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The following article by ParentalRights.org board member Michael Smith originally appeared in the Washington Times on April 28, 2008. It can be read at the Washington Times website here.

It’s often said that California is a trendsetter. Ideas that begin in California have a habit of making their way across the country.

Currently, many families have been alarmed at the recent California Court of Appeal ruling that prohibits homeschooling unless the parent is a certified teacher.

In just 10 days, more than 250,000 people signed the Home School Legal Defense Association petition opposing this decision. Not all these families were homeschoolers. James Dobson of Focus on the Family says the ruling was an “all-out assault on the family.”

The good news is that the Court of Appeal has granted a request for a rehearing of its decision on homeschooling, which by law, automatically vacates the decision, meaning it’s no longer binding.

The court has solicited a number of public school establishment organizations to submit amicus briefs, including the California Superintendent of Public Instruction, the California Department of Education, the Los Angeles Unified School District, and three California teachers unions.

Although there is no guarantee the outcome will be different after the rehearing, The homeschool community welcomes the opportunity to file an amicus brief advocating that the court retain the current method of homeschooling in California through the private school exemption.

Just when things seemed to be settling down in California, on April 3, Assembly Bill 2943 was introduced by assembly member Sally Lieber. This bill would have the practical effect of making a noninjurious spanking with an object such as a ruler, folded newspaper or small paddle illegal in California. The bill is identical to Assembly Bill 755, which failed to pass the assembly last year. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a good overview with background and details on the California case. It is written by Chris Banescu and published on the Acton Institute’s website. Here is an excerpt:

The totalitarian impulses of the court were further evidenced by the arguments it used to justify its decision: “A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.” As someone who has lived and suffered under a communist regime (I grew up in Romania), the “good citizenship,” “patriotism,” and “loyalty to the state” justifications have struck a little too close to home. These were precisely the kinds of arguments the communist party used to broaden the power of the state, increase the leadership’s iron grip on the people, and justify just about every conceivable violation of human rights, restrictions on individual liberties, and abuses perpetrated by government officials.

Follow link to view video: Read the rest of this entry »

Less than two weeks ago, a California appeals court declared in In Re Rachel L. that the vast majority of parents in California may only choose between public and private school because they are unqualified to teach their children. Tens of thousands of children in California are currently homeschooled, but this fact was unconvincing for these three judges, who boldly proclaimed that “parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” unless they are certified by the state to teach.

In so ruling, the court declined to follow the Supreme Court’s 1972 decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder and its 2000 ruling in Troxel v. Granville, relying instead upon two antiquated lower-court decisions. The California court refused to recognize parental rights as fundamental rights (even though the Supreme Court did in Troxel), opting instead for the more lenient, pro-government standard of “reasonableness.” According to the court, homeschooling could not be a legitimate educational option because it would place “an unreasonable burden on the state to have to supervise each and every home in which a child was being educated.”

How do you like that? Read the rest of this entry »

You can read his column here on the recent California decision.

My favorite part of his column:

As our Founding Fathers swore to uphold these, so must we. Thomas Jefferson committed, “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” I know others would join me in rightly assuming that in our day “every” form of tyranny could also include publicly forced educational indoctrination. Friends, while you keep one eye on our national borders, you might keep the other on your state’s. If academic corruption is easily conceived in California, how long will it take to crawl to your state line?

 

My warning to such creeping companies of corruption is this: Best not to test Texas. If you thought we fought hard for the Alamo, wait until you see what we can do for academia. You can hide your sleaze behind No. 2 pencils, but our branding irons will find your tail sides.

“Every California child deserves a quality education and parents should have the right to decide what’s best for their children. Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children’s education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts and if the courts don’t protect parents’ rights then, as elected officials, we will.”

This is very good but somewhat contradictory. I wish that second sentence was not in the statement because it seems to say that parents have rights as long as the government clears it first. It is identical to the approach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in that parents are free to decide as long as it lines up with what the government has cleared as in the “best interest of the child.”

I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt considering how well stated it is in the first sentence.

That is what a California court recently said. Regrettably the Supreme Court of the United States might agree with that view. If the fundamental parental right was enumerated in the Constitution through a Parental Rights Amendment, we would not have rulings like this California case.

Sign the petition today and get your friends involved. We can’t wait until it is too late.

Two weeks ago, I had an opportunity to speak with Dr. James Dobson about the threat that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child poses to parental rights, particularly the right of parents to direct the education of their children. In retrospect, these warnings almost appear to have been prophetic. Read the rest of this entry »

Teaching Children about Homosexuality is in their “Best Interests”?

According to a press release by Amnesty International, the Lithuanian parliament is currently considering legislation that would ban the “propagation of homosexuality” to children in schools.

According to the authors of the amendment, “the propagation of a non-traditional sexual orientation and exposure to information containing positive coverage of homosexual relations may therefore cause negative consequences for the physical, mental and, first and foremost, moral development of minors.” Amnesty International, however, fears that the legislation infringes the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.

BRITAIN, LITHUANIA, AND THE “BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD”

The statute before the Lithuanian parliament is similar to an amendment that was passed by the United Kingdom in 1988, but was subsequently repealed in 2003 after the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child opined that the rule was contrary to the best interests of British children.

According to Amnesty International, Lithuania has a legal obligation to act “in the best interests of the child,” which includes “respecting the child’s right to be free from discrimination, including that based on sexual orientation or gender identity.”

SCHOOLS, HOMOSEXUALITY, AND PARENTAL RIGHTS

Unfortunately, the issue of teaching homosexuality in schools is not confined to outside the borders of the United States.

Read the rest of this entry »

In 1995, President Clinton signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), an international treaty which requires that all decisions regarding children - whether made by the government, the community, or the parents - should be decided based on the “best interests of the child.” According to Geraldine van Bueren, a principal drafter of the CRC, “best interests provides decision and policy makers with the authority to substitute their own decisions for either the child’s or the parents.”

Under the CRC, parental involvement essentially assumes secondary importance because the CRC places the primary responsibility on the state to ensure and protect the rights of children. Parents lose their ability to make decisions for their children, and surrender that authority to the government. Read the rest of this entry »