will stay in Florida temporarily, though perhaps only briefly, and not with the family with which she had been staying:
A Florida judge said Monday that a teenage girl who ran away from her New Albany home over religious beliefs won’t immediately be returned to her parents.
The judge ruled that she will stay in Orlando and can have no contact with the Christian pastor’s family that she was staying with, Orlando television station WFTV reported.
A judge in Florida said Monday he plans to talk to a judge in Ohio to determine where the case of Rifqa Bary belongs.
Bary, 17, is the religious runaway who in July fled here from her home near Columbus, Ohio, because she believes her Muslim family has to kill her due to her conversion to Christianity.
Authorities in both states say there’s no credible threat against the girl. Her parents say they don’t want to hurt her….
The judge set mediation between the girl and her parents with attorneys for Oct. 9. He set a pretrial hearing for Oct. 13. If the case is shifted back to Ohio, he said, those dates would be made moot.
Thanks to Religion Clause for the pointer.