When Do You Draw the Line?

Readers may recall a few weeks ago I had written about a family in New Jersey that ran into a flap at their local supermarket when the supermarket's cake department refused to personalize the birthday cake for their child. The reason that was given was that the cake in question was for their child named Adolf Hitler. Now at the time, the issue I had was that I felt that the parents of this child were going to unnecessarily subject their child to problems if not now but in the future. I still stand by that belief. I feel that if the kid keeps the name, who's to say that ten years from now if he's looking to get a job, don't you think any HR manager would think twice before making a decision on whether or not to hire someone named after the actual Hitler?

In my previous post and in a post I had written a long while ago (I think it was my second or third blog posting ever!) I had written about how sometimes parents don't seem to consider what the child would go through given what they are named. I remember when Gwyneth Paltrow's baby was born and she decided to name her Apple. I think it's fine and it's unusual but don't you think that later on kids being the unintentionally-insensitive way they are, would have a field day with such a name? So I can only imagine what kids would do to poor little Adolf. But now the state has stepped in and decided to take action. Whether it was due to public outcry or some other motivation, the state decided to take the kid and his siblings, one-year-old Joyce Lynn Aryan Nation Campbell and 8-month-old Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell into protective custody citing an unsafe environment for the kids to grow up in.

Now the Campbells believe that there's nothing wrong with the names they have given their children and while they profess to being all inclusive and not in the least racist, there is still some lingering doubt. But is it enough to warrant taking a family's children away in order to protect them? By all rights I believe the general law in the United States is that you can name a child anything you want as long as it is not a curseword. There again I doubt that any parent would want to name a child after a curse word but still. There are some unusual names out there among children but is it right to crack down on a family because the parents think there's nothing wrong in naming a child after the infamous German leader?

For obvious reasons the name is completely forbidden for even consideration in Germany along with Osama Bin Laden but freedom of expression is one thing that is highly valued in this country and some people take it to the extreme. Perhaps Campbell is looking to prove a point or make a martyr of himself by showing that the government truly is playing the part of big-brother in this case. Is it right for the state to deem a child to be in danger due to the fact that his or her name is highly controversial. It's very subjective but not an issue which doesn't have a profound impact on the way people approach a dilemma. Do you recall the flap over the fact that President-elect Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein? Had his family known then what it knows now it's quite likely that they could have named him Barack Morris Obama but that is neither here nor there.

The real question is whether or not the state has the right to take a child away from a family because of a name? According to all reports other than the name, there were no outward signs that the children were in danger. Sure they had strange names but then again they were too young to really understand the consequences of being named what they are. You can make the arguments both ways and say that the state was right and wrong in taking the children away. I don't think it was up to the state to judge on the basis of just the name to decide that the environment is unsafe. If it is then what about the numerous cases of kids living in families with known skinheads or members of the Ku Klux Klan? Aren't they in just as much if not more danger? It's a question of setting a standard that could eventually open up a messy can of worms and I don't think it's something the state of New Jersey's Child Protective Services has fully thought through.