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A Tennessee judge who ordered a baby’s name changed from Messiah to Martin, saying the former was reserved for Jesus Christ, has been fired, court officials said on Tuesday.
Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew of Cocke County in eastern Tennessee last August ordered a boy’s first name changed over the objections of his parents when they appeared before her seeking to settle other issues.
O. Duane Slone, presiding judge of the state’s fourth judicial district, terminated Ballew’s appointment, effective last Friday, according to court documents.
Slone did not give a reason in his order, but Ballew had previously been cited by the Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct for an inappropriate religious bias. A hearing is scheduled for March 3.
Ballew could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
The board’s chair, Judge Chris Craft of Shelby County, said in a statement that the board still has jurisdiction over Ballew, even though she is no longer on the bench.
Craft wrote that it is the duty of the board to inquire into the “commission of any act calculated to reflect unfavorably upon the judiciary of the state.”
Both the mother, Jaleesa Martin, and the father, Jawaan McCullough, were insisting on their respective surnames for baby Messiah. Ballew instead threw out the child’s birth name and ordered the boy renamed Martin DeShawn McCullough.
“The word ‘messiah’ is a title, and it’s a title that has only been earned by one person, and that one person is Jesus Christ,” the magistrate told Tennessee television station WBIR at the time.
The parents appealed, and another judge held that Ballew’s ruling was unconstitutional.
Messiah was the 387th most popular name for boys born in the United States in 2012, based on applications for Social Security cards filed with the U.S. Social Security Administration.
In all, there were 762 applications for boys named Messiah in 2012, more than double the 368 applications made in 2011, the Social Security Administration said.
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LuAnn Ballew was rightfully fired, because there is no room for religious, or racial bias in the American judicial system. First, Ballew’s assertion that the name Messiah is a title only for Jesus is a Christian belief. Jews, Muslims and believers of other religions do not agree that Jesus is the Messiah. In the United States, the First Amendment prevents the government from establishing a state religion however Ballew’s decision was based on her own religion rather than law, and forced others to live by the rules of her religion. The fact that she was previously cited for religious bias suggests that Ballew habitually violated the First Amendment. Second, Ballew’s decision reeks of paternalistic racial bias. Judge Ballew is white but Messiah and his parents are black. Although some might claim that the situation is not racist acting as a “white savior” has significant precedence in the United States. Well-meaning white people have often attempted to save Black people from themselves. In this case, Ballew changed the baby’s first name even though neither parent wanted that change and claimed that she did it in the child’s best interest, because Christians in a Christian society would not like Messiah’s name, and would make his life difficult. Changing a name without the parents’ consent and claiming it’s for his own good is paternalistic, she felt she needed to save Messiah from his name. Although her justification did not reference race, I believe Ballew would have been less likely to rename a white baby born to a married couple because she would not have feared as much for that child in a Christian society. Even though she had good intentions. She took away the parents’ right to name their child and possibly would not have stripped those rights had the people involved been a different race. Ruling differently based on race is racial discrimination and is prohibited by the 14th Amendment. Judges who cannot enforce such foundational laws should not be judges.
