L 81. NO 1 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1986 A MAGAZINE OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM LIBERTY JanuarylFebruary, 1986 SHELLYAs TOLD TO JANET LEIGH paid, and we would be willing even to adopt her. Finally We could give love, support and convinced of our sincerity, he agreed to sign adoption papers. stability. But because of our Her mother, however, was hostile. She believed we were "aberrant" lifestyle, the court said part of a plot to relieve the father of obligations to care for Shelly. But she, too, gave us a letter when she was convinced we couldn't adopt Shelly. we were sincerely interested in her daughter's welfare. Only when we had filed a petition with the court did we a homosexual or a lesbian a fit foster parent? It learn that the mother had changed her mind. She had written seems so in some states today. In most cases, the caseworker stating that adoption would make things "too however, one must be of good character, have a easy for the father. He should have to pay for what he did." stable (and conventional) marriage, and be able to Still we refused to give up. And at last we came before Is offer the foster child both love and support. But Judge Casey to present our case. To our surprise, when the increasingly, aberrant lifestyles do not seem to disqualify one preliminaries were finished, he told us he had already made to be a foster parent. With one exception—one cannot be up his mind. "too religious." To be religious may not disqualify, but to be "But, Your Honor," our attorney protested, "the case has too religious certainly can. My wife and I know. So does not been heard!" The judge was adamant. The case was over Shelly,* a slim, gray-eyed, 14-year-old with a touch of before it had begun. Our petition for Shelly was denied. freckles and a sad smile. She wanted to be our daughter. The A few days later I received a letter from the judge, telling judge said No. Our home was too religious! us why he had decided against us. I read it in disbelief. For Shelly's father had "fallen in love" with another man's the first time I realized the penalty of taking one's religion wife. His affair broke up two homes. Consequently, he seriously. Our home, the judge said, was "too religious"! married the "other woman," and Shelly's mother married Neither the judge nor the caseworker had visited our home. another man. They had asked no questions regarding our religious beliefs Shelly found neither home compatible. She ran away and or practices. They knew only that I was a Seventh-day one midnight arrived in Los Angeles. When a strange man Adventist employed by a Seventh-day Adventist medical began following her, she hailed a taxi and asked to be taken to school. And that was enough, in their opinion, to disqualify the police station. That is how she became a ward of the us as foster or adoptive parents! court. Later the judge asked that we return his letter. We could I lived near Los Angeles, where I was custodian understand why he wanted it back. It provided grounds for superintendent of a medical school. I learned of Shelly from further legal action. But, fortunately for the judge, our foster parents who were leaving the area. Would my wife and religion got in the way of that course. The Lord says, I be interested in raising her? After a visit the decision was "Vengeance is mine." We felt it was not fitting that we mutual: She would like to live with us and we would like to attempt to impugn the motives or actions of a judge. We have her. We went to see her caseworker. could ask only that the Lord place his case on the agenda of a To our surprise, the caseworker showed a barely Higher Court. We returned the letter. concealed hostility. No, we could not have Shelly. No My wife and I saw Shelly after the trial. We were not reason. Period. permitted to speak to her. She waved from across the When we told Shelly the decision, she put her arms around courthouse yard. We learned later that Shelly had been us and told us how much she had wanted to live with us. It placed in a girls' home. There was little discipline there; the was then that I decided to go to court. girls were permitted unsupervised visits with boyfriends. An attorney advised me to get written statements from And of course there was little or no religion. Shelly, her parents, and grandparents, indicating their A few days ago we got further word about Shelly. ± willingness for us to take her. Her grandmother readily She is pregnant. 4J consented, but her father was suspicious. Were we taking her only because we were being paid? No, we were not being * Shelly is a pseudonum. LIBERTY IS PUBLISHED BIMONTHLY AND COPYRIGHTED D 1985 BY THE REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSN,. 