The good news is that Rachel Bevilacqua (AKA Rev. Magdalen) regained custody of her son. The weird news is that, according to Modemac of the High Weirdness Project, Bevilacqua is "still the only SubGenius officially banned from keeping SubGenius materials in her home, where her innocent son might accidentally come across them and become corrupted into the corrupt, obscene, decadent SubGenius cult that got his Mom into trouble in the first place."
After nearly four years and $140,000 in legal costs, the SubGenius child custody case of Rachel Bevilacqua (Reverend Magdalen) has been dismissed. The end result is an anticlimax: She has custody of her son at last, and the status quo is maintained -- except that she is officially forbidden from keeping SubGenius materials in her home, in order to protect her son from J.R. "Bob" Dobbs.
No, really. When the initial order in Rachel's favor was handed down by Judge Adams (not Judge Punch) in January of 2007, it specified that she was allowed to keep SubGenius materials only in a special "office" area of her home, so as to prevent her son from having access to it. This order was never rescinded or nullified, and it has remained in effect throughout the various legal wranglings that took place thereafter. According to Rachel, the order remains in effect even now, and is included in the final judge's decision, which she will be making available online shortly.
Some might say that because only one person (Reverend Magdalen) is forbidden from keeping the Book of the SubGenius in her home, that doesn't make it a banned book. The idea of censorship is to use force to keep others from expressing ideas and beliefs, and exposing so-called "innocent children" to those beliefs. As such, this means that not only is Magdalen being censored -- so is her son. And so is everyone in the Church who supports her.
(Disclosure: I have been a card-carrying SubGenius reverend for 25 years and have contributed to Rachel's legal fund.)
SubGenius Reverend officially banned from keeping SubGenius materials in her home
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"Act like a dumbfuck and they'll treat you as an equal."
"They'll pay you to tell them what they really think."
-- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs
Bob must have a gig with Fox News.
Sooo, unless I misinterpreted the article, I could get in trouble for having a child AND a porn collection? Would I have to choose between the two? Harsh.
Nudity - sure.
Owning a dildo - sure.
Mocking religion - sure.
Mocking religion with explicit use of a dildo while nude and being photographed - well, I guess it depends on whether her son actually saw it, or pictures of it.
That such a nightmare could be inflicted on someone for trying to have a little harmless fun is unthinkable in a country founded in the desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That it has gone on for four years and that the insane overreach of the courts continues with the prohibition of certain books and materials even being kept in one's house to retain the right to parent one's child is deeply shocking and tragic. This woman's civil rights have been violated and her family damaged by fanatics who happen to have positions of power over her. I hope there is some redress for the savage invasion of her life that was done in the name of child protection.
Hey, it's a small price to pay for Eternal Salvation or triple your money back!
so would this be like a Christian being forbidden to keep a copy of the Bible in their home, unless it was under lock and key so that their child couldn't get to it?
this sucks. sorry Magdalen!!
Rather than treating this as a case of censorship, perhaps we would all do well to use it as a stepping stone. The judge here has set a precedent. All parents should now be banned from indoctrinating their children into a lives of self denial and delusion.
From reading the Sub-Genius wikipedia entry, it looks like her custody is provisional due to the fact that dad is pending a drunk driving hearing. Is there some other news out there that says she now has permanent custody?
Keneke- forget her son, where can I see it?
And yet there are millions of children being "corrupted" by homes with Bibles, Books of Latter Day Saints, Korans, Where's Waldo, and Catcher in the Rye.
*shakes head*
(dunno how apropos it is, but my captcha for this is "scammed invasion")
Pshah -- you SubGenii are all goddess-less infidels, anyway.
ALL HAIL DISCORDIA.
Someone please send the judge all the dirty sections of the Bible and ask him to make sure it's locked up in all custody cases.
Sounds like a slippery slope to me. There is that zombie worshiping flesh eating cult with it's book of dangerous ideas that has harmed a lot of children and adults. Maybe some judge would like to ban that one as well
That whole court case was ridiculous. I've seen photos of the type of "x-rated" parties that SubGenius throws - they're pretty tame and honestly actually look like they'd be kinda boring if you weren't already good friends with everyone there. I've seen much more gratuitous sexuality at Mardi Gras, but of course a judge wouldn't have offense over that, it's Catholic-based.
I'm slightly reminded of the Mike Diana case, in which he was forbidden to draw anything, or to have any of his own drawings, regardless of the subject matter, although the cases are more different than similar.
May she now enjoy, a little more slack.
All Praise Bob!
Been following this for a while. Good to see that it's going somewhere.
Praise "Bob".
Hail Connie.
Worship Zontar.
Regardless of what one might think about the judge's order, this is not censorship. The mother has not been prohibited from talking about, viewing, buying, or owning anything. She has only been prohibited from showing something to her minor child. She is still free to participate in the activity anytime she wants, just not in the presence of a child. Is that right or wrong? That can be debated, but it's not First Amendment censorship.
What has happened here is that two parents have decided they cannot get along or come to an agreement about something relating to their son. When parents cannot agree (for whatever reason and over whatever issue), our judicial system then decides what is in the "best interest" of the children. (I will withhold comment on what "best interest" means/doesn't mean, as the crucial point here is that the intra-family disagreement between mom and dad means that someone else decides).
