Freedom, Family Law, and Fringe Beliefs

The United States of America has quite a few ideas we hold quite sacred, even though they never appear in the Constitution or any other law. The freedom to travel, for example, is never guaranteed (as any parent with joint custody who wanted to leave the state can attest to). Another classic example is freedom of belief. We have laws guaranteeing the right to worship, and to have a religion (so long as the religion doesn’t promote criminal acts as part of its practice). But there is no law guaranteeing your right to believe whatever ideas you want; in fact, many fringe beliefs will set the law against you under the right circumstances.

Most of the time, the law doesn’t really care what you believe. You can go your entire life believing, for example, that “chemtrails” are a thing (they’re not), and that might never be relevant to a court case, so the law will never take note, even if you act on that belief. Believing that Muslim people are somehow collectively responsible for the 9/11 attacks and deserve to be violently assaulted for it still generally won’t get you in too much trouble with the law — unless you act on it (or vocally encourage others to do so).

But where is the line drawn? What law dictates whether or not a belief is so inappropriate that it deserves to be held against you in a court of law? It’s a hard question to answer…in most circumstances. However…

Child Custody Cases and Fringe Beliefs
At least when it comes to child custody cases, there are a few simple guidelines that can tell us whether a belief is ‘over the line’. We turn, once again, to MCL 7222.23: the 12 guidelines for determining the “best interests of the child.” There are four that are relevant:

• The capacity and disposition of the parties involved to give the child love, affection, and guidance and to continue the education and raising of the child in his or her religion or creed, if any.
• The moral fitness of the parties involved.
• The willingness and ability of each of the parties to facilitate and encourage a close and continuing parent-child relationship between the child and the other parent of the child and the parents.
• Any other factor considered by the court to be relevant to a particular child custody dispute.

Let’s go through that one bullet point at a time. First, you have any belief that shows you unwilling (or unable) to be loving, provide guidance, and raise the child in their religious tradition. In other words, if your child is old enough to have a defined religious preference and you don’t identify with that religion, the court must hold that against you.

Most often that second bullet point comes up in the form of prejudice: modern courts don’t particularly consider overt racism, sexism, homophobia, or other forms of hate to be “moral fitness.” Similarly, if you issue threats, attempt to bribe officers of the court, or otherwise show signs of moral dysfunction, that’s going to end poorly as well.

The third point is mostly going to trip you up if you have a specific unreasonable belief that the child’s other parent is unworthy of (or incapable of) maintaining a relationship with your child.

And of course the fourth point is the catchall, the one that gives the court latitude to say “What, you believe that Obama’s lizard-man alien overlords rigged the World Series in the Cubs’ favor in order to distract the country from the fact that Donald Trump is a reincarnation of Joseph Stalin? No children for you!”

In the end, the United States tries to give our citizens as much latitude as possible in terms of what they’re allowed to think, do, and believe in — but at the same time, modern society is complex. Sometimes, some beliefs run too far counter to what we can accept from a parent, and while there’s a decent argument that those fringe beliefs are healthy for the country as a whole, the family court isn’t concerned with the country as a whole — just the child sitting in front of them right now, today.