Can This Really Be Happening in the America that I Love?

When I was a growing up, some things would have been no-brainers. In a divorce, uneless there was some evidence of gross misconduct, it was generally believed that children belonged with their mothers. (Yours truly believes that both parents are important to children.) Young ladies, even those who wore pants, were generally modest, and certainly didn't swear or attend R-rated movies.

I can't believe this is an issue, and in Alabama, the buckle of the Bible belt. After her divorce, a mother of a little girl converts to Christianity. The little girls' father, according to the New York Times, had nothing but "occasional visits" with his daughter. In 2006, for reasons unstated, the court gave primary custody to the father who had "occasional visits" earlier in the child's life.

Go figure.

The Times goes on:

In upholding the rulings of lower courts to grant primary custody to Mr. Mashburn, the Supreme Court of Alabama said the Sniders’s involvement in missionary work took Libby away from her extended family in Alabama. The Sniders are quietly, unapologetically fundamentalist. They believe that American culture, even conservative denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention, has drifted perilously far from biblical teachings. They attend a large Independent Baptist church in Madison, where the music, the sanctuary and the congregants are unadorned and old-fashioned.

Women wear skirts as a sign of modesty. They do not swim in mixed company. They eschew rock music and nearly all popular culture. They do not drink, smoke or swear.

I am inferring from the article that the child's grandparents (on her mother's side) disapprove of the family's faith, and use missionary work as fodder for court action. I grew up in an average town in the free-wheeling 1970s, and wore skirts about half the time, wasn't allowed to listen to popular music (disco at the time), and the male family members didn't smoke, drink or swear (we call it "cuss") around the women and children. It was common decency.

What was formerly common decency in the not-so-distant past is now "rabid fundamentalism." I don't get it.

To make matters worse, the little girl herself says:

“I’m more of my mom’s religion, and my dad sometimes talks bad about my mom,” she said. “He called it a cult, and it’s definitely not a cult. It kind of makes me mad sometimes. Maybe he thinks her religion may be bad for me, but I think mainly he doesn’t like my mom and is using that as an excuse

So, the clown who talks badly about the mother of his child is the good parent in this scenario? What is the world coming to? Would someone please enlighten me?