Mother's Open Paganism Treated as Reason to Deny Her Custody:

[icymist]

From the trial court's judgment giving the father custody, Dexter v. Dexter, no. 2005 DR 0110 (Ct. Com. Pl. Portage County, Ohio May 1, 2006), aff'd, 2007 WL 1532084 (Ohio App. May 25):

has undertaken to engage in a lifestyle that is extreme by normal social standards and testified that she is a devotee of sado-masochism; that she is bisexual; that she engages in paganism; that she has used illicit drugs on a semi-regular basis; and that she spends a great deal of time online where she has two to four websites of so-called "blogs." The evidence also indicates that her fiance ... also engages in sado-masochism, and in the past produced and starred in a theater troupe depicting such activity while also engaging in such conduct in his private life with ....

other and her boyfriend have a perfect right to engage in sado-masochism, paganism and their chosen sexual orientation, but nevertheless, this Court is not convinced that would exercise the due diligence that is required to engage in those practices without exposing such lifestyle to the parties' child< and thus> adversely affectthe best interests of .

The father may indeed have been a more suitable parent on some grounds, for instance if the mother and her fiance indeed used illegal drugs (though note that the drug use is listed as just one item among many, including the paganism), or if the mother's online time materially affected the time she spent with her daughter (though I assume that if the mother's problem was that she left her daughter unattended, for instance, the court would have said that rather than just pointing to her "spend a great deal of time online"). But the reference to mother's paganism — and the view that pagans may be denied custody because their open practices risk "exposing such lifestyle to child" — strikes me as a clear First Amendment violation.

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[Why Syzygy]

1. Why would anyone

divulge sexual preferences to a family court? If not for this the grounds would have been paganism and whatever drug use involved.

I'm sure paganism played a major role in the case. But it also looks like sexual discrimination.