Caution: Surprising Twists and Turns Ahead:
Let me lay out the facts for you (Because this is convoluted and bizzare) and then ask for your observations and conclusions. As this gets a bit convoluted and confusing I am going to try to be more explicitly clear than the news reporter was. (I had to read it about 4 times just to get it straight.)
-- A family of mom dad and 5 kids are part of well enough known very conservative religious sect of long standing.
-- The father of the family decides he is transexual and chooses to transition to becoming a woman (Here-in-after, to avoid confusion of pronouns etc., I use the term "birth father" and "birth mother" for the biological father and mother of the 5 children, )
-- The conservative sect will ostracize ANY person of their group who who has contact with any transgender person and this includes the children of the "birth father"
-- The children of the "birth father" would also be ostracized if they had contact with the "birth father" regardless of who arranges the contact.
-- The Birth Father seeks court ordered contact with the 5 children.
-- The Birth Mother argues that granting visitation contact between the Birth Father and the 5 children would severely harm the 5 children because the congregation they have been raised in and continue to be raised in would then ostracize the children which is the only community they have ever identified with and such a situation would be harmful to them, and given the "all encompasing culture of their religious community" that appears very plausible.
-- The law requires that the judge hold the physical and psychological well being of the children to be most paramount in visitation decisions.
-- There is nothing about the care and nurturing of the children in the sect that is arguably harmful or abusive about the practices and beliefs of religious sect that is purported to be inherently harmful to the children for families within the sect and had not the Birth Father gone off into transgenderism, there would be no issue at all to be brought before the court.
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Ok, Hang on to your hats! The judge has ruled in favor of denying to the Birth Father, any contact with the 5 children !!!!!! The ruling being that the ostracizing of the Children would be serious harm to the children. Apparently the Judge does not see any cause for action against the sect members including the Birth Mother and 5 children and to do so would be interference with their religious rights.
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This is apparently not a hypothetical case as it may be reviewed at:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/03/transgender-ultra-orthodox-court-case-reveals-painful-clash-of-minority-communities
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So then if you were the judge, how would you balance out the needs and rights of:
-- The Birth Father
-- The Birth Mother
-- The five children
-- The religious sect
-- The civil society at large
????