Lawsuit: Massachusetts DCF

This one could be added to a Facepalm Friday. I hope that they do not win.

“A Fitchburg couple will ask the state’s highest court to decide whether the state Department of Children & Families unfairly rejected them as foster parents because their religious beliefs support the use of “domestic corporal punishment” to discipline their own children.

The state Supreme Judicial Court on Sept. 10 will hear arguments from attorney David Bodanza, representing Gregory and Melanie Magazu. The Magazus will argue that the DCF improperly denied the couple’s request to become foster/pre-adoptive parents because of their religious beliefs, which condone spanking their children as a form of discipline.

“The case raises important issues concerning foster parenting in the commonwealth,” Bodanza said. “There is no prohibition on a foster parent using corporal punishment on their own biological children.”

The Magazus told DCF they would not use physical punishment on a foster child, but they refused to spare the rod with their own children, girls ages 7 and 9, and a baby. DCF rejected their application.

“DCF is in desperate need of strong families to care for the foster children of Massachusetts. To deny a family who agrees to care for DCF kids by DCF’s guidelines because that family will not alter how they properly parent their own children is going too far,” Gregory Magazu said.

He added, “We believe there are many strong families in Massachusetts who don’t even consider adoption or foster care through the state because they know that their Christian beliefs will be judged and rejected.

In the end it is the children stuck in the middle who suffer for it.”

The couple initially filed a lawsuit in Worcester Superior Court against DCF, alleging the agency was discriminating against the couple because of their religious beliefs. The judge sided with DCF in July 2014 and dismissed the case.

In his July 23, 2013, decision, Worcester Superior Court Judge Brian Davis wrote that the children in DCF’s care have been exposed to an array of neglect and abuse.

“Being aware of physical punishment in their pre-adoptive home could well trigger the very trauma the placement was intended to mitigate,” Davis wrote.

In 2012 the Magazus applied through the state Department of Children and Family’s adoption unit, for a “Family Resource License.”

This would allow them to become foster/pre-adoptive parents. The couple’s intent was to eventually adopt one or more of the foster child placed in their care, Bodanza wrote.

In assessing the parents for permanent adoption, the parents must agree to “a prohibition against the use of any form of corporal punishment by foster/pre-adoptive parents upon any foster child.”

DCF’s rational: “The majority of children that come into (DCF) care have a trauma history, so that any indication that corporal punishment would be used would further traumatize the child placed from the department.”

DCF said the Magazus were honest in admitting their belief that “physical discipline (of children) is appropriate when there is a continuous pattern of disobedience.”

The Magazus are members of the Grace Reformation Bible Church, which meets in Princeton. They say they use spanking on the buttocks to discipline their children, citing Proverbs 13:24: “Whoever spared the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”

The Magazus agreed not to use physical punishment on any foster child, but won’t stop using it on their own children or on any child they adopted.

In denying their application in February 2013, DCF wrote that in assessing the suitability of applicants the agency looks at the “overall function of the family and the family suitability to meet the expectations of the DCF.”

The Magazus acknowledged the DCF’s assessment of their family was “fair” but disagreed with the potential adverse effects that their continued use of corporal punishment will have on their own children or any foster children placed in their care.

The couple stated they do not physically discipline children in front of other children. And they “promised” to be “very sensitive” to the needs of any child in their home, according to court documents.

The American Psychological Association wrote in 2002 that a large-scale analysis of studies conducted by psychologist Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff found “strong associations” between corporal punishment and all 11 child behaviors and experiences.

Ten of the associations were negative such as with increased child aggression and antisocial behavior. The single desirable association was between corporal punishment and increased immediate compliance on the part of the child.”

 

Couple: We spank, so state blocked us as foster parents
G [Lowell Sun 8/2/15 by Lisa Redmond]

REFORM Puzzle Piece