Darth J wrote: How would you like to deal with a petition to modify because new church policy is a material change of circumstances for an 11 year-old boy who was about to become a deacon?
I'm sure some poor associate somewhere is devoting his or her day to drafting such a motion. I would deal with such a motion with a shot of single malt and repeated banging of my head against my desk.
Just think about the constitutional implications: courts can't review or interpret internal ecclesiastical policies, but they're going to be asked to decide a child's best interests based on...internal ecclesiastical policies.
Darth J wrote:By the way, there's a sneaky way to short-circuit this is you're a gay married/cohabiting parent worried about losing custody. Say you won't consent for the children to be baptized if religion becomes a factor in designating physical custody. That would only work in certain situations, but it's an example of the gamesmanship this "clarified" policy is going to cause.
It's also going to invite bishop-shopping if the divorced parents live in different wards and individual bishops are given discretion over some of this--as in one bishop saying no in all cases, one saying yes in all cases, one doing it ad hoc.
So to protect parental autonomy and avoid intrafamily conflict, we'll put your kids' eternal salvation in the hands of secular judges and local lay clergy who change from time to time. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it marvelous?
Who wants to guess if motions to recuse Mormon judges in child custody cases are on the way?
In Washington, parties have the right to disqualify a judge by filing an affidavit of prejudice. It's a misnomer, because it's an absolute right and not reviewable. It has to be done before the judge issues a substantive order, and can be done only once. Does Utah have something similar?
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Darth J wrote:Just think about the constitutional implications: courts can't review or interpret internal ecclesiastical policies, but they're going to be asked to decide a child's best interests based on...internal ecclesiastical policies.
Well they threw the first punch ... they asked for it
Darth J wrote:I love "clarification" that turns a merely asshole policy into an epic clusterfuck.
On the other hand, lots of Utah family law attorneys will be able to send their kids to college.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Darth J wrote:I love "clarification" that turns a merely asshole policy into an epic clusterfuck.
They fasted and prayed all week and the sum of what they came up with was "primary residence" and "it was the members fault for not having all the relevant information".
Wow.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
Darth J wrote:I love "clarification" that turns a merely asshole policy into an epic clusterfuck.
They fasted and prayed all week and the sum of what they came up with was "primary residence" and "it was the members fault for not having all the relevant information".
Wow.
I know. It's pathetic, isn't it? We're supposed to shut up because fewer children are now affected. Woop-de-doo.
Darth J wrote:By the way, there's a sneaky way to short-circuit this is you're a gay married/cohabiting parent worried about losing custody. Say you won't consent for the children to be baptized if religion becomes a factor in designating physical custody. That would only work in certain situations, but it's an example of the gamesmanship this "clarified" policy is going to cause.
It's also going to invite bishop-shopping if the divorced parents live in different wards and individual bishops are given discretion over some of this--as in one bishop saying no in all cases, one saying yes in all cases, one doing it ad hoc.
So to protect parental autonomy and avoid intrafamily conflict, we'll put your kids' eternal salvation in the hands of secular judges and local lay clergy who change from time to time. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it marvelous?
Who wants to guess if motions to recuse Mormon judges in child custody cases are on the way?
In Washington, parties have the right to disqualify a judge by filing an affidavit of prejudice. It's a misnomer, because it's an absolute right and not reviewable. It has to be done before the judge issues a substantive order, and can be done only once. Does Utah have something similar?
Yes. But 1. what if the replacement judge is also a Mormon and 2. what are the social ramifications? It's hardly fair to LDS judges to say they categorically can't give a fair hearing to gay couples. It's also demonstrably wrong: the federal judges who struck down Utah's SSM ban and Utah's gay adoption ban were both Mormons. But you're potentially inviting a lot of unwarranted prejudice against LDS judges and mistrust of the courts with this policy.
That's without even talking about whether LDS judges are sometimes going to sua sponte feel like they need to recuse themselves over this, which again isn't really fair to the judge to be put in that personal dilemma.
Darth J wrote:By the way, there's a sneaky way to short-circuit this is you're a gay married/cohabiting parent worried about losing custody. Say you won't consent for the children to be baptized if religion becomes a factor in designating physical custody. That would only work in certain situations, but it's an example of the gamesmanship this "clarified" policy is going to cause.
It's also going to invite bishop-shopping if the divorced parents live in different wards and individual bishops are given discretion over some of this--as in one bishop saying no in all cases, one saying yes in all cases, one doing it ad hoc.
So to protect parental autonomy and avoid intrafamily conflict, we'll put your kids' eternal salvation in the hands of secular judges and local lay clergy who change from time to time. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it marvelous?
Who wants to guess if motions to recuse Mormon judges in child custody cases are on the way?
In Washington, parties have the right to disqualify a judge by filing an affidavit of prejudice. It's a misnomer, because it's an absolute right and not reviewable. It has to be done before the judge issues a substantive order, and can be done only once. Does Utah have something similar?
Darth J wrote:Yes. But 1. what if the replacement judge is also a Mormon and 2. what are the social ramifications? It's hardly fair to LDS judges to say they categorically can't give a fair hearing to gay couples. It's also demonstrably wrong: the federal judges who struck down Utah's SSM ban and Utah's gay adoption ban were both Mormons. But you're potentially inviting a lot of unwarranted prejudice against LDS judges and mistrust of the courts with this policy.
That's without even talking about whether LDS judges are sometimes going to sua sponte feel like they need to recuse themselves over this, which again isn't really fair to the judge to be put in that personal dilemma.
In my neck of the Zion woods, my experience with LDS judges in a case that might have Mormony implications is that they exclude those implications from their decision making perhaps more than will the inactive or apostate LDS and non-LDS judges. The LDS judges take extraordinary efforts, in most cases, towards discarding the Mormon factors. The other judges seem to let it influence their decisions a bit more, as just another fact of life here. Oh, I've heard about the pro-LDS rulings by LDS judges, like that one from Price, Utah. But I think it is more rare than the frequency of LDS judges taking affirmative mental steps to not consider those factors in making their decisions.
