Quick hit number five

Under the It Can't Be All Bad News heading is found the news from the Indianapolis Star for Wednesday that

[t]The Indiana Court of Appeals today upheld the rights of parents to expose their children to Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion.

An Indianapolis couple, both practicing Wiccans, got divorced in February 2004 and have shared custody of their only son. In issuing the final divorce order, the judge ruled that the parents had to shield the boy from any exposure to their religious beliefs as well as those of any other "nonmainstream" religion. In effect, he ordered the parents to make the boy a Christian. (No, he didn't say that but the chance of somebody in central Indiana growing up any other way, even in another "mainstream" religion, in the absence of parental guidance is less than nil. I've lived there, trust me. Put it this way: The Indy Star article found it necessary to say that Wiccans "do not worship Satan.")

However, in a unanimous decision, the appeals court said the judge was out of bounds. And good for them. Apparently, despite what the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals thinks, "freedom of religion" is not - at least not yet - limited to Judeo-Christianity.