A few interesting cases involving child custody and religion have recently been decided in Chicago. From Girl’s religion at issue in divorce war, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 17, 2010:
Rebecca Reyes opened an e-mail from her estranged husband in November to learn to her shock that he had their 3-year-old daughter baptized in the Catholic Church even though she said the couple, in happier times, had agreed to raise her in the Jewish faith.
What happened over the next few months brought the couple’s private battles into the open and raises questions about how far the court system can — or should — go in dictating what faith separated parents teach their children. After the unannounced baptism, a Cook County Circuit Court judge took the unusual step of temporarily barring Reyes’ husband, Joseph, from exposing their child to any religion other than Judaism.
But Joseph Reyes then allegedly defied the order by taking his daughter to Mass at Holy Name Cathedral — with a television news crew in tow.
The wife’s lawyers blasted Joseph Reyes’ defiance and demanded he be held in criminal contempt, a charge that carries a maximum punishment of six months in jail if convicted.
…
While many divorce proceedings involving interfaith couples devolve into bitter feuds over religion, Emily Buss, a law professor at the University of Chicago, called the order to temporarily limit the child to Judaism “striking.”
“The idea is we change religious views — that is what religious freedom includes,” Buss said. “Even if (one) parent has more authority in the form of more custody, the other parent can (usually) … still expose the child to his or her religion even if it was not the religious practices within the family when it was intact.”
More background can be read on the Chicago Jewish News website.
The father, Joseph Reyes, reportedly told a reporter for CBS2 Chicago: “I am taking her to hear the teachings of perhaps the most prominent Jewish rabbi in the history of this great planet of ours. I can’t think of anything more Jewish than that.” Not to argue with such glibness or anything, but one cannot logically be rabbi, mesit and messiah.
In April, another judge lifted the restraining order, allowing the father to take his daughter to church during his regularly scheduled visitation. The judge also ruled that the father would have visitation for Christmas and Easter. The mother would always have the child on Rosh Hashannah, Yom Kippur and Passover. I couldn’t tell from the news reports whether the criminal contempt charges were ultimately dropped as well.
