Nolo’s Divorce, Custody & Family Law Blog

More on divorce and religion to add to earlier posts here and here. Last week, an Arkansas judge held a father in contempt of court after he began promoting his Mormon beliefs to the children. As reported in the Arkansas Morning News, the parents' divorce agreement states -- at the father's request -- that the children will be raised in the Protestant faith, and that neither parent will promote another religion. Nonetheless, the father and his new wife recently began involving the children in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the mother objected and asked the court to find him in contempt of the earlier order. The father argued that the restriction impaired his Constitutional right to freedom of speech, but the court held that the voluntary agreement was a valid contract that could be enforced by the mother.