A judge in Tennessee has ruled a couple can’t name their newborn baby Messiah and ordered the infant’s name changed to Martin.
“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,” Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew .
We’d be interested in seeing the law that backs up Ballew’s decision, but in any case, we wonder what she would say to Latino parents planning to name their baby Jesús.
It was obviously a ridiculous decision. In the United States, short of an outright obscenity, parents should be allowed to name their child whatever they want. This is a country where we sing about “a boy named Sue.”
Will some kids be subject to ridicule by dint of an ill-chosen name their parents picked? Possibly, but they can always change it later in life.
