Ninth Circuit's 'Deplorable' Parental Rights Ruling Appealed to SCOTUS
by Allie Martin
September 5, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to hear a case involving a California school district that gave an explicit sex survey to elementary students.Five years ago, the Palmdale School District sent the survey to students in the first, third, and fifth grades (ages seven to ten) at Mesquite Elementary School. The survey, which was meant to measure children's exposure to early trauma, included ten questions about sex, asking the youngsters about such things as the frequency of "touching my private parts too much," "thinking about sex," "thinking about touching other people's private parts," and "having sex feelings in my body."
Seven parents brought suit against the school district, claiming their constitutional rights were violated. But in November 2005, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the lawsuit, claiming that parents relinquish their parental rights at the schoolhouse door. Ninth Circuit Judge Steven Reinhardt wrote that except for the Establishment and Treason Clauses, parents have no constitutional right to object to psychological sex surveys given to children as young as seven. According to Reinhardt -- who has been described as one of the most reversed judges in the country -- public schools have the right to administer sex instruction to any children, at any time and in any manner, notwithstanding the objections of their parents.
Pro-family leaders were incensed by the ruling, one referring to it as an "egregious example of judicial tyranny" and another suggesting that it is hard to imagine that any of the Ninth Circuit judges ever had any young children.
Liberty Counsel, enlisted by the parents, has now asked the highest court in the nation to hear Fields v. Palmdale School District. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the legal group, says the Ninth Circuit ruling is "intolerable" and an assault on every parent whose child attends public school.
Mat Staver | |
"It is outrageous that this court would say that parental rights stop at the schoolhouse gate; that whenever you drop off your child at school, you literally have lost your parental rights between the first bell of the day and the last bell that releases them," Staver comments. "That doesn't make any sense."The Liberty Counsel attorney says in the normal activities of life, parental rights are not pushed to the side. "I think parents, for example, who drop off their child at day care or soccer practice or even a summer camp clearly don't believe that they've severed their parental rights," he says. "Nor do they believe their parental rights stop at the schoolhouse gate and that the schools can teach anything in any manner in any way to any child on any topic."
Liberty Counsel's petition for the Ninth Circuit to rehear the case was denied. "That just simply is intolerable, and it is contrary to Supreme Court precedent," Staver concludes. "That's why we're asking the court to get involved in this case."
Staver, who is optimistic the high court will hear the case, says parents' involvement in the education of their children should be encouraged, not punished.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
