Jan 14, 2009
Adolf Hitler Taken Into State Custody
Heath, Adolf, and Deborah Campbell
In mid-December of last year, parents Heath and Deborah Campbell, 35 and 25 respectively, went to a New Jersey ShopRite to get a cake for their son’s third birthday. For the third time in three years, the bakery personnel refused the Campbells’ request that their son’s full name, Adolf Hitler Campbell, be printed on the cake. ShopRite spokeswoman Karen Meleta said at the time that Heath Campbell had in previous years requested cakes with swastikas; these requests were similarly denied because, Meleta said, ShopRite “reserve[s] the right not to print anything on the cake that we deem to be inappropriate.” The Campbells ended up at a Pennsylvania Wal-Mart, where their request was obliged without complaint.
Today comes news that Adolf and his younger siblings, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell (just shy of two years old) and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell (seven months old), have been taken from their parents:
Three New Jersey siblings whose names have Nazi connotations have been placed in state custody, police said. The children, ranging in age from 3 to under 1, were removed from their home Friday. [...]
State workers didn’t tell police why the children were taken, police Sgt. John Harris said.
A spokeswoman for the state Division of Youth and Family Services, Kate Bernyk, said she would not comment on any specific case, but she said the state would not remove children from a home simply because of their names.
A family court hearing is scheduled for Thursday. Court officials said the matter is sealed and they could not release information about what might be decided at the hearing.
While I understand the need for child services to keep the particular details of the investigation under wraps, if the children are not returned to the Campbells after Thursday’s hearing, the office must act quickly to inform the public of the countours of the state’s substantive case against the couple. If no new information is presented by the state, this case will continue to appear, at least on its face, to be about freedom of speech. All the Campbells have done, as far as we know, is eccentrically express their especially virulent racism. However repugnant, that is not a crime. Without additional justification for separating the children from their parents, the case will be easily exploited by domestic anarchist movements, especially Aryan ones, as proof of the government’s contempt for privacy and fundamental hypocrisy. We should trust the state that such a justification exists, but that trust must be vindicated very soon; if it is not, the state will be legitimately open to such charges. Repugnance, however fiercely or communally felt, does not constitute grounds for separating parents from their children.