40 years ago: California Court of Appeals rules in favour of Moonies against parents

On April 11, 1977, a three-judge panel of the California State Court of Appeals ordered that five young adults be freed from the custody of their parents, who had opposed their membership in Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. The parents had charged that their children had been coerced into joining the cult, and had shown emotional and mental deterioration. The parents sough to "deprogam" their children from the Moonies' influence, while the cult's lawyers opposed the move on grounds of religious freedom. The appellate judges did not accept a lower court's ruling on March 24 that parents retained some rights over adult children, and ruled that custody could be granted only if a person was incompetent and unable to care for himself.