Locke was also a freemason.
http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/Davidson.html
Also, the first military units that were necessary PRIOR to publicly declaring independence from Britain were formed by freemasons.
phreedm,
This country’s founding destroyed xian control of government. Even you can’t argue that.
So lie to yourself all you want but AMERICA destroyed the church for all time.
Thousands of years of theocracy was destroyed by the declaration of independence, now you want to claim it’s an xian document. Are you saying your god wanted his theocracies destroyed? Because that’s the only valid argument you got.
Toadie:
As per usual, you got it wrong:
Thus, your spin is just that: spin.
Keep deluding yourself: don’t let me stop you.
Krystalline is correct.
The declaration is a DECLARATION:
It was an ANNOUNCEMENT directed at britain and the people declaring our intention to form our own country.
You can’t give it more legal authority than it’s intended purpose.
In reading a few books (Our First Revolution and The Great Upheaval) I thought it interesting that the point was made that the Declaration was written to a king who believed in the divine right of kings. At the time, kings believed they were ordained by god to rule over the people and derived their power from god’s will.
The Declaration was intended to refute that kings had the right to rule by god’s will. The trouble with insisting that the power to rule is granted by god is that one has to rely on interpretations of what god wants by flawed and power hungry people. When the power of rulers is granted by the consent of the governed, then the ruler is accountable to the governed. The Constitution fully supports that the ruler is subject to the will of the people, which is why we are a democracy and not a theocracy.
Krystal, what spin? I just posted what it says. All the spin comes from your side of the great divide. You must be dizzy.
Dawn, “It was an ANNOUNCEMENT directed at britain and the people declaring our intention to form our own country” based on the idea that our rights are given to us by God and no one has the right to take them from us.
51 of the 55 men who signed the declaration of independence were members of what would be considered fundamentalist churches. You can speculate about their motives, but it seems to me that you are grasping at straws in order to prove your point.
Jeff,
The case is far from ?a run of the mill domestic dispute?? The Atheist father is raising a constitutional argument that it is his right, under the Kentucky Constitution, to not be required to send his child to a school to which he is conscientiously opposed.
Beyond that, it could go to the issue of whether a Roman Catholic education is harmful to the child, as Richard Dawkins and others have maintained.
RobM
I respectfully disagree…
Our rights and privileges are on a piece of paper….and that piece of paper with words written on it is the basis for an individuals argument in a court of law when those rights are infringed upon.
jack,
I’ll ask you the same thing I asked phreedm:
Thousands of years of theocracy were destroyed by the declaration of independence, now you want to claim it’s an xian document. Are you saying your god wanted his theocracies destroyed? Because that’s the only valid argument you got.
As for your “rights granted by god” argument we had been living under theocracies set up to please your god. So do you claim the entire theological political reach of the churches until the declaration of independence ran counter to what your god wanted?
Do you believe your god does not agree biblical law belongs in government? If so, I am glad we at least agree on that. Religion has no place in government and since your god granted us these rights to be free from church rule he agrees with AA and their court battles and not those of you who fight to get religion dictated by government.
phreedm and jack the toad are all emotion, no facts… no logic… no understanding of history…
Slaves to their god-idea… unable to think for themselves…
Dave said:
The main issue seems to be who has the right to make decisions about the boy’s education when the divorced parents don’t agree.
I’m making some assumptions here because the article lacked details, so I might be wrong. But I don’t think the court ordered that the child go to Catholic school. It decided that the mother, who I further assume is the custodial parent, has final say about what school the child should attend.
I could see this as a church-state separation issue if the father is being forced to pay to send the child to a religious private school. Otherwise I don’t see why AA is involved. I think we should have passed on this one.
Depends. Considering that mothers are uniformly prefered to retain custody, I’d agree with you, except that leaves this poor guy hanging. It all depends on when his Atheism became an issue, and why the court ordered the kid continue at the Catholic school.
jeff,
I certainly understand your points but the counter argument would be:
If catholic education harms the child then the mother should not be allowed to subject her child to it.
It will come down to proving the child would be harmed by his mother’s decision to send him to catholic school.
Also, whether both parents get a say in how a child is taught or not taught religion.
The mother did marry an atheist so…..
If the judge were truly objective, he could avoid the whole entanglement issue by recognizing that a less costly but perfectly adequate education is obtained by sending the child to a public (vs parochial) school, and that to choose otherwise actually imposes an unjustified additional burden upon the husband because he is presumably paying both child support and school taxes.
Any other choice is clearly an endorsement of religion over non-religion, which is prohibted by the constitution.
Suppose the mother wanted to send the child on a pilgrimage to the holy land or enroll him in monastery in Tibet to further his “education.” Would the father be expected to defray those costs as well?
If anybody finds more details about this case please post a link. I’m curious about a number of things…
- Is the father being forced to pay for the Catholic school education and is that part of complaint? The article doesn’t mention this, but that could be bias on the part of the writer or editor.
- Was the boy in Catholic school before the parents separated? The whole “Catholic school is damaging” argument is not very convincing to me, especially so if the father previously agreed to send the boy there.
- Was the father an atheist and the mother a Catholic at the time they decided to have children?
Can we just take a moment to make light of the fact that the Roman Catholic Wife gets a divorce, a BIG no no, but demands her child stay in catholic school?
And also, its high school, I am sure the catholic system has already fucked this kid up. Indoctrination is way more effective in the formative grade school years.
Zac,
Yeah, this lady doesn’t seem to be a good catholic at all considering she spawned a 1/2 heathen by reproducing with an atheist
the state constitution is clear.i hope the parents work it out the boy is their child not a stick to hit each other.
dawn,
To say that the declaration of independence destroyed thousands of years of theocracy is silly. It did no such thing. The only theocracy God set up was in ancient Israel and He dismantled that himself when it’s purpose was fulfilled.
I don’t claim the “entire” anything. I don’t think the church should run the state anymore than I think the reverse. I do think that your definition of the separation clause is a gross distortion of what was intended by the guys who wrote the thing. I think you know it too, but you don’t care.
Oh and…
Rusty you’re a putz.