southchild

Today’s Washington Times reports on the growing trend of judges taking into account the smoking behavior of parents when deciding child custody cases. Here’s the link and an excerpt:

Anti-smoking activists who are driving cigarettes from public places across the country are now targeting private homes — especially those with children.

Their efforts so far have contributed to regulations in three states — Maine, Oklahoma and Vermont — forbidding foster parents from smoking around children. Parental smoking also has become a critical point in some child-custody cases, including ones in Virginia and Maryland.

In a highly publicized Virginia case, a judge barred Caroline County resident Tamara Silvius from smoking around her children as a condition for child visitation.

Mrs. Silvius, a waitress at a truck stop in Doswell, Va., calls herself “highly disappointed” with the court’s ruling.

“I’m an adult. Who is anybody to tell me I can’t smoke or drink?” she said in an interview yesterday.

Poor Mrs. Silvius. She’s so naive. She doesn’t appreciate that the do-gooders seek to rule every aspect of her life and that of her kids. Seriously, where does this intervention stop? Can a judge consider the children’s diet? television consumption? What about whether the household has a gun? Parent’s education?

Historically, the test for child custody in most states has been “the best interest of the child”, obviously a broad standard allowing the judge to consider many factors. But, as this trend illustrates, many judges in this country have no regard for self-regulation and discretion. They are more than willing to allow their preconceptions and prejudices to determine the outcome of serious decisions.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 16th, 2005 at 11:40 am and is filed under General, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.