Judges have extremely wide latitude in child custody and child support cases. Literally their only guiding principle is "the best interests of the child." They can make just about any ruling they can imagine if they can cover it under that justification.
If this judge had said "that's ridiculous, this child will be mocked in school and suffer psychological trauma, for the best interest of the child the name must be changed," then this would be a non-issue. The ruling would almost certainly be upheld.
But in this case the judge explicitly referred to her own personal religious beliefs in a clear violation of the First Amendment. There's at least a
chance the appeal will revert the name.
Unless the appellate judge uses the justification above...
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings
Nihil supernum
™ Version 4.2
