Dahlia Lithwick writes about the disturbing child custody battle playing out in Illinois headlines. There, Joseph Reyes called in TV cameras to document taking his young daughter to Catholic mass, in apparent violation of a court order requiring him not to introduce religious views during visitation that depart from her Jewish heritage. Can restraining orders in such cases limit freedoms we would otherwise consider covered by the First Amendment?
I polled family lawyers as to how often they had come across an order like Judge Jordan's. Some said it's uncommon; others disagreed. But one thing is clear: family courts interfere with constitutional freedoms all the time. A family-court judge infringes on your right to free speech when he bars you from speaking ill of your ex-husband in front on the kids. She can prevent you from interstate travel if you seek to move your child away from your ex. The Bill of Rights isn't the last word in divorce proceedings, but when a court restrains fundamental constitutional freedoms, like speech, travel, or religion, it's usually for an important reason: the best interest of your child. This is the interest we hear about least in the Reyes case, amid the fulminating over parental rights.
