Source: http://www.massachusetts-divorce.com/cases/Sagar-v-Sagar.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 14:09:39+00:00

Document:
GRASSO, J. In the course of contentious divorce proceedings between two devout Hindus, the husband moved the court for permission to perform a Hindu religious ritual, Chudakarana, [Note 1] upon the parties' young daughter. After a hearing, a Probate Court judge ordered that, "The religious ceremony known as Chudakarana shall not be performed on the minor child, until the child is of sufficient age to make that determination herself, absent a written agreement between the parties." On appeal from a divorce decree incorporating this order, the father maintains that the order violates his right to free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the Commonwealth. He also claims the judge erred in granting the wife physical custody over the recommendation of a guardian ad litem that no designation of a primary physical custodian should be made.
Their relationship was volatile and marred by numerous instances of the husband's physical and mental abuse of the wife. At various times, the husband threw things at the wife, hit her with a rolling pin, pulled her hair, chased her from their house, and burned her with a cigarette. He tore apart a book given her by her brother. The husband was very controlling. He would allow his wife to telephone her relatives only on birthdays and anniversaries; and the contents of the kitchen cabinets had to be arranged as he specified. He threatened to stop paying tuition for the wife's education should she fail to get straight A's. The husband made questionable transfers of marital assets and refused to comply with a court order to hold certain funds in escrow.
a. The husband's free exercise claim and the requirement of a sincere religious belief. The father claims that the right to insist upon performance of Chudakarana upon his child is protected under both State and Federal Constitutional provisions respecting free exercise of religion. The judge's decision appears to conclude that the husband's free exercise claim fails because it is not grounded in a sincerely held religious belief. An essential prerequisite to a free exercise claim is a sincerely held religious belief. See Dalli v. Board of Educ., 358 Mass. 753 , 758 (1971) ("If the beliefs be sincerely held they are entitled to the same protection as those more widely held by others"); Attorney Gen. v. Desilets, 418 Mass. 316 , 323 (1994) ( "Conduct motivated by sincerely held religious convictions will be recognized as the exercise of religion.") A court may not examine the truth behind a person's religious beliefs. See United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 86 (1943) ("Men may believe what they cannot prove. They may not be put to the proof of their religious doctrines or beliefs"). However, inquiry into the sincerity of a professed belief is constitutionally appropriate under both the First Amendment, see Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 216 (1972); and art. 2 of the Massachusetts Constitution. See Dalli v. Board of Educ., 358 Mass. at 758; Attorney Gen. v. Desilets, 418 Mass. at 329-330; Opinion of the Justices, 423 Mass. 1244 , 1246-1247 (1996).
b. The competing fundamental rights. Although the husband conceptualizes the probate judge's action as a State-imposed limitation on his own free exercise of religion, whether Chudakarana is performed upon the child implicates not only the husband's but also the wife's fundamental rights. These include the right to direct their daughter's upbringing and religious formation.
A court is justifiably loath to order a restriction on either parent's fundamental rights to free exercise of religion and to determine the child's religious upbringing and is constitutionally limited in doing so unless there is a compelling State interest such as preventing demonstrable physical or psychological harm to the child. See Blixt v. Blixt, 437 Mass. at 655-657, 669. Put differently, when parents' religious views or practices conflict and cannot mutually coexist, the State may not intervene to vindicate one parent's fundamental rights to the exclusion of the other parent's rights unless a compelling State interest, such as physical or psychological harm, is shown. See Kendall v. Kendall, 426 Mass. at 249-250; Blixt v. Blixt, 437 Mass. at 656.
However, the State must not sit idly by in the absence of proof by one parent of a compelling interest that justifies restricting the other parent's competing and irreconcilable fundamental rights. The State has a compelling interest in adjudicating disputes between parents who seek the impairment of each other's fundamental liberty interest in child rearing. See Blixt v. Blixt, 437 Mass. at 652, 669. This compelling interest requires an accommodation that "intrudes least on the religious inclinations of [either] parent and is . . . compatible with the health of the child." Felton v. Felton, 383 Mass at 235. State action such as this that infringes on a fundamental constitutional right is to be examined under a strict scrutiny formula requiring (1) a compelling State interest, and (2) action narrowly tailored to further that interest. Blixt v. Blixt, 437 Mass. at 655-656.
In sum, the evidence as to the impact of performing, or not performing, Chudakarana on the child was insufficient either way to have justified an order restricting either parent's fundamental rights. At such a juncture, the appropriate recourse was an accommodation that intruded least upon both parents' religious inclinations and, at the same time, was compatible with the child's health and well being. The challenged order represents such an accommodation.

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