The press has just picked up on the Pennsylvania case of Stanley Shepp, who is attempting to defend his right to teach his Mormon fundamentalist beliefs about polygamy to his 10-year-old daughter over the objections of his ex-wife with whom he shares custody. Here are links to stories on CNN and (for some local flavor) the York Daily Record. On September 29, 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted review of the appellate court decision which went against Mr. Shepp. This is not an easy case, as suggested by the well-argued dissent to the appellate decision. Mr. Shepp has been rather active in promoting his beliefs. Here is what purports to be a letter from Mr. Shepp explaining his beliefs at a Mormonism website. Even more interesting, here is a listing showing Mr. Shepp on the Sunstone Conference program from August 8, 2002, delivering a paper entitled "Original Mormonism." He sounds like a Newdow clone, a legal activist using his daughter to push his own minority position, and using the legal system as a public forum for those views while litigating them.
The three judge appellate panel split on the case. The majority noted that the law of Pennsylvania requires that the "best interest and welfare of the child" control the custody proceeding. It distinguished Zummo, the Pennsylvania case holding that "a parent may pursue whatever course of religious indoctrination which that parent sees fit" during periods of lawful custody, apparently swayed by his statements (which the court accepted as factual) to his 14-year-old stepdaughter, deemed a "wife candidate," that she would go to hell unless she followed the doctrines he preached. The legal standard the ex-wife needed to meet was demonstrating to the satisfaction of the court that Mr. Shepp presented a substantial threat of physical or emotional harm to the child. The majority held that she met that standard and upheld the prohibition against the father teaching anything about polygamy, plural marriage, or multiple wives to his daughter.
The majority cited and discussed both Reynolds v. United States, 98 US 145 (1878), and Davis v. Beason, 133 US 333 (1890), to support its position, cases you might not expect to be cited as controlling under present free exercise jurisprudence. The dissenting judge, on the other hand, pointed out that Romer v. Evans, 517 US 620 (1996), found Beason to no longer be good law for the question before the Court in Romer, and properly observed that Reynolds does not prevent Mr. Shepp from simply talking to his daughter about his polygamy beliefs. Since the trial court found that "there was no evidence of a grave threat to the child," the dissent would have reversed the limitations on Mr. Shepp's right to talk to his daughter.
There is an interesting discussion of the case over at Times & Seasons.
10:24:51 PM 
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