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MCC Refused Recognition Because Not 'Mainline' Mainstream Religious Groups Protest the Decision |
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Compiled by GayToday
Wichita Falls, Texas--A Texas court has violated church/state
separation by deciding that a child of a marriage ending in divorce
could attend only a "mainline" church with her mother, six religious
groups said today.
The American Jewish Congress, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, the American Friends Service Committee and the Universal Fellowship of the Metropolitan Community Church called on the Texas Court of Appeals to reverse that decision. In an amicus brief filed in the child custody case of "In the Interest of WKG, a Minor Child," on appeal from the 78th District Court of Wichita County, Texas, the religious organizations said that "a loosely worded divorce agreement has led to an improper judicial intrusion into the sacred domain of religious belief," thus requiring reversal. A Christian mother and Jewish father divorced, with each promising as part of their divorce to provide religious training to their daughter.
The brief argued that the constitutional defect in the decision "is not that it enforced an agreement dealing with the religious upbringing of the child, but that the trial court usurped to itself the right to decide which religions are mainline, or orthodox, enough to be acceptable. This the Constitution barred it from doing." The judgment is also firmly rooted in Texas law, the brief said, declaring, "the courts may not substitute their religious judgments for those of the family." The brief emphasized that a variety of churches once thought of as peripheral have become mainline, including Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Mormons, as well as Judaism. It also said that the Metropolitan Community Church, and its position regarding homosexuality, "while surely not universally shared, is widely shared by other churches. If its beliefs are immoral, the court will have cut out a wider swathe of the mainline than it imagined." Citing a 60-year-old line of Texas cases, AJCongress and its partners said, "the decision of the court -- arrogating to itself the power to decide what churches are theologically acceptable --- is untenable." However the custody issue should be decided, the groups said, the decision must not be made by the court on a religious basis. The brief was prepared by Marc Stern, Co-Director of the AJCongress Commission on Law and Social Action. Professor Douglas Laycock of Austin, Texas is Counsel of Record, and Oliver S. Thomas of the National Council of Churches is Of Counsel on the case. Tracy Jordan of the Universal Fellowship of the Metropolitan Community Church and Joyce Miller of the American Friends Service Committee also assisted in preparation of the brief. |
