Amanda’s mother has had primary custody over her daughter since she and Amanda’s father divorced 10 years ago. The father has had long-standing complaints about the effect of home-schooling on his daughter’s “socialization,” even though Amanda has already taken classes at the school and participated in extracurricular activities. But the order appears to be based on the guardian ad litem’s worry about Amanda’s “rigidity on faith.” The order also accepts the same guardian’s conclusion that Amanda belongs in a public school because she “would be best served by exposure to different points of view at a time in her life when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief and behavior and cooperation in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs.”

In a state whose motto is “Live Free or Die,” this is an extraordinary line of reasoning. Just how extraordinary might best be appreciated by contemplating the opposite scenario: the reaction that would ensue were a court to order a young girl out of a public school and into an evangelical one so she might gain “exposure” to other “systems of belief.”