Post by cenydd on Aug 12, 2013 9:12:24 GMT
A judge has ordered a seven-month-old baby's parents to change his name from Messiah to Martin after they appeared before her in a dispute about the child's surname.
Instead, the pair were ordered to change the baby's first name, because, according to the judge, only one person earned the name Messiah, 'and that one person is Jesus Christ'.
According to WBIR Newport, the mother of the child, Jaleesa Martin, and his father couldn't agree on whose last name the boy should have, so they went before child support magistrate Lu Ann Ballew at Cocke County Chancery Court on Thursday to decide the matter.
However, Ballew took issue not with the baby's surname but his first: Messiah.
The baby's full name was officially Messiah DeShawn Martin, but Ballew told the baby's parents that they must change it to Martin DeShawn McCullough, which incorporates both mother and father's surnames but leaves out Messiah.
"The word Messiah is a title and it's a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ," Judge Ballew told WBIR.
Instead, the pair were ordered to change the baby's first name, because, according to the judge, only one person earned the name Messiah, 'and that one person is Jesus Christ'.
According to WBIR Newport, the mother of the child, Jaleesa Martin, and his father couldn't agree on whose last name the boy should have, so they went before child support magistrate Lu Ann Ballew at Cocke County Chancery Court on Thursday to decide the matter.
However, Ballew took issue not with the baby's surname but his first: Messiah.
The baby's full name was officially Messiah DeShawn Martin, but Ballew told the baby's parents that they must change it to Martin DeShawn McCullough, which incorporates both mother and father's surnames but leaves out Messiah.
"The word Messiah is a title and it's a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ," Judge Ballew told WBIR.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2389673/Messiah-baby-changed-Tennessee-judge-orders-parents-change-sons-Martin.html
That seems to me like a pretty clear case of a Judge misusing their powers to impose something on the basis of their own personal beliefs, not on the basis of the law. I'm assuming that it is not actually illegal in Tennessee to name a child 'Messiah', so why is it any of the judge's business to interfere in that way? That wasn't what she was supposed to be passing judgement on at all anyway, and she's only supposed to pass judgement according to the law.
