Something I Missed On Parents’ Rights

The Alliance Defense Fund, an alliance of Christian attorneys formed for the purpose of defending First Amendment rights, is defending the right of a New Hampshire mother to homeschool her 10-year-old daughter.  According to the article:

…”the court agreed the child is “well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising, and intellectually at or superior to grade level” and that “it is clear that the home schooling…has more than kept up with the academic requirements of the…public school system,” he nonetheless proposed that the Christian girl be ordered into a government-run school after considering “the impact of [her religious] beliefs on her interaction with others.””

The court has ordered the girl to attend a government-run school in Meredith.  The court also stated:

“In the process of renegotiating the terms of a parenting plan for the girl, the guardian ad litem involved in the case concluded, according to the court order, that the girl “appeared to reflect her mother’s rigidity on questions of faith” and that the girl’s interests “would be best served by exposure to a public school setting” and “different points of view at a time when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief…in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs.””

There are a few things about this case that bother me.  Why is it necessary to move a child out of an academic and social setting where she is thriving?  Who brought this case?  Is this a matter of a non-custodial parent trying to create a problem that isn’t there?  The only thing that is clear in this case is that parents should be free to educate their children as they see fit as long as the children are meeting the academic and social requirements legally established by state law.  Since this is obviously the case, I don’t think the fact that the child has a strong sense of morality should be a problem–it seems to me as the child approaches her teenage years that might be a blessing!