KARON “has love for the children and attempts to properly provide for them. However, her beliefs as a Jehovah’s Witness come first, and by her actions and beliefs she is jeopardizing the health, welfare and best interests of the children.”

This statement by a circuit court judge hit Karon like a thunderbolt. It meant that she had lost custody of her two small children​—one an 11-month-old infant. Her husband, who before their divorce had taunted, “It’s Jehovah’s Witnesses or me!” now had custody. Karon could see her girls only every other weekend.

“My lawyer had assured me that my children could not be taken away from me because of my religion but that I had to be proved an unfit mother,” explained Karon, a housewife in the state of Missouri, United States. “I was devastated.” And no wonder, since undisputed testimony was presented in court that she was a loving mother who ‘regularly spent quality time with her girls.’

To visit her girls, Karon now had to travel to a city a hundred miles [160 km] away. “Each time I left from the visits, my ex-husband’s parents, who were keeping the girls, literally had to drag them off my legs so that I could go,” recalled Karon. “They were kicking and screaming, ‘Why can’t we go home with you?’ There were times I had to pull over on the roadside on the way home because of my tears and pray that Jehovah give me strength.” Karon appealed to a higher court.

In a unanimous decision, the six judges of the Missouri Supreme Court gave her girls back to her. Appellate judge John Bardgett expressed the “firm conviction that the trial court was wrong” in concluding “that the members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion, as a class and because of the tenets of that faith, are unfit to have custody of children.”a

Children Prosper

Are children psychologically damaged by association with a minority group? In the case of Karon, mentioned earlier, the trial judge speculated that her daughters’ “development as productive citizens” and ‘adjustment to school and community’ would be hindered by being raised in their mother’s minority religion. Was he right? Consider the situation now ten years later.

The school report cards for the girls, now active Witnesses, speak loud and clear. Eleven-year old Monica’s card, which contained high academic marks, reported that her “Personal/​Social Development” was “satisfactory.” Her teacher wrote on the card: “Monica is a sweetheart and is very dependable. I’m glad she is in my class.” Karon’s other daughter, 13-year-old Shelly, received an award from the president of the United States for “Outstanding Academic Achievement.” She also was selected “Citizen of the Month” because of her good “personal relationships with staff and students, and good study habits.” Do these sound like maladjusted children?

[Picture on page 8]

Because of her religion, Karon was at first denied custody of her two daughters