Court Opinion

ID: 9667538
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:48:35.181005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:38.753806
License: Public Domain

J. T. Kallman, J.
(concurring). While at first *800blush this would appear to be simply a matter of whether or not a father should pay child support, it is not. Because of the most unusual facts, this case is in reality a First Amendment issue. The issue is simply: May this Court order a man to get a job and pay child support which will force him to leave his religious order and renounce his religious vows? The lower court said yes; I disagree. I would reverse the lower court and order the case remanded to the trial court to determine the amount of child support.
The plaintiff and the defendant were married in 1965 while plaintiff was in a seminary. Both were involved with the Order Ecumenical during the summers of 1968, 1969, and 1971. Plaintiff served as pastor of a church in 1970 and was ordained an elder in 1972. In 1973, he was pastor of the Com-stock Methodist Church. The parties were divorced on May 28, 1974, one of the reasons being plaintiff’s decision to join the Order Ecumenical. No support order was entered against either party. The plaintiff joined the Ecumenical Institute, or Order Ecumenical, in September, 1974, as an intern. Plaintiff was awarded custody of both minor children in the original judgment of divorce.
Subsequent to the divorce, plaintiff, after being assigned to the Order Ecumenical, lived with the children in Chicago, Illinois, Dallas, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona. During this period, both children lived with the father without receiving any support from the mother. While living in Phoenix in 1977, the plaintiff voluntarily allowed his son to move to Detroit to live with his mother. Thus, for three years plaintiff had to furnish all the love, care, and support for the two children. Thereafter, plaintiff lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New York. All moves were at the direction of his superiors.
*801In 1979, plaintiff was assigned to Calcutta, India, and custody of the minor daughter was voluntarily placed with the mother by the father. So for five to six years, plaintiff has had to furnish all the love, care, and support for the minor daughter. Does this sound like a father who is dodging his responsibilities? I would say not.
The mother, who paid no support for up to six years, seeks support from her ex-husband now that she must provide all the love, care, and support for the two children.
The mother is employed, receiving a take-home pay of $916 per month. The father will receive a stipend of $12 per month while living in Calcutta, India. The lower court has substituted its religious judgment in the guise of determining the father’s responsibility to care for his children, thus ordering the father indirectly to leave his chosen field, that of legitimate and established religious service. The contra argument is that, while in the religious order, he, at the direction of the order, was employed at a secular job, thereby establishing that he was able to earn up to $14,000 a year, and that he can do so again. The record also reveals that those monies earned were all turned over to the Order Ecumenical. The judicial reasoning is that because he can earn money he should get a secular job and pay his child support or be held in contempt.
Immediately, the plaintiff is placed between a rock and a hard place: either he must disobey his religious order, or he must disobey the court. If he violates his religious vows and the orders of his superiors, he will probably be censured and removed from the order; if he violates the court’s order, he goes to jail for up to one year. Clearly, either choice is detrimental to the plaintiff. The *802court’s order clearly infringes on a person’s freedom of choice to follow the dictates of his conscience in serving God. There is nothing more precious or sacred than protecting our citizens from the dictates of governmental orders, including those of the courts, which infringe on their right of religious freedom, as stated in our First Amendment.
The United States Constitution, Am I, provides in pertinent part: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof * * (Emphasis added.)
The Michigan Constitution, 1963, art 1, § 4, provides in pertinent part:
"Every person shall be at liberty to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. * * * the civil and political rights, privileges and capacities of no person shall be diminished or enlarged on account of his religious belief.” (Emphasis added.)
A parent has a statutory duty to support his child. MCL 722.3; MSA 25.244(3). After an initial determination of the duty to support following a divorce, under MCL 552.23; MSA 25.103, modification of a support order is possible.
"After a judgment for alimony or other allowance, for either party and children, or any of them, and also after a judgment for the appointment of trustees, to receive and hold any property for the use of either party or children as before provided the court may, from time to time, on the petition of either of the parties, revise and alter such judgment, respecting the amount of such alimony or allowance and the payment thereof, and also respecting the appropriation and payment of the principal and income of the property so held in trust, and may make any judgment respecting *803any of the matters which such court might have made in the original suit.” MCL 552.28; MSA 25.106.
The last part of the Michigan constitutional provision is especially significant: "The civil * * * rights * * * and capacities of no person shall be diminished * * * on account of his religious belief.” (Emphasis added.) In this case the circuit judge diminished the plaintiff’s civil right to serve his God through the religious Order Ecumenical by ordering him to work in a secular job to pay child support. Const 1963, art 1, § 4, states: "Every person shall be at liberty to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.”
