I'm not sure what the right answer is, but I'm inclined to say that:
(1) When a parent refuses to take a child back -- not just can't
take the child back because the child won't come, or because the child
is a physical danger to the other children, but refuses to take the
child back -- it's hard to see how he has a constitutional right to
insist that the state ever return the child, much less that the state
take care of the child in a particular way.
(2) As a practical matter, my sense is that finding good foster
care is very hard as it is for the state. Finding good foster care
where the family has a particular highly uncommon lifestyle would be
much harder, especially since (to my knowledge) many people who have
precisely this lifestyle -- the Amish -- tend not to want to get too
involved with the state, and thus probably aren't normally enrolled in
the foster care system.
(3) Likewise, telling foster parents -- who often have multiple
foster children -- that they must "honor [Amish] values," for instance
by refusing him to play the video games that another child is playing,
or to go watch a video while the family is watching in the living room,
strikes me as quite burdensome on the foster parents. They have quite a
difficult job as it is without having to tell the new kid that he can't
do what all the other kids are doing. Perhaps this is different as to
ear piercings or a few other things, but requiring foster parents to
have completely different lifestyles for their various foster children,
and for themselves, seems to me to be more of a burden than we can
reasonably demand.
Let me also ask: How are things done when a foster child has been
raised to keep kosher or halal? I assume one solution is to place the
foster child in a household that also keeps kosher or halal, but what if
no such households are available? One problem, I take it, is that in
some such situations the child may himself wish to continue keeping
kosher or halal, but might be unable to arrange this for himself if he's
young enough.
Eugene
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 2:18 PM
To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Amish & foster care
I'd be curious to know whether folks think there were any legal
wrongs committed in the following story, which comes to me as true, and
whether folks have ideas about what Dad can or should do:
A 16 year old boy, one of 12 children in an Amish family, got
into an argument with his father (about clothing) and ran away. Dad was
worried and called the police, who located the boy and asked dad to take
him back. But dad said "when he is ready to follow the rules."
Whereupon the state child welfare agency filed a dependent neglect
petition and placed the boy in foster care.
That's not what dad wanted to happen, but he didn't understand
the system. Now he has hired lawyer to get it undone and get the boy
returned. But in the month that the boy has been in foster care, he has
been taken swimming, to the arcade, played video games, watched movies,
and had his ear pierced, among other non-Amish things. The state child
welfare agency has even brought the boy back to his home to tell his
siblings about life on the outside. Dad wants the boy to come home, but
is concerned about how he has been changed by his exposure to the modern
world, and how that will affect the rest of the family if he returns.
Any ideas, other than "Don't argue with your teenager"? Does a
child welfare agency have any obligation to try to place a child in
foster care in a home that reflects his family's non-mainstream but
lawful values, or to tell foster parents to honor those values? Does it
make a difference whether those values are religious or secular values?
Does the age of the child (16) make a difference?
Thanks,
Art Spitzer
Arthur B. Spitzer
Legal Director
American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area
1400 20th Street, N.W., Suite 119
Washington, D.C. 20036
T. 202-457-0800
F. 202-452-1868
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.aclu-nca.org
**************
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