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Husband In Contempt For Teaching Child Christian Faith In Violation of Divorce Settlement

By Howard M. Friedman

In Greene v. Greene, (GA Ct. App., Oct. 1, 2010), a Georgia appellate court upheld a trial court's finding that a divorced husband was in contempt for violating a Settlement Agreement that gave his former wife final decision-making authority over matters related to their daughter's religious upbringing.  The wife was Jewish and the husband was Christian. The husband had agreed that the child would be raised in the Jewish faith.  However, according to the court:

Husband admitted that he had taken the child to numerous Christian churches ...[;] that he told the child that she was Jewish on the outside and Christian on the inside; that he shared Christian prayers with the child; that he and his mother read the Bible to the child; that his mother taught the child the Christian faith from the Bible...; and that the child told him that she was conflicted about the two different faiths. Husband also admitted that he gave the child a children's Bible, as well as DVDs of Christian stories and movies; that he taught her Christian songs and played them while riding in the car with the child; and that he had referred to Wife's parents by numbers but denied that he was referencing the Holocaust.

The appeals court also concluded that the trial court's instructions to the Husband on how to purge himself of contempt were sufficiently clear.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on October 05, 2010 (boomark / email).