Am I the only one unsettled by this? I hold religious freedom sacred. While I'm happy for Suri on a personal level and don't agree with Scientology's methods at all, I'm alarmed that a judge would uphold this. I think this is a very, very slippery slope.
Would a christian have the right to get the government to control what their atheist spouse teaches their child?
Or a muslim using the government to control a jewish spouse?
People with different religious/philosophical beliefs marry and have children all the time.
I don't know, this seems unlawful to me. I don't know a lot about the law but it seems to me the government has no legal leg to stand on.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the legalities though. Is this because Tom signed an agreement rather than the way I'm interpreting it?
Family law courts generally do not get involved in religion. On rare occasions, they will state that a child's religion cannot be changed or that a child cannot participate in a certain religious activity. They generally do this by giving legal custody of this one issue, to a specific parent. In CA there is a box to check on the legal custody form that states a parent can have specific and sole decision-making power over a certain aspect in the child's life and a parent can request that that area be "religion". But, like I said, it is very, very rare that the court will get involved, because we do have a separation of church and state and the court getting involved in a breach of that by the government.
However, if a parent is involved in a religion or religious practices that the court deems detrimental to the child, then the court can get around specific religious restrictions by granting sole legal custody and in some extreme cases, sole physical custody, with no or very restricted visitation, to one parent.
An example of that would be the case of Kiri Jewel, a child who was at the compound of the Branch Davidians in Waco TX. She had some visitation now and then with her father. He heard strange tales of extreme abuse and grooming of his daughter, as well as suicide drills and children being trained in combat with the government. Someone who defected from the group gave him tons of info. As a result, he was able to get 100% custody and not have to return his daughter to her mother who was living on the compound. (Her mother was one who died during the siege, of a gun shot wound).
In another case that a poster up thread posted, a mother was granted orders that completely restricted any involvement of her child in scientology. However, the mother was able to show that that was not the religion the family practiced, that the father just started practicing it and that it was acting to harm and brainwash their small child and turn him from his mother. Most important, that case was from 1986 and that was before the feds declared scientology a religion for tax exemption purposes.
In another case I read about, in 2010, a man was prevented from taking his daughter to church because he and the mother had agreed to raise the child Jewish and after the divorce, he changed his mind and unilaterally decided to start exposing her to Catholicism. The mother argued persuasively that this would confuse and harm the child (I disagree, FWIW).
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/easter...igious-dispute/story?id=10201298#.T_twNZFwhK0
However, that was only a temporary order and the court allowed him to take his kid to church in the permanent order (perhaps due to pressure?):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/13/joseph-reyes-can-take-jew_n_536311.html
In this case, no way would the court hear about religion per se, in my experience. However, if Katie argued specifically about indoctrination and brainwashing as well as parental alienation techniques, the court could, possibly, order sole legal custody to Katie and limited visitation to TC, because apparently, NY is much more apt than CA to get involved in areas that touch on religion when parental alienation issues are involved or if the religious practices can be deemed potentially dangerous.
But in the case of an out of court settlement, anything can be agreed to, as Steelydan stated.
I'm not so sure he was "surprised." If it's true that Katie fired Bella two months ago, how did she explain it? It must have been awkward. Then, he did the entire Rock of Ages press and premiere tour alone - gushing all the while about how wonderful Katie is and blah, blah, blah.
I'm thinking he knew there was trouble but his enormous ego prevented him from believing she could possibly out-maneuver him. But she did!
Brilliantly played. Never underestimate a mama bear!
You may be right! But, I think if she was smart, she could have come up with an excuse for firing Isabella, ("Oh, it's just not working out right now." or "We're creating a new department in a few months and folding this one for now", etc.).
And if his ego prevented him from thinking she could out maneuver her, that doesn't explain why or how he could get over his shock so quickly that he was, indeed, outmaneuvered.
No, I really do think bad publicity for him and especially for scientology, caused the quick settlement. It averaged about three or four bad news articles per day online about him and scientology. Hits on youtube videos about the cult, etc., skyrocketed. Katie never said word one about TC's church and yet speculation was rampant and scientology and all its oddities took center stage immediately and almost violently. 10 days and more damage was done to the church by Katie's silence than all the defectors' books, videos, and testimony over the last 60 years combined, have ever done, IMO. Miscavige knew it, TC knew it, hence, a quickie settlement.
BTW, I'm watching JVM and she just said this might be the speediest divorce settlement ever.
It's the fastest one I have ever seen.
Okayyy, I'm relieved. I was at a loss for the right wording (out of court settlement) when I wondered if I was misunderstanding things. Thanks for explaining.
I agree. TC would have signed anything.
Lesson For Tom: Don't marry the daughter of a divorce lawyer again.
How about this lesson for TC: Don't be a controlling jerk to your wife or a bizarre fanatic during your marriage.
I am very happy that Katie had the resources to do what she did, if indeed, she got the deal that is being reported. Too many average joes do not escape so unscathed from such a situation.
