Reprogramming Rifqa Bary to a Muslim Ideology While in Foster Care Does Not Restore Her Family

The objective of child foster care is to allow parents of a family to rehabilitate themselves to a point where their natural children kept in foster care for their safety can be safely reunited with the family. It would seem then that in the case of Rifqa Bary, the 17 year old convert from Islam to Christianity who fled to Florida in fear of her life and who has since been relocated to Ohio state foster care, that the Bary parents would be undergoing counseling and management for the harm their daughter fears from them.

Rather, the reverse is in full swing in Ohio, as the state has ordered and provided Muslim counseling to Rifqa in some quite dramatic ways. The child in foster care is undergoing rehabilitation – reprogramming in Islam. There are no reports that her family is undergoing any rehabilitation. Rifqa has been assigned a psychologist, who is a Muslim as required by CAIR, the Council on American and Islamic Relations, the organization supporting the Bary family. An imam is available to meet with her daily to reinforce the Muslim faith. She is isolated from Christian friends, who are being prosecuted for befriending her. Recently, the CAIR lawyer for Rifqa’s parents “asked the court to hold her in contempt to force her to attend counseling sessions with a Muslim counselor.” The Christmas eve article by Pamela Geller in the American Thinker explains the dramatic details. {Read the article here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/the_prosecution_of_Rifqa_Bary.html (Jan. 4, 2009).} The family court denied this contempt request, and has thus far refused to prosecute Rifqa for complaints her family and their religious community have brought against her. This judicial action is commendable, and the court should be prepared to handle continued similar requests.

Rifqa will not be restored to a family who has been rehabilitated - rather, in many ways she may be being reprogrammed by the Islamic community courtesy of the State of Ohio’s foster care system. This is not traditional family reunification in any stretch of the foster care objective.

Considering a reverse scenario brings clarity to these circumstances. If Rifqa had converted from a Christian family to become a Muslim, she would never be forced to have a Christian psychologist or a Christian counselor, and her family would indeed be required to be rehabilitated toward religious sensitivity in the goal of reunification. Rifqa’s first amendment rights to religious freedom would be of utmost importance in that circumstance. Since she has found freedom in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, however, she has been sometimes treated like the abuser, rather than the abused fearing for her life.

In fact, Rifqa’s fears of becoming the victim of an apostate killing are much more real than most would wish to imagine. There is little to no disagreement among imams and clerics of Islam that require a holy jihad against infidels (non-believers in Islam), agreeing that killing an infidel assures one of a place in heaven. Therefore, followers have been commanded to kill everyone who is not Islamic, being the foundation for apostate killings in Sharia law. This is the very basis of Rifqa’s fears. It is difficult to imagine the current Pope commanding all Catholics to kill all non-Catholics, or to imagine Rick Warren commanding the killing of non-evangelicals – to be guaranteed a place in heaven.

It seems equally difficult to be friends or family with someone who has been commanded to kill you because you believe in a different faith than theirs.

The salient point becomes whether a family court should reunify a child with a family whose religious community commands her death. Jesus Christ commands that His followers love their enemies because they are assured a place in heaven based on His death for them – not based on a command to kill. No clearer illustration could be offered than the RIfqa Bary saga. Her time in foster care is providing vivid evidence of the truth of her fears. Reprogramming her to Islam in Ohio’s foster care system is not going to restore the Bary family. May the Ohio family court continue to be mindful of the goals of their judicial and social welfare system.