The Ninth Circuit was willing to let a single non-custodial parent determine whether or not every child could say – or even hear -- the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. But they don’t believe that parents have the right to control the exposure of their own children to sexual material at school.

On Wednesday the court dismissed a lawsuit brought by California parents who were outraged over a sex survey given to public school students in the first, third and fifth grades.

Among other things, the survey administered by the Palmdale School District asked children if they ever thought about having sex or touching other people's "private parts" and whether they could "stop thinking about having sex."

The parents argued that they -- not the public schools -- have the sole right "to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex."

But o n Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit dismissed the case, saying, "There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children...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."

Judge Stephen Reinhardt, writing for the panel, said "no such specific right can be found in the deep roots of the nation's history and tradition or implied in the concept of ordered liberty."

Funny, I always believed that the right to raise oneÂ’s child and to control their education was one of those things that fundamentally predates civilization as a whole, and which society may therefore not infringe upon.

I guess that the State really is their mother and their father – at least in the Ninth Circuit, and as long as the state doesn’t use permit the use of the “G-word” around them.

Posted by: Greg at 01:44 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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