Re: Amish foster care
In a message dated 7/1/08 7:51:56 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Art-- Well, I don't think the story as told was truly agnostic. The views of the boy were not included. ... I'll plead guilty to that; the story came from the father. But religious or secular, the views of teenagers do not generally prevail over the views of their parents, absent actual abuse or neglect. If I had a 16-year-old son, I could send him to boarding school or public school, or make him move with the family to (who can I insult here?) Los Angeles, regardless of his views about the matter. Teenagers and their parents are not equal parties in family decisionmaking, and I don't think I know anyone (other than teenagers, I suppose) who thinks they should be. Art ** Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut000507) ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: Amish foster care
There are many varieties of Amish, with varying degrees of interaction with the “English”. Thus there are some that sell items to the public at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, while others, e.g. the Swartzentruber subgroup of Old Order Amish, who have limited English language capabilities since they speak a dialect of German among themselves and try to stay away from the English to the extent they can. So I don’t think one can make a blanket assumption that all Amish would understand what government officials tell them. But Art would probably best know whether Alan’s concern applies in this particular case. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 7:57 PM To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: Re: Amish foster care The Amish in Pennsylvania regularly deal with the outside world through selling their many (often popular) products, watching television in neighbor's homes, and simply mingling with others in the community. I think it unlikely that he would have less understanding than a typical parent. So I guess the question would be whether an average citizen would have understood that the immediate next step in response to that statement (which plenty of nonreligious parents say all the time) is state custody. Marci In a message dated 7/1/2008 7:51:49 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: tend to agree with Eugene’s post. My only concern would be whether the interaction between the father and son and state police or welfare authorities was adequate – so that it was clear to the father what it meant to say that he would take his son back when the boy was ready to follow the rules. Alan Brownstein _ Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut000507 . ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: Amish foster care
1. I agree that there is a question of whether or not the father understood what was going to happen. 2. It would be expected that the boy would go with the foster parents on the activities they and their other children went to. That may include the movies, etc. I do question the ear piercing. Did the foster parents have authority to authorize that? It does carry some risks of infection. Some would consider it a medical procedure. Alan Armstrong Law Office of Alan Leigh Armstrong Serving the Family and Small Business Since 1984 18652 Florida St., Suite 225 Huntington Beach CA 92648-6006 714-375-1147 Fax 714-782 6007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] KE6LLN All documents prepared on Macintosh computers to look better ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
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 ** Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut000507) ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: Amish foster care
Art. - why do you assume this was a bad result? What does the boy say? Seems to validate Douglas's concern in Yoder that in the Amish community there may be those older children who would choose another path, and that may be an apprpriate inquiry. Sounds like this boy was headed in this direction without child svcs anyway. Marci Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 17:18:03 To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: Amish foster care ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: Amish foster care
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 ** Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut000507) ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can
Re: Amish foster care
Marci- I was trying not to assume. Except for the part about bringing the boy back to tell his siblings about life on the outside, which seems gratuitously subversive of the Amish family, I'm agnostic and eager to hear what people think. (Eugene's comments are, as always, very helpful.) Art In a message dated 7/1/08 5:42:48 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Art. - why do you assume this was a bad result? ** Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut000507) ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: Amish foster care
Art-- Well, I don't think the story as told was truly agnostic. The views of the boy were not included. That the child's views are left out of such stories is not unusual, but it is a way of thinking fundamentally at odds with the best interests of the child standard. Our culture often, even usually, tells these stories without reference to the child's viewpoint. I was quite serious when I said that Douglas's views in Yoder are well worth reviewing as we consider the proper constitutional balance, because he raised then what we know now-- the Amish may not always act in the best interests of their children. His path might well introduce a version of the child's best interest standard into constitutional analysis that provides more robust protection for children when they are at risk in religious homes. Among its many defects, Yoder treats the children's needs as utterly irrelevant, despite the fact that the case was about education! At a deeper level, why assume that the removal of a child from any community, when there are serious problems for the child (whatever those problems are), is a bad thing? It always depends on the particular facts. From the perspective of this child, it was not necessarily gratuitously subversive for him to return to his home and siblings. Unless one prefers the interests of the insular community over the right of the child to be a distinct individual. The state has no business being a partner in shunning if the child wishes to see family and it is deemed safe. Marci In a message dated 7/1/2008 6:50:41 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Marci- I was trying not to assume. Except for the part about bringing the boy back to tell his siblings about life on the outside, which seems gratuitously subversive of the Amish family, I'm agnostic and eager to hear what people think. (Eugene's comments are, as always, very helpful.) Art **Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut000507) ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: Amish foster care
I tend to agree with Eugene's post. My only concern would be whether the interaction between the father and son and state police or welfare authorities was adequate - so that it was clear to the father what it meant to say that he would take his son back when the boy was ready to follow the rules. Alan Brownstein From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 2:53 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Amish foster care 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 ** Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut000507) ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get
Re: Amish foster care
The Amish in Pennsylvania regularly deal with the outside world through selling their many (often popular) products, watching television in neighbor's homes, and simply mingling with others in the community. I think it unlikely that he would have less understanding than a typical parent. So I guess the question would be whether an average citizen would have understood that the immediate next step in response to that statement (which plenty of nonreligious parents say all the time) is state custody. Marci In a message dated 7/1/2008 7:51:49 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: tend to agree with Eugene’s post. My only concern would be whether the interaction between the father and son and state police or welfare authorities was adequate – so that it was clear to the father what it meant to say that he would take his son back when the boy was ready to follow the rules. Alan Brownstein **Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut000507) ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
