Name Change...

A judge in Tennessee has told the parents of a 7 month old baby boy that they must change its first name to “Martin” instead of the name the parents wanted.

My first reaction upon reading that was to wonder how it could be possible for a judge in the U.S. to even have that power.  It doesn't seem to me that a judge should be able to do that – if a parent wants to assign some particular name to their child, why should a judge be able to overrule them?

Then I read the name the parents had chosen: “Messiah”.  Ah, ha!  They must have offended a Christian judge, I thought – and the article confirms that.  This seems like particularly egregious overreach on the part of the judge, imposing her Christian sensibilities on the parents, who may or may not be Christian themselves.  My guess is that if the parent's fight the judge's order, they will prevail.

But what to do with a judge that exhibits such blatantly inappropriate prejudice and partiality?  Get her out of there!  She doesn't belong in a position with such responsibility to be impartial with respect to faith...