It's noteworthy that this is NOT a case brought by the state or human services; it's a case that ended up in court because one of the parents filed it. So it's not a case of "big brother" unilaterally reaching into our private home life.
I am not affiliated with this case in any manner, just a long time bb reader. I don't know either parent or anything more than what's on the post or linked to it. But as a practicing family law attorney, this case is a great example of what I tell my clients all the time: "You need to figure out how to agree and compromise when it comes to your children. Because if you don't, the court gets to decide and no one will be happy with what the court decides."
the story is interesting and i sympathize, but why did you leave out the details of why she was in court in the first place? it took me looking through three linked articles before i stumbled upon it. please be sure to include all the relevant details in future articles.
I personally know Rachel, have played at X-Day and I've got to tell you, she is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. Not only that, but X-Day is pretty tame. It's like a cross between a Star Trek convention, costume party and Jon Waters movie. As for sexual deviant behavior... I'm sure Burning Man is far more "dangerous".
Since the restrictions on keeping these materials in the house are placed on the mother, and since the materials themselves are not (as far as I know - not really familiar with the books) age-restricted materials: couldn't the son himself own copies which could be kept in the open without violating these restrictions?
In other news, scientologists are allowed to raise their kids indoctrinating them to insane beliefs, until they become totally nuts to the point they kill their own family or die because of lack of medical treatments.
I don't get it... did she take her child to X-day or what? Did she force him to have sex with her or others? What's the problem? Did she show him porn pictures? Is it just because she's involved with that parody church?
(I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, these are serious questions, I couldn't find anywhere what exactly caused the problem. At least I don't understand what does...)
Then on the other side, if I'm not a religious believer, could I separate a believer from his children for having a bible? It's not for under 18.
Oh, thank goodness... I hadn't heard about this case before, but I just went and read Rachel's blog post from 2007 and it's heartbreaking to say the least.
I'm glad she's regained custody of her son, but it's ridiculous how much pain they put her through just to reach this point.
Did you read the above posts?
That was a really helpful comment by the family law dude (or dudette). It really clears up for me the way the courts think about issues like this.
I don't think I like it one bit, however. If the parents can't agree then the court will decide? How the heck did we come to that? What is wrong with, "the parents can't agree and this is entirely outside the purview of the courts."? Will the courts dictate that a child be raised either Catholic or Jewish, for example, if a pair of divorced parents from those two religious traditions can't agree?
That seems to be what our lawyer friend is saying, and it disturbs me deeply.
I bet you could take it to the supreme court and have the judge fired / Disbarred(spelling?) Posibly sue the judge and the state.
This is a clear case of Religious Persecution.
Some of my best friends (and my wife) are lawyers, but this is fucked. It's like a judge forbidding you to let your kids read MAD. Assholes.
1. If other members of the group have children, and have not had them forcibly removed from their homes on account of their membership in that group, then the case should never have even gone to court.
2. So. How long does Ms. Bevilacqua have to keep the material away from her son? Will that order preclude her from naming him as Executor of her Estate?
@Anonymous Family Law Attorney: Could it be considered a case of "big brother" unilaterally reaching into our private home life if the State of New York were paying all the Father's Legal Bills? Since the only reason the Father has been able to keep up this harassment for THREE YEARS is that the state of New York has been footing the bill from the initial filings until this final dismissal. That sounds a lot like State Funded Persecution to me.
Attacking this from a censorship angle is barking up the wrong tree. The portion of the First Amendment that this violates is the Exercise Clause - "...nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Whether you agree with it or not, the freedom to freely exercise one's religion includes the ability to bring up one's children within that religion, under our current legal attitude towards custody over children.
It's also a violation of the Establishment Clause, insofar as other religious groups - Christians, Muslims, etc. - are not prohibited from allowing minors to view their scriptural materials, even though said materials include content - murder, rape, genocide, torture, etc. - which is just as potentially 'objectionable' or 'obscene' as the content of SubGenius religious materials.
Thank you for posting this. I had not heard these particular details of the ruling. This still feels far from over though.
I don't know if an exercise claim would work here, since the courts have determined you need to establish that the belief allegedly burdened by the government is central to the religion, and also that the belief allegedly burdened is sincerely held.
Since she has repeatedly stated that SubGenious is a joke rather than a religion, and that she is actually a Christian, I think a challenge on those grounds would be over before it started.
I really wish our constitution talked less about religion and more about ideas, to paraphrase Chris Rock/Kevin Smith.
Keep all religions away from kids!
I think it should be illegal to join a religion before adulthood.
We require people to be a certain age to drink, vote, get married, or go to war. Make the minimum age 16, or 18..
This seems prefectly fine to me. If the parents are divorced, and one parent has a problem with the child participating in a particular activity (religious or otherwise) then it's within the court's rights to tell the parent not to participate in that activity around the child. If my wife and I get divorced and she's trying to turn my kid into a Scientologist, I certainly hope I have to right to make her keep her Scientology crap away from my kid, and free herself from her repressed memories of Xenu or wtfever in her own private time.