RUTHFULLY YOURS

Last month, one-month-old Roxana was wrested at gunpoint from her mother Emily Yazdani’s breast by police and Child Protective Services (CPS) of Loudon County, Virginia. CPS placed the infant in a “foster to adopt” program before being returned to her parents after eight days. A few vigilant websites reported it, but mainstream media ignored this heartless snatching.

What did her parents do to warrant such an intervention? Nothing, says Roxana’s father Farzin Yazdani, an engineer and Navy veteran. CPS was acting on a false allegation of abuse filed by his ex-wife, with whom he is involved in a custody dispute over their five-year-old son. Her previous allegations that Yazdani was abusing their son had also resulted in separations that were later overturned.

While taking Roxana away, armed deputies said they were there “only to enforce.” But there was no warrant nor any specific charges—only CPS and police violating parental rights and riding roughshod over constitution-guaranteed due process. In actions faced by the Yazdanis, police withheld bodycam footage, and CPS rejected FOIA requests for its records.

Eventually, the abuse charges against Yazdani were dismissed. But despite no criminal record, he was handcuffed on one occasion, and, on another, watched helplessly as Roxana was torn from his wife. In a heartrending April 5 post on X, Yazdani called these actions “terror,” “psychological warfare,” and “government-sponsored child abuse.”

The Yazdanis aren’t the only victims of blatant state government interference with parental rights. False allegations triggered their ordeal. Other government actions are over ideology or religion, both of which the Constitution allows citizens the freedom to choose and follow. Some authorities, however, insist on dictating what citizens must think and believe.

Last month, Isael Rivera and Ruth Encarnacion of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, a homeschooling couple with five children, were arrested for—believe it or not—kidnapping their own children. The state’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) took the children, ages 10 years to nine months, into custody.

This is how events unfolded: In February, a pediatrician alerted DCF to the parents allegedly neglecting their nine-month-old baby, a contention that may have arisen because they refused to get the child vaccinated on religious grounds. Though Massachusetts allows exemption from vaccines based on faith doctrines, DCF insisted on acting.

On February 27, police and DCF went to the couple’s home to serve a summons for taking custody of the children. They found the house locked, but Rivera texted them to leave the summons in the mailbox; he said he would appear in court to answer it. When he failed to turn up in court on March 4, the police launched a manhunt.

The couple, afraid for their children’s safety, had fled to Texas, where they were arrested. The father is being held on a $200,000 bond; the mother spent a month in jail without her children before being released on bail. The couple faces five counts of kidnapping and has pleaded not guilty.

Their attorney, Kevin Larson, maintains there is no basis for the neglect charge or evidence of abuse. A pediatrician had found the children healthy. Larson says the summons was served on an ex parte order without due notice or process. The court order was not shown to the couple or their attorney. Larson says DCF overstepped its bounds.

Yet another case—that of Jeremy and Mary Cox of Indiana—relates to both religious belief and gender ideology. In 2021, the state’s Department of Child Services (DCS) investigated the Coxes for “abuse and neglect” of their 16-year-old son and took him away from them.

The boy had declared a female identity, and as staunch Catholics, the Coxes did not accept it. They believe, as they have a right to, that every human being, created in the image of God, is either male or female. As caring parents, they sought psychotherapy—the boy had also developed an eating disorder—and medical help for their son.

But DCS removed him from their home and placed him with a foster family that “affirmed” his gender orientation. During the restricted visits allowed to them, the Coxes were forbidden to speak to their child about religion or sexuality, topics most parents discuss with children. The boy’s eating disorder worsened during his stay with the foster family.

The Coxes fought back, all the way to the Supreme Court. A state investigation declared them “fit parents” and exonerated them of charges of abuse. However, in the trial and appellate courts, DCS claimed that the child was “more likely to have thoughts of self-harm and suicide at their home.” It said the Coxes erred in not using Indiana’s resources for parenting LGBTQ children.

Sadly, both the trial and the appellate courts upheld the child’s removal from the Coxes’ home. The appellate court criticized the Coxes for their views on transgenderism, saying, “The parents have the right to exercise their religious beliefs, but they do not have the right to exercise them in a manner that causes physical or emotional harm to the child.”

A year before the case reached the Supreme Court in 2024, the boy turned 18. Two crucial, formative years were spent away from his parents, in a foster home that did not seem to help him. “We love our son, and wanted to care for him, but the state of Indiana robbed us of that opportunity by taking him from our home,” the Coxes say.

In March last year, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear their petition. But their attorney, Joshua Hershberger, says they have achieved the goal of presenting “this fact pattern in front of SCOTUS as a real, growing threat to parental rights, freedom of religion, and free speech”—constitutional principles that are a cause, not just a case, that he will continue to fight for.

The Coxes—who believe they were acting in the best interest of their child—were overridden by a state ideology that arbitrarily champions gender transition over psychotherapy for gender confusion and depression. The way the case has played out, governments are being given explicit powers over the upbringing of children, influencing even their faith and ideology.

This belief in overriding government authority over sexuality emboldens states to introduce bills such as Colorado’s HB25-312, aka the Kelly Loving Act, that aim to punish those who challenge transgender ideology. The bill allows the government to remove children from the custody of their parents. It also bans gender-segregated dress codes and misgendering in public places.

Bills like these, administrative courts like the one in the Rivera-Encarnacion case, hastily imposed ex parte orders, and ideology-driven officials and judges who violate constitutional rights with impunity all represent attempts to strip parents of their right to raise children as they see fit. As Hershberger says, these attempts must be fought legally and culturally.

The fight will be difficult, for as Maureen Steel points out in a recent article in American Greatness, a multi-billion-dollar industry has sprung up around child protection departments, especially those purporting to help gender-confused children. Rather than aiding and trying to unite families, they are financially incentivized to sever family ties.

States receive funding for every child placed in foster care, plus bonuses when adoptions are finalized. Courts order fee-based psychotherapy and classes for parenting, anger management, gender confusion, and so on. Children are placed in facilities that charge by the hour. Foster parents are paid. The reward system keeps cases open instead of encouraging their resolution and family reunification.

Separating a child from his or her parents has long-term consequences, emotional and psychological, especially if a child is going through a crisis of faith or gender confusion. But the child welfare system ignores the wide-ranging negative impact. It has turned into a business that has nothing to do with protecting children. It’s high time we fought back to protect the integrity of the family from such intrusions.

If the family is doomed, society is doomed; if society is doomed, so is America.