The decision in this case clearly nullified this constitutional provision for David Dunn. He has lost his liberty (the court ordered him to get a secular job) and his conscience (the court has substituted its conscience for his). To permit this decision to stand makes a mockery out of the religious freedom clauses.
This Court has struggled with a man’s right to serve God versus a father’s obligation to raise his children. A man should be able to do both. A man should do both. A man who does not support his children violates Michigan law, Ebel v Brown, 70 Mich App 705, 709; 246 NW2d 379 (1976), and God’s law. What then? Does God rule that men must violate this law to fulfill one of His other laws? Forbid! The two Biblical laws: (1) to serve God, and (2) to care for his children, are in complete harmony for the second is accomplished in the first. The vows of obedience and poverty are a religious organization’s determination and not God’s. God does not require such oaths to serve Him. If a man or woman in his heart and conscience feels that this is God’s will for his life, St. Paul admonishes that he should remain single as *804this would be best for his life. Unfortunately, we cannot manufacture the facts. The facts are generally set in concrete, as they are here, before we get them. It is the facts that are generally difficult to apply to the law. Such is the case here.
I note with emphasis that this record shows clearly no pretext, bad faith, or fraud by this plaintiff to avoid child support payments. Those facts are critical and pivotal in deciding this case. Wisconsin v Yoder, 406 US 205; 92 S Ct 1526; 32 L Ed 2d 15 (1972). The plaintiff here, when ordered to pay child support, did not quit his job or refuse to work or join a religious order, in contrast with the defendant in Pencovic v Pencovic, 45 Cal 2d 97; 287 P2d 501 (1955). There is no bad faith or willful disregard of his obligations on this record. Plaintiff had been serving his God for over five years as a member of Order Ecumenical. For any court to arbitrarily disregard this, plus the many years the plaintiff alone cared for the children without any help from the defendant, clearly is an abuse of discretion as well as a violation of the plaintiff’s religious freedom.
No statute, not even Michigan’s, nor the common law can take precedence over a guaranteed constitutional right, i.e., the free exercise of one’s religion. In this case, the plaintiff has clearly and beyond a reasonable doubt shown that his religious vows and beliefs are sincerely held and that such vows and beliefs were not developed suddenly to avoid child support payments. The case of McKeever v McKeever, 36 Or App 19; 583 P2d 30 (1978), ordered the husband to pay child support, and thereafter he resigned from remunerative employment to take on a nonpaying promotional position with an evangelical order. Such is not the case here. Plaintiff is clearly in accord with both *805the constitution, the statutes, and common law of this state. He has done no wrong. He is following his conscience as permitted by our constitution. While his conscience may not be in accord with the trial judge’s, this does not deprive him of his constitutional safeguards.
If we were to construe the statutory and common law as requiring plaintiff to abandon his religious vocation to support his children, that reading would clash with art 1, § 4, of the Michigan Constitution. We observe, however, that whenever possible the courts must construe the law so as to render it constitutional. Osborn v Charlevoix Circuit Judge, 114 Mich 655, 660; 72 NW 982 (1897). I would therefore find that the statutory law imposes no obligation on plaintiff to abandon his vocation to support his children, who may be adequately cared for by the mother.
The positions of law and the legal principles enunciated by both sides in this case are correct. However, that law as applied to the facts in this case is what causes great difficulty. In fact, one can logically accept the applications of the law to the facts by both sides. It is here where this Court must begin to apply legal maxims to the law and facts in striving to apply which law governs. Principles of construction necessitate that one read the provisions involved, and, if one can draw a logical understanding from the four corners of the provisions, that governs. The ordinary, common understanding of words shall also govern. As one struggles with these and other principles inherent in the law, a titanic struggle of the mind begins. One must apply these principles so that where statutes conflict with our constitution (people’s rights), the latter controls.
In this case, one is tempted to say that the *806religious order, instead of plaintiffs children, benefits from the plaintiffs commitment so it should pay the $27 weekly sum for the plaintiff. But under our laws, and in this case, this cannot be done; the order is not a party to this suit and therefore is not bound by an order of this Court. Nevertheless, one wonders why support is not part of the religious commitment with the Order Ecumenical when it benefits so greatly from plaintiffs commitment and zeal.
I concur that the case should be reversed and remanded.