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The New Hampshire Supreme Court has heard arguments that a home-schooled youngster should attend a government-run school.

Brenda Voydatch had home-schooled her 11-year-old daughter from first- through fourth-grade. But the girl's father -- who is no longer married to the mother -- did not want her to be educated at home, and the dispute ended up in a lower court. Voydatch's attorney, John Anthony Simmons, an allied attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, says the court modified the child's school placement at the request of the father.

"And the rationale that it used was that the child [and the mother] had religious beliefs...that were abhorrent to the father and that essentially were too narrow," says Simmons, "and that those opinions needed to be corrected...."

Martin Kurowski, Amanda’s father, argued before the trial court that the strict Christian teachings she was receiving at home were socially isolating, not giving her the opportunity to work in diverse groups and confront other opinions. Voydatch used educational materials from Bob Jones University, a fundamental Christian college Greenville, S.C., but she also sent her daughter to classes such as art and gym at the public school in Meredith, N.H., the Associated Press reports.

“The court’s ruling puts all New Hampshire parents and children of faith at risk of losing their constitutional rights whenever one parent is simply willing to claim that a former spouse is too religiously rigid, and that rigidity affects the first parent’s relationship with their child,” says Voydatch’s brief, submitted before oral arguments Thursday.

Simmons said the father did not meet the requirements of a New Hampshire statute that requires there to be a defining of harm to the child in order for modification of the status quo, which in this case was the homeschooling of their daughter.

He said that in 2002 the couple followed a lower court order that required them to counsel with each other and decide on their daughter’s education. The couple divorced in 1999.

"The parties followed the [court] order and made a decision," Simmons told the court. "Once you make a decision, the fact that you later say, 'Well I want to do something different now,' doesn't change the fact that you already made a decision."

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I wonder if they'll appeal this and it gets overturned?