Thank you for a well reasoned answer. I understand and appreciate your view. My only concern in all this is how does one who believes as I and many others do mesh having children taught an opposing view within the classroom. Is the only option taking the children out of school altogether? Won't that ostracize them from their peers?
Don't get me wrong. I understand why you feel the way you do and probably even agree with it to an extent, however it seems that a child is being requested to choose the State over his parents to be successful within class. If we're talking third year biology perhaps I can see the issue more clearly. But if we're talking about needing a semester of biology to graduate from high school I'm not sure I see the point of bringing up either POV if it's going to cause such concern. I had to take a semester in 9th grade. LOL, the only thing I remember was cutting up a frog and talking about flower pollenation.
It takes no thought, no understanding of anything, no sense of caring, no intellect whatsoever to make a baby. It has always amazed me that of all the babies born from nutsy parents how many turn out not so bad.
But the notion that parents are to be in control of every aspect of a child is nuts. We all know unfit parents. Society via the police or the church organizations always have had the right to intervene--either to protect the child from his/her parents or to protect society. Unfortunately, church organizations often enough proved unreliable and exploited kids themselves. I think it unfortunate that we now have only police to protect kids--it used to be that the community of neighbors and teachers would bring correction to families (parents and kids) who violated norms.
But the idea that parents should have complete control over their kids' upbringing and education is not a realistic position, given the number of cults and aberrant parents.