No Adapt, No Adopt

After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency ... a line on the application asked for the couple's religious affiliation. John Burke, an atheist, and his wife, a pantheist, left the line blank. Last year the Burkes presented their adopted son, David, now 31, with a baby sister, Eleanor Katherine, now 17 months, whom they acquired from the same East Orange agency.

Since the agency endorsed the adoption, the required final approval by a judge was expected to be pro forma. Instead, Superior Court Judge William Camarata raised the religious issue. In an extraordinary decision, Judge Camarata denied the Burkes' right to the child because of their lack of belief in a Supreme Being.

"No person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience."

-Time

First of all, Eleanor Katherine has "her" own conscience. And second of all, doesn't this mixed-up judge know his own goddamn Bible? If god had intended for all adopted children to practice the religion of the adopting parents, we never would have heard about Moses. Therefore no religion is just as good as ... well, it's better in fact.