The 9th Circuit in action. . . . . .
Posted on 11/03/2005 5:35:56 PM PST by dmanLA
November 3, 2005
Ninth Circuit on Slams Parental Rights
by Steve Jordahl
Court rules parents do not have exclusive rights to teach their children about sex. The Ninth Circuit Court of appeals has struck again with one of the most outrageous anti-family rulings to date. Faced with a case where parents in Palmdale, California objected to a questionnaire about sex their kids were given at school, the court ruled that parents do not have the right to be the exclusive providers of sex information to their kids. In writing the opinion for the three judge panel, Judge Stephen Reinhardt said "Parents have no due process or privacy rights to override the determination of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students." Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute.
"It's a complete trump card that the 9th Circuit has handed our public education with regards to children, and we're not talking about instruction dealing with academics, it has all to do with the morals and behavior of a child."
The questionnaire was given to children in elementary school. They were asked questions like how often they thought about having sex. Dacus says the ramifications of this decision could be wide and devastating.
"With regards to what public schools teach children, what they perhaps counsel the children, what they assist children to do with regard to their decision making."
Carrie Gordon Earll of Focus on the Family Action calls the decision "unconscionable."
"This case shines an even brighter light on the importance of what happens with the appointment of federal judges at the appeals level like the 9th Circuit and at the US Supreme Court."
Although she considers the decision a travesty, this may be the clarion call conservatives have been waiting for.
"If this doesn't wake American parents up to see what is at risk with an out of control, arrogant federal judiciary, I don't know what it would take."
She says the village may have finally superseded parents in raising children.
Support this effort to promote the family in the public policy arena.
The natural outcome of government schools.
Ninth Circuit on Slams Parental Rights
I guess they're having too much *ahem* ... medical ... marijauana out in California.
*rolls eyes* The 9th Circus strikes again.
Confirm Alito... NOW! Not in January.
ping this out tomorrow. Or late tonight.
It means the State owns your children.
We should do a cruise missile strike on the Ninth Level of Hell Circus. You know, preemption and all.
This confirms that the judge's idea of the "public" schools is that they should not be directed by the parents of the community they serve. Who pays for those schools, anyway? Are we gonna have to pass a LAW that specifies that parents can indeed "override the determination of the public schools"?
This is outrageous! Pukeage!
But after you have pulled your child out and found some other form of education for him, you can't stop paying for the pub(l)ic skool, because if you try that, they can take your house away.
And I very much hope to see more parents do just that.
As usual, there is a bit more to it than the stupid fundraising email puts up for your willing consumption.
First, the parents whose kids were involved all gave their consent. They were told the general content of the questions would be about sex and 'areas that would make your child uncomfortable.' Yet they CONSENTED. Fools.
Second, the Circus wasn't sitting en banc, only in a three-judge panel, and their ruling sounds a lot more reasonable than you'd think:
"Although the parents are legitimately concerned with the subject of sexuality, there is no constitutional reason to distinguish that concern from any of the countless moral, religious, or philosophical objections that parents might have to other decisions of the School District — whether those objections regard information concerning guns, violence, the military, gay marriage, racial equality, slavery, the dissection of animals, or the teaching of scientifically-validated theories of the origins of life. Schools cannot be expected to accommodate the personal, moral or religious concerns of every parent. Such an obligation would not only contravene the educational mission of the public schools, but also would be impossible to satisfy."
Is the objective to make every iffy subject one that schools must survey with parents first and allow an opt-out at any point? How do schools know that a subject is iffy, especially if parents are too stupid to realize that they're signing a permission slip putting their kids through something they as parents or kids may find objectionable. Considering just how nightmarish that kind of scenario would be to administer, given the wide oversensitivities of pressure groups on all ends of the political spectrum, I am coming around to the school administrators' basic position: if you don't like government schools, you ought not to send your kids there. Granted, you ought not to have to pay taxes for the damn schools, then, either, but once you've sent your kids to what passes for public education, you ought to know what you've done, and not expect to get Exeter-level education for 'free.'
The same objection we have to making a right to abortion up out of thin air should be applicable when pressure groups ask a judge to create a Constitutional right to have government schools teaching your preferred curriculum. The solution is not to have government schools teach your preferred curriculum, or even giving your kids the right to skip those classes you find objectionable. It's to not have !@#$%$!@#$ government schools in the first place!
Ping to 12.
Reason number #237 to home school, and to vote "no" on every bond issue or tax increase for state funded schools. Time to separate school (which has become a religious center for the promotion of secular state-worship) and state.
"One nation, under God", not "One (deified) State over the nation".
An insightful analysis.
Public education would transform overnight if parents were forced to sit down at the kitchen table and write checks directly for their children's education, by the quarter, instead of having the money disappear incrementally from their paychecks and then reappear magically in someone else's pocket.
The 9th Circuit in action. . . . . .
Thank you, Mr. Lacey.
I think your proposal regarding parents having to pay directly for schools could be equally useful if applied to government in general. Withholding, for example, is the first thing that should be 'reformed' right out of the tax structure. Let people see how much they're paying! Then unnecessary government will shrivel up quickly!
Yet that FDR-era holdover is sacred to all on the 'right' and left in government.
So my 5th grade 10 year old daughter (4th year homeschooler) says to me today, "Dad, I don't think I want to go to High School", and we spent the most of two hours planning her attendance at online schools, community college, and finally masters level programs at certain Universities so she can be a Teacher....
Homeschool, Homeschool, Homeschool......
If I showed her this article, she would be appalled. (10 years old)
I assume you have no concept of what morality is since you consider morality to comprise a part of the public school curriculum. Morality is not germane to public education!
Libertarians are known to be morally devoid -you take the cake!!!
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