LaGrange, USA - A judge will decide whether a teen will attend a Louisville Catholic high school after his divorced parents carried their disagreement over religion to family court.
Susan Bisig wants her son to attend St. Xavier High School. But her ex-husband, David Ryan, an atheist, has sued to keep his son out of a religious school.
St. Xavier is 14-year-old Michael's first choice.
The dispute is in Oldham County Family Court. Judge Tim Feeley says he will decide in the coming weeks where Michael will attend high school next year.
David Ryan says he has the state's Constitution on his side because it says no one can be "compelled to send his child to any school to which he may be conscientiously opposed."
Bisig said the transition would be easier to St. X, given that Michael has attended St. Aloysius, a Catholic school, since kindergarten.
"It's a natural progression, and I think he will thrive in that environment," she said. "And it is where he wants to be."
But Ryan said that Michael will be better off in a school without religious ties that promotes free inquiry, not "a certain belief system."
In court papers, Ryan has argued that "Any parochial school controlled by the Catholic Church will teach and attempt to indoctrinate my son into a belief system which I reject."
Whichever parent wins will pay Michael's tuition, Feeley said.
A therapist and a "parenting coordinator" appointed by the court both testified that Michael would do better at St. X, partly because he wants to go to that school.
Ryan and Bisig were married for eight years before they divorced in 1999, said Bisig's lawyer, Sandra Ragland.
Ryan objected to sending Michael to St. Aloysius, but Feeley told him then to take up the issue when the family was considering high schools.
Ryan's attorney is Ed Kagin, a northern Kentucky lawyer and national legal director for American Atheists, an advocacy group.
Bisig said that Michael toured several high schools before picking St. X.
"This is something he wants, and I definitely support it because it would be great for him," she said. "It is what is in his heart."