Battle Brewing Over Parental Notification Measure in Massachusetts

by Jim Brown and Jody Brown
November 11, 2005

(AgapePress) - - A Massachusetts pro-family leader says a new parental notification bill in the state legislature is the "worst nightmare" of Planned Parenthood and the homosexual movement.

Currently under Massachusetts law, parents are permitted to "opt-out" their children from public school programs dealing with homosexuality or sex education. However, a new bipartisan bill would change the law to an "opt-in" for parents who want their children involved in such program. Senate Bill 316, known as the "School Survey Consent Bill," would require schools to obtain prior written consent from parents or guardians before subjecting students to surveys, analyses, or evaluations that deal with such issues as sex behavior and attitudes, political affiliations, and "anti-social, self-incriminating, and demeaning" behavior. (See entire wording of bill below.)

The person who wrote the legislation, Brian Camenker with the Article 8 Alliance, says a hearing on the bill took place recently before the Joint Education Committee of the Legislature. He says the hearing was "really, really something."

"We had people from all across the state telling the most chilling stories you can imagine about parents having their kids subjected to some of the gross, disgusting stuff that happens in the school without their knowledge," Camenker says.

Article 8 offers as an example the questions comprising the "Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey," in which children are asked to assign themselves a sexual orientation ("Heterosexual (straight), Gay or lesbian, Bisexual, Not sure") and to admit on paper to sexual activities, criminal conduct, and thoughts of suicide and self-mutilation. The survey has reportedly been given to thousands of children in Massachusetts.

Such surveys, says Article 8, have become "political tools" for special-interest groups that are then used to "justify their various social engineering programs" that target children. "As a result, these surveys have become increasingly emotionally and psychologically intrusive, and quite sexual in nature," says the group's website. "In addition, schools usually refuse to allow parents to see the surveys (and often don't even notify them) before they are given to their children."

These actions have precipitated introduction of the School Survey Consent Bill, which Camenker acknowledges faces an uphill battle. "We're up against a huge lobby against parents in the Massachusetts legislature," he says. "So we've got our work cut out for us. But I'll tell you, we are going to fight this to the very bitter end."

According to Camenker, homosexual activists as well as representatives from Planned Parenthood turned out in force at the hearing to argue against parent notification -- and both groups, he says, have already begun a campaign to get the measure killed.

In April a Massachusetts parent was arrested and jailed for protesting a school's refusal to notify him before his kindergarten-age son is exposed to classroom discussions about homosexuality and transgender. Charges against David Parker were dismissed in October when the county district attorney decided not to prosecute him. However, the Lexington School District continues to bar him from setting foot on any school property.

"No student shall be required to submit to a survey, analysis, or evaluation that reveals information concerning: (1) political affiliations; (2) mental and psychological problems potentially embarrassing to the student or his family; (3) sex behavior and attitudes; (4) illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating and demeaning behavior; (5) critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close family relationships; (6) legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians and ministers; or (7) income, other than that required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under such program, without the prior consent of the student, if the student is an adult or emancipated minor, or in the case of an unemancipated minor, without the prior written consent of the parent or guardian."