Monday, February 18, 2008

The continuing saga of David and Tonia Parker

As we reported last year - Back in 2005 Tonia and David Parker of Lexington, Massachusetts, were upset to find the public school giving their 5-year-old son books promoting gay families.

WorldNetDaily reports the latest:

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The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday agreed with a judge's decision last year that a school can expose children to contrary ideas without violating their parents' rights to exercise religious beliefs.
"Public schools," wrote Judge Sandra L. Lynch, "are not obliged to shield individual students from ideas which potentially are religiously offensive, particularly when the school imposes no requirement that the student agree with or affirm those ideas, or even participate in discussions about them."

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Like we said last year the fundamental issue here is how much latitude does the government have it exposing children to a variety of beliefs, and how much say do the parents have in deciding what their children are taught. Homosexually is a hot button for lots of people, but the bigger issue here is do parents have the right to tell schools not to teach certain topics. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court has said NO.

If you have watched the trends in public schools this will not be a surprise. Over the last hundred years the government has asserted more and more control over what children are taught.

The Parkers plan to take this to the Supreme Court. I'm afraid the Supreme Court will rule for the schools.


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Technorati tags: , David Parker, Tonia Parker, public school, public education, , ,

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yay, Supreme Court. Protecting the minorities in our country is good.

Henry Cate said...

This is not an issue of protecting minorities. Minorities were not being attacked. The problem here is the viewpoint of one group of minorities was being pushed, in government schools, supported by taxes.

I don't have a problem with minorities paying for ads in a newspaper to push their viewpoint. It is fine if they write books explaining their reasoning and logic. But it is wrong for them to use government schools to push their agenda.

The classic statue of justice is a blindfolded lady with scales. Historically the object of the law in the United States was to protect the rights of everyone.

Unfortunately the trend in the United States has been that the viewpoints of minorities has come to count way more than the majority.

Andrew said...

Instead you'd rather be able to use government institutions to push your viewpoint? You're being quite hypocritical.

You say, "Historically the object of the law in the United States was to protect the rights of everyone."

Which most people would take to mean protecting the civil rights of minorities and majorities alike who seek equal liberties.

What if I don't believe that anyone should be married? Can I demand that the schools no longer discuss marriage between men and women? Where does your limited view of education stop? What if I don't believe in calculus? What if I believe that the periodic table is a myth?

Gay couples can legally marry in Massachusetts, that's a fact, why on Earth would the schools pretend otherwise?