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Friday, June 20, 2008

Judges Know Better

As a new parent of a baby girl who has yet to be born, this recent headline, which I discovered from the blog Dr. Albert Mohler, has me wondering what in the world is going on. A Canadian court has overturned the decision of a father who punished his daughter for posting pictures of herself on an Internet dating site and for fighting with her mom. The punishment was that she was not allowed to attend her school camping trip. Amazingly, the daughter took her parents to court. And won. Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier of the Quebec Superior Court ruled on Friday that the father couldn't discipline his daughter by barring her from the school trip. The father is appealing the decision although the girl is already gone to the camp.

This is just scary stuff. The rules that the father had in place for his daughter were clearly designed for her protection, and upon violating those rules she was punished. What is the problem here? I am beginning to think that raising children in a nice small, southern town is the way to go where people might still have tradition family values. Thankfully, apparently the local Canadians are getting more and more worked up about the judge's decision. Time will tell if the decision is overturned.

4 Comments:

Anonymous said...: This seemed so ridiculous that I tried to track down some of the backstory...and as always, there is some. It isn't as simple as the news outlets are making it seem (judge "overturns" father's decision). Let me say, I still think this is fairly stupid, but what apparently happened is that the Father and Stepmother laid down the rule, and the girl went to live with her Mother who did not support the banning, and for whatever reason (and here is where stupidity reigns) the mother and father couldn't work it out and the daughter decided to file suit to determine what parent had the right to make the decision (since they were divorced). So, the court was not saying that I am going to decide what is right for this child, it was saying I have to decide which parent has the right to decide what the girl can do. If we as people are too stupid, shallow or antagonistic to work these things out ourselves, this is what happens. I am not (obviously) defending this ridiculousness, but almost no media outlets explain this correctly, which I think is a disservice to everyone who wants to understand what is really going on. Now, for all I know the facts I tracked down are wrong as well, but at least there is some semblance of reality to those facts ("we" make courts get involved in domestic issues all the time), whereas the way the media is reporting it, it seems like the court said..."We will decide what is right for your chile, too bad Father." And I don't think that is what happened.; June 20, 2008 1:31 PM
Barry Wallace said...: But of course, that's the not sexy "OMGthe government is taking away all your rights!!!!!!!!!!1111" story.

By the way, Rex, do you have a link to the background info you found?; June 20, 2008 2:29 PM
PhilipMeade.com said...: Rex,

Yes, please do provide your source, below is the link of the article that was used on Mohler's blog as well as another article. Even with
your qualifications, they don't ease the tension of the story because the father had been granted legal custody and she was living under his roof when the punishment was given. He gave a punishment as her legal guardian, the daughter didn't like it, took him to court, and the father's punishment was overturned.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080619.wcurfew19/BNStory/lifeFamily/home#
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n19454701-court-girl/

Barry,

You know me, I'm always looking for the sexy stories, regardless of the content.; June 20, 2008 4:01 PM
Anonymous said...: The biggest issue here remains, in my opinion, the failure of the mother and the father to get along and resolve the issue. What do we want society (in this case our courts) to do if the Father says this is the punishment, the Mother says no its not and neither backs down? Arm wrestle? Father beats Mother and wins? Mother steals child, leaves the state and wins? We are in a society where divorce, child custody, child visitation rights, etc. are all determined by courts because, unfortunately, we have people that cannot deal with each other. I think we shouldn't lose sight of that being the issue, not the courts. For example, does anyone really think that if the Mother said, "you were living with your Father and he gave you a legitimate punishment, so don't run to me to get out of it" that the court would have overturned that? I don't believe so, but either way, there is clearly a problem. we just have to make sure we are focused on what the problem really is.; June 23, 2008 12:36 PM

The Beast's Lair

Friday, June 20, 2008

Judges Know Better

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