55 WEST OAK RIDGE DRIVE, HAGERSTOWN, MARYLAND 21740. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: US86.75 PER YEAR, SINGLE COPY: USS1.50. PRICE MAY VARY WHERE NATIONAL CURRENCIES ARE DIFFERENT. VOL. 81, NO. I, JANUARY-FEBRUARY. 1986. POSTMASTER: ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED, ILLUSTRATION BY DANA VERKOUTEREN 3 COVER ILLUSTRATION BY JEFFREY DEVER LIBERTY lig if ft fi I • BY CLIFFORD GOLDSTEIN T g ii ; LL III i 4 ILLUSTRATION BY ROSEMARY COVEY January/February, 1986 nder the cover of night vandals nally, only adult Jewish males paid the sion "became so great that complete separa- spray-paint hate across a syna- fiscus judaicus; eventually, every Jew, male tion had to be achieved." 9 The book of gogue wall. Swastickas, anti- or female, from 3 to 62, was forced to drop Acts records the hostility of the Jews toward Semitic slogans, curses— coins into the royal coffers. their countrymen who believed in Jesus, crude blemishes, like numbers After the Bar Kochba revolt, the Jews such as Paul, whom they accused of Utatooed on a prisoner's arm. were forbidden, under threat of death, to undermining the law. To keep Jewish When the sun rises, the mayor utters a enter Jerusalem. Hadrian outlawed Juda- Christians out of the synagogue, Rabban sympathetic shibboleth, the police ask ism, the study of the Torah, and Sabbath- Gamaliel II (c. A.D. 90) added a "prayer questions, the reporter scribbles on his pad, keeping. The period became known to the against the heretics" to the liturgy. Because and the rabbi grinds his teeth. Jews as"the era of religious persecution:" no one was allowed to avoid reciting the And Sunday morning, Christians on their While the imperial armies used swords prayer, which cursed Jewish Christians, the way to church lament the deed; the pastor, against the Jews, the Greek and Roman follower of Jesus, unwilling to recite it, was who has seen the desecration, encourages intelligentsia used words. Cicero called exposed and expelled. During Bar the congregation to "love thy neighbour"; Judaism a "barbaric superstition." 4 Sen- Kochba's rebellion, the Jewish Christians, and the church that evening votes to send a eca referred to Jews as an "accursed already considered traitors for abandoning letter of sympathy. Christian concern and race." 5 Petronius claimed that they wor- Jerusalem in A.D. 70, were persecuted by irony mingle in the gesture. None know shiped a pig-god. Plutarch thought that the the rebelling forces. that, in their weekly ritual of Sundaykeep- Jews kept Sabbath as a day to get drunk. Bar Kochba's rebellion caused a decisive ing, they have celebrated a day rooted in Pompeius Torgus claimed that the Jews break between Judaism and Christianity, hatred of the Jews. were descendants of lepers expelled from and it gave Christians added cause to Egypt and abstained from pork in remem- disassociate from the Jews. Until then, The Roots brance of their leprosy. These attacks, and Christians had hoped that the Jews would The pagan Romans hated the Jews the diatribes of Juvenal, Horace, Persius, collectively acknowledge Jesus as Messiah. because of Jewish rebellions throughout the Quintilian, Dio Cassius, and others accel- But when, influenced by the famous Rabbi empire. In A.D. 115 Jews revolted in erated the rush of Roman anti-Judaism. Akiba, multitudes of Jews proclaimed Bar Cyrene, Egypt, and Cyprus. More than Kochba Messiah, many Christians must 220,000 Greeks and Romans perished in Cannons to the Right of Them have seen this act as the final rejection. The Cyrene alone, according to Roman historian Caught in the crunch between Roman false Messiah's brutal persecution of Jewish Dio Cassius. After ruthlessly suppressing a imperialism and Jewish nationalism were Christians alienated Gentile Christians pre- revolt, the Romans would tighten their yoke the Christians. Because Christianity origin- viously sympathetic to the Jews. Although around the Jews: When General Martius ated in the land of the Jews, and because its Jews who kept their Hebrew traditions Turbo squashed the insurrection in Cyprus, early leaders and apostles were Jewish, its comprised the early church, in the following a new law forbade Jews, on the pain of holy writings Jewish, its God that of the decades increasing numbers of Gentile death, to disembark on the island. If Jews, and because its holy days, such as the converts lacked these traditions. Con- shipwrecked, they weren't even allowed to Sabbath and Easter (Passover), were cele- sidering Hadrian's prohibitions, they would drift to the beach.' brated at the same time as the Jewish be severely disadvantaged by following Under the leadership of Bar Kochba, who festivals, Christians were mistaken for them.