A dangerous precedent

Two parents from Anderson, Ind., are petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a custody case involving their teenager who claims to be transgender. As the Indy Star reports, “Mary and Jeremy Cox are devout Christians who believe children should be raised based on their sex at birth.” The Cox’s sixteen-year-old son, A.C., now claims to be a transgender female.

In early 2021, the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS) investigated the Cox family because the parents were reportedly not using A.C.’s preferred pronouns. The agency, offering a more accepting environment, was granted custody by the trial court on the basis that A.C.’s physical and mental health was endangered by his parents because of verbal and emotional abuse.

A.C.’s parents were non-affirming and had allegedly employed “rude and demeaning language,” claimed DCS. As a result,” added the court, A.C. “had thoughts of self-harm,” was not “mentally and/or emotionally safe in the home,” and suffered from anorexia. He had been pulled from school and his therapy had been discontinued by his parents, which was initially characterized by DCS as neglect of A.C.’s medical needs. Post-removal, the Coxes were ordered by the Madison County judge to not speak of their religious beliefs regarding sex and gender during their visitation with A.C.

By October 2021, DCS had dropped their allegations of abuse and neglect against the Coxes and downgraded the justification for removal to concerns surrounding A.C.’s anorexia and thoughts of self-harm (i.e., “the child substantially endangers the child’s own health”). The parents did not challenge this admission from A.C., meaning that they did not disagree on the record that the eating disorder and proclivity for self-harm were real.

In fact, A.C.’s eating disorder had worsened during his time in state custody. The judge nevertheless insisted that A.C. would not return to his parents’ custody because A.C.’s eating disorder was a result of “self-isolation” that would “reoccur” at home, a bizarre rationale given that A.C.’s condition had not improved in state custody.

The Coxes appealed. That appellate court found that the Coxes’ constitutional parental and religious rights were not violated. “Parents have the right to exercise their religious beliefs, but they do not have the right to exercise them in a manner that causes physical or emotional harm to Child.” The court found a clear “nexus” between the parents opposition to A.C.’s “lifestyle” and his anorexia.

Since the allegations of abuse and neglect had been dropped and the parents did not challenge A.C.’s own admissions regarding anorexia and mental instability, the appellate court held that the issue was moot, and the trial court’s decision was not clearly erroneous. State custody would continue even without substantiations of abuse and neglect.

The Indiana State Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.

The precedent being set by the Indiana courts is dangerous. Effectively, parental fitness is being assessed and removal justified—even without a “particularized finding of neglect and abuse”—when gender dysphoric teenagers live in a Christian home that is not transgender “affirming.”

To be clear, a court can decide that the best interest of the child necessitates removal from the home—without “wrongdoing on the part of either parent”—if the cited endangerment to the child’s health is due to that environment.

Again, because the state was not terminating the Coxes’ constitutional parental rights, clear and convincing evidence of harm was not necessary. Rather, a legal limbo can be entered wherein custody of A.C. is maintained by the state without permanently severing the child-parent connection. This allows the state to assume parental authority while ostensibly working toward “reunification.” All that is required is a preponderance of evidence—i.e., “expert” testimony—that removal is required. The danger to parental rights should be clear.

The real question—the one no court wants to answer—should be the moral and metaphysical one. That is, whether the adolescent behavior in question is good or bad, true or false, and, therefore, whether parents are within their rights to discourage and correct said behavior. A substantive vision of the good must control.

No court would, for example, remove a child from parental custody because of not affirming a crack cocaine addiction. That would be considered a proper exercise of parental authority to curb a harmful and immoral lifestyle.

But sexual and gender identities have received sacred sanction from our culture. The latest advances of the sexual revolution have equipped courts to conceive of parental correction of deviant behavior as intolerant and harmful. Transgenderism is becoming engrained in public reason, the established morality.

The Indiana case is a blank check for the sexual revolution to deconstruct the natural family and sell it for parts.

Once the moral inputs are corrupted within a legal regime, procedure cannot save it. Law needs morality and metaphysics. It will always get it from somewhere, including the meaning of human flourishing. The lamentable case of the Coxes in Indiana reminds us of this once again. If it can happen in the Hoosier Midwest it can happen anywhere.