Our Rights As
Parents?
What rights do parents have? What is parental responsibility? Where
do the rights of parents begin and end. All rights begin and end when you
are infringing on the rights of others. Where do the rights of children
begin and end? Do parents have the right to impose a system of rules in
their homes? Do the parents have the right to tell children not to do
certain things and enforce the house rules against smoking, drinking, doing
illegal drugs? What about sexual promiscuity? Can parents regulate their
children’s sexual behavior? All of these questions need to be answered!
Let’s look at some research data to discover the answers to these questions.
Parental Responsibilities!
Who gives the parents any rights? Does this come automatically with
parenthood? Does the society we live in give parents any rights on raising
children properly? Or? Do these rights come from a higher source.
The latter applies if you believe what the Bible teaches. Before anyone
becomes a parent they should seriously consider the responsibility involved.
Laws protect the fundamental rights of the parents. The Supreme Court has
issued the following:
The Supreme Court of the United States
has traditionally and continuously upheld the principle that parents have the
fundamental right to direct the education and upbringing of their children.
A review of cases taking up the issue shows that the Supreme Court has
unwaveringly given parental rights the highest respect and protection possible.
What follows are some of the examples of the Court’s past protection of parental rights.
In Meyer v. Nebraska, the Court invalidated a state law which prohibited foreign
language instruction for school children because the law did not “promote”
education but rather “arbitrarily and unreasonably” interfered with “the natural
duty of the parent to give his children education suitable to their station in
life...” The court chastened the legislature for attempting “materially to
interfere… with the power of parents to control the education of their own.”
This decision clearly affirmed that the Constitution protects the preferences of
the parent in education over those of the State. In the same decision, the
Supreme Court also recognized that the right of the parents to delegate their
authority to a teacher in order to instruct their children was protected within
the liberty of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Furthermore, the Court emphasized, “The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the
right of the individual ... To establish a home and bring up children, to
worship G-d (Yahweh) according to his own conscience.”
In 1925, the Supreme Court decided the Pierce v. Society of Sisters case,
thereby supporting Meyer’s recognition of the parents’ right to direct the
religious upbringing of their children and to control the process of their
education.
In Pierce, the Supreme Court struck down an Oregon compulsory education law
which, in effect, required attendance of all children between ages eight and
sixteen at public schools. The Court declared,
Under the doctrine of Meyer v. Nebraska, we think it entirely plain that the Act
of 1922 unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to
direct the upbringing and education of children. [emphasis supplied]
In addition to upholding the right of parents to direct the upbringing and the
education of their children, Pierce also asserts the parents’ fundamental right
to keep their children free from government standardization.
The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union
repose excluded any general power of the state to standardize its children by
forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not
the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny
have the right and the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional
obligations. [emphasis supplied]
The Supreme Court uses strong language in asserting that children are not “the
mere creature of the State.” The holding in Pierce, therefore, preserves
diversity of process of education by forbidding the State to standardize the
education of children through forcing them to only accept instruction from
public schools.
The proceeding deals primarily with education concerning the parent’s rights
over the states rights. Let’s review the fourteenth amendment to the
Constitution.
What does the Fourteenth Amendment actually say?
U.S. Constitution: Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment - Rights Guaranteed Privileges and Immunities of
Citizenship, Due Process and Equal Protection
Amendment Text:
Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
wherein they reside.
No State shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United
States;
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.
Section. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States
according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in
each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any
election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the
United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers
of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the
male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of
the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in
rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced
in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole
number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or
elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military,
under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an
oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a
member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any
State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in
insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the
enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove
such disability.
Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by
law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services
in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither
the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation
incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any
claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations
and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article
Notice:
No State shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United
States;
Abridge the privileges? Look at the following and see if parental privileges
were abridged in any way.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Colby M. May
The issue of parental rights in the face of government intervention is not a new
one in this country
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Colby M. May is senior counsel, heading the Office of Government Affairs,
American Center for Law and Justice, Washington, D.C.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE: 1; it has simply become a more burning issue as the intrusions have
become more pronounced. As long ago as 1923, in a case called Meyer v. Nebraska,
FOOTNOTE: 2 the United States Supreme Court rejected the argument that the
government's view of what led children to become patriotic and good citizens
should