The ONLY question is whether he is a capable of raising his children safely and properly.,

His racial view, his interpretation of history, his political incorrectness – are simply not issues. They are raised by people who have other agendas, but not the best interests of the family or the child.

If ‘we” the broad population, can dictate who is a fit parent based on their beliefs, then I fear for America. because what is to stop the Baptists from saying the Jews are not fit parents…. or any other minority being picked on by the mob?

I have no love for nazis – my grandparents were slaughtered in Germany. But in this case, this family has my support. Their beliefs may be odious and offensive to me, but I would be very worried about the courts deciding who my family can be.

Honestly, I’m sure other families take much worse care of their children than this guy would. Sure, they have fucked up beliefs, but a lot of parents are bad too, and if we went after all of them then the adoption system would be overrun in a day.

I agree with @elbanditoroso. Their beliefs are repulsive to me but I highly doubt it would be in the child’s best interest to be removed from the house of his biological and rightful guardians. The foster care system is a living hell and that’s likely where he would end up.

But I also must say that the father is a freaking idiot to show up to the court hearing wearing his Nazi uniform. facepalm

Really old news.
Should he get custody/chose those names/had kids in the first place…blah, blah, blah.
The answer to all three is…probably not.

Custody decisions should be made on the ability of a parent to care for and love a child not the parents’ political views.

I agree the views and beliefs are utter crap, plus I feel sorry for the kid named Adolf Hitler. But it has to be said, and already has, there are families out there who seriously abuse or neglect their children. Those should be taken care of first.

In a custody battle situation, I absolutely think being a neo-Nazi should be grounds for denying custody. Yes, I think raising a child in hate is abuse. But then, I’m a Canadian. We don’t believe that “free speech” is something that should be protected at any cost. We believe that there is such a thing as “hate speech”, and that it should be punishable under law. I am just fine with that.

@Symbeline Sure, if it were possible to line up all the cases of abuse, and take care of the most needy children first, that would be great. But unfortunately, that’s not possible. We need to go on a case-by-case basis. Is this the worst instance of an abusive parent? Heck no. It doesn’t mean that nothing should be done for these children.

@glacial Sure, if it were possible to line up all the cases of abuse, and take care of the most needy children first, that would be great. But unfortunately, that’s not possible.

I don’t think it’s that impossible. Unfortunately, abused and neglected children have that whole see no evil hear no evil thing going on in society. A neo nazi is much easier to pinpoint because he stands out, much more than otherwise seemingly normal families who treat their kids like ass. He’s shooting himself in the foot by calling one of the kids Hitler and running around with a nazi uniform.
I agree that there is such a thing as hate speech, but one does not have to be a nazi to have it, and raise their kids with it. I’m sure this happens all the time. Racist/anti homosexual/women are inferior idea based parents filling their kids’ heads with crap. If something is to be done to protect the kids from that nazi on the grounds of his beliefs, then all right, cool, but then he shouldn’t be singled out. As such, my point stands. I’d concentrate more on kids who are at physical risk from their parents. There’s so much bullshit in the world and so many crazy views, you’ll never be able to hide from it all. Physical abuse and neglect though, I personally think are a much higher concern than warped views, which many people have, anyways. I do grant, there is cause for concern when your father is the founder of some dumbass white power order, though.

@Symbeline I’m actually agreeing with you, but pointing out that the judge in this case doesn’t have the luxury of saying “I can’t make a ruling on this because there are kids in more serious situations.” He has to make a decision about what to do for these kids. As to being singled out – again, it comes back to the same thing. The judge still needs to make a decision on this case. If anyone is doing the singling out here, it’s the media, who love nothing more than a man in uniform. :/

Yeah, I was gonna mention the media issue myself; everyone likes a witch for the burning, or some such thing. And I’m not disagreeing about what the judge has to do. He’s got a case and has to deal with it. It’s just that why this became a case in the first place when other kids are in great need of help is beyond me.

@glacial said it.

The fact that there are other worse cases of (very) bad parenting says nothing about this one.

Washing one’s hands with other people’s dirt doesnt make them clean.

You’d have to look at why he lost custody rights in the first place. If it’s because he wears silly uniforms and has given his children odd and offensive names that isn’t a good enough reason.

@glacial, Freedom of speech exists to protect hate speech since love speech needs no such protection.

I read that the kids were removed from the home because there was evidence of domestic abuse. If every child was removed from their home because of domestic abuse, there would be a hell of a lot more children in the foster care system.
I believe that the kids were taken away because of their awful names and because of their parents beliefs.

I don’t believe that any child should be raised in an environment filled with hate. On the other hand, I don’t think that this guy should be judged solely on his beliefs or his choice of
names.

The judges decision should be based only on this guys ability to be a good parent.

I do not envy the judge at all.

they should not be allowed to see the child.

Why did they allow him to put those names on the birth certificates?

Ten years ago I would had sided with the parents here, as a former staunch libertarian. Now I would say fuck the parents and their so-called rights, and I’m being serious here. I’ve seen children taken from their parents for far less evil reasons than those in this case. In fact I feel that the state takes children away from their parents for reasons that are far less dangerous to the emotional health of their children than what these neo-nazis are programming into them. Another thing that I consider here is that the children are not getting the choice to decide whether or not they want to be brainwashed or exposed to this dangerous agenda.

I look at it this way, a child can be taken from their parents if they spank them or smoke weed, but what I find ironic is that many who feel that the latter reasons are justifiable grounds to deny a parent/s custody of their children will side with the neo-nazis rights here to brainwash their children with hate agenda. I suppose that if there truly was an objective basis on the grounds of free speech than maybe I would side with the nazi wannabes here, but in theory there are no objective reasons. In fact what the state already considers a constitutionally protected right vs a criminal act is already highly subjective in itself. I know I’m wrong legally here, but I’m not going to loose sleep if the hatemongers don’t get to keep their children.

Goebbels loved his children very much until he killed them all.

I think he needs to undergo a thorough psych evaluation and in-home evaluation.

I sincerely doubt he would pass either.

I’m really torn on this one. In a custody battle involving one parent who is a neo-Nazi and another who isn’t, and all other things being equal, I’d certainly award custody to the non-neo-Nazi.

In a situation where both parents have shitty beliefs but are otherwise decent parents, I’d hate to take the kids away from them. The beliefs are absolutely bad for the children, but removing them from their parents may be even worse.

I feel like there should be an alternative solution, maybe one that involves the parent(s) retaining custody but requires continued supervision and perhaps psychological treatment for the whole family. Would such a thing be workable?

On a side note, I’m starting to see the value of prohibiting parents from naming their children any old thing they want to…

The conservative right in the U.S denigrates women on a fairly regular basis—if not directly then indirectly—and still gets away with it.

@sparrowfeed
They shouldn’t have (custody over) children either, I guess.