James Dobson A federal appeals court's dismissal of a lawsuit by parents outraged that a school district surveyed their elementary school-age children about sex is "frightening," says family advocate James Dobson.
"I think that's one of the most frightening examples of judicial tyranny that has come down," said Dobson, founder and head of Focus on the Family, on his daily radio broadcast.
Dobson called the 9th Circuit "the most out-of-control, imperious, unelected, unaccountable court in the country."
The court determined there is "no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children."
"What parents do not have is the right to raise their own children," Dobson said.
He noted the ruling concerned not only sex education but the whole curriculum.
"I mean the parents either have the responsibility to raise their own children or they don't," said Dobson.
The three-judge panel of the full court further ruled that parents "have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."
Six parents sued the Palmdale, Calif., School District after finding out their kids had been asked a series of sexual questions in class. They included asking the children about the frequency of:
Touching my private parts too much
Thinking about having sex
Thinking about touching other people's private parts
Thinking about sex when I don't want to
Washing myself because I feel dirty on the inside
Not trusting people because they might want sex
Getting scared or upset when I think about sex
Having sex feelings in my body
Can't stop thinking about sex
Getting upset when people talk about sex Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote the unanimous opinion for the court [pdf file]. Referring to the fact the parents lost their case at the district-court level, Reinhardt wrote:
We agree [with the previous ruling], and hold that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children, either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it. We also hold that parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students. Finally, we hold that the defendants' actions were rationally related to a legitimate state purpose. [emphasis Reinhardt's].
-------------------- Spend Word For Word With Me And I Shall Make Your Wit Bankrupt. Posts: 1326 | From: Here | Registered: Oct 2005
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I say the people got exactly what they wanted, it is been headed this way for 40 to 50 years, and not many of us have done much about it. If this continues you probably will see the day that you have the kids, government and school will raise them. I have fought these kind of things long enough, now it's another generation's turn. Hope you have better luck that I did.
Posts: 280 | From: w.sacto.ca. u.s.a. | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I sure hope this current momentum can be stopped... If not then you are right... mothers will give birth to children and will never see them again. I'm not a big history buff, maybe glass couuld answer this but. Has there ever been a society that was taken over by the courts and not by a dictator?
-------------------- Spend Word For Word With Me And I Shall Make Your Wit Bankrupt. Posts: 1326 | From: Here | Registered: Oct 2005
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Tex As long as the village has common sense.I don't see much of that now a days. Use to be kid beaters,wife beaters were taken out behind the barn.
Posts: 280 | From: w.sacto.ca. u.s.a. | Registered: Feb 2004
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Any ruling that says the parents have no say over what the school teaches kids is flawed. We the people fund these schools. It is that government has developed into its own entity that is of concern. By the people for the people is no longer an accurate description. There are laws inplace to deal with the criminally inclined parents... Should we really punish the good parents?
-------------------- Spend Word For Word With Me And I Shall Make Your Wit Bankrupt. Posts: 1326 | From: Here | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Someone needs to recall that the Indiana legislature once passed a bill and sent it to the Governer for his signature to make the the number pi be three.
The reason it first became a "cause" in the Legislature was that one of them was an accountant and insisted it would make book keeping way easier and there would be less chance for error, since pi, as things stood without the legislature acting, isn't even a rational number. In the course of considering such a bill, the Legislature discovered that parents heavily favored the idea too, since that would make helping their offspring with homework much easier. The Governor was on a fishing trip when the bill finally passed, but had said he would sign such a bill upon his return.
Fortunately, some wiser head made it to where the Governor was fishing and explained that no mater how much parents would like it or how much less work it would impose on CPAs, it simply wasn't true and passing a bill requiring it to be three, and thus to teach children in school pi is some rational number was itself not rational.
Now, for those of you that don't know, pi is that number which is the ratio if the circumference of a circle devided by its diameter and it is natural law, not man made law that determines its value.
Now to the piont of this. There are many things, subjects, ideas, and so on, that cannot be changed and dare not be ignored by society that some parents may wish to be taught differently or not taught in schools. But the children are not there to be indoctrinated into believing as their parents do or as anyone else does. They are there to learn how gather, assemble, and weigh information and use that to make their own decisions!
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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Kids should be taught HOW to think,NOT what to think,that is one job teachers and parents should do.We in this country have chased fun to hard and to long.We are about to find out the cost.
Posts: 280 | From: w.sacto.ca. u.s.a. | Registered: Feb 2004
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Someone needs to check thier stories before trying to pass them off as accurate.
The Indiana Legislature never passed a bill concerning the value of pi.
The Indiana House passed House Bill 246 which was an offer by a mathmetician for his theoretical value of pi to be used by the State of Indiana royalty free. He would then be able to collect royalties from the rest of the nation.
It was not presented by an accountant. Parents input was never asked for or received. It was killed in the Senate. It was never sent to the Governor.
posted
A schools purpose is to educate, not indoctrinate.
Looking at the series of questions, I appears to be a roundabout way of discovering if the child is being sexually abused. Kids that age are rarely, if ever thinking about sex. If they are, it is because of questions of this nature being asked of them. Because our society is being more "permissive" about sex in the media, 4th and 5th graders are probably starting to be somewhat aware of sex, some to a greater degree than others.
Indoctrination does have historical examples. Hitler worked very hard to turn the youth of Germany into adults who would follow authority without question. This included sex. Production of babies outweighed the importance of marriage. The various communist doctrines follow a similar theme, encouraging kids to turn in their parents for any form of rebellion against the government.
Parents always have the option of home schooling if they are uncomfortable with the school boards curriculum. The school boards however do need to answer to the parents when it comes to the content of the curriculum. Something of this nature should have been presented to the parents first, not done without their knowledge.
It would have been here, not every state acts as California does.
Posts: 559 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Listen, when my kids were growing up, the schools had gone overboard a bit; I had to spend a bit more time than I cared to in order to enforce the principle that the parents are in charge...took a few trips to the schoolhouse, but got it straightened it out without admin folks or schoolboard, lol...
posted
My oldest had a teacher that refused them to use phonics or the sounding out of "hard" words.
They were supposed to look at the word, look at the words around it and then guess at what they word sounded like. She would actually punish them if she caught them sounding it out.
And they wonder why kids can't read in high school.
My kids used phonics whether the teacher allowed them to or not.
They do teach the first stages of sex ed in the 5th grade here. They had a parents meeting a few weeks before to go over the program. Out of a class of probably 150 kids, about 20 parents showed up. Showed the general apathy parents show toward their kids educations. None of the parents that attended had any objections to the program.
Posts: 559 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Looking back, I came to realize that what the schools really meant by parents "participating" was that the parents dutifull attend the PTA meetings and dutifully accept and sanction whatever the schools announced was good.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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