A North Carolina judge has ordered a mother to stop homeschooling and send her children back to public school.

The judge could not even claim that the children were not being educated properly – indeed, he admitted that they had “thrived” under four years of homeschooling. (Outside testing had shown the children were up to two years in advance of their peers.) But they needed the “socialization” of public school, despite being involved in all sorts of out-of-the-home activities in sports and other clubs.

But the kicker: this ruling was part of a divorce proceeding, and came at the behest of the father, who acknowledges the divorce springs from his own adultery. But he doesn’t want the children homeschooled – in part, apparently, because he doesn’t want to pay for it.

This is the society we live in. Implicitly reward the adulterer with authority, rather than punish him. And interfere in the God-given authority of the innocent parent to direct the education of her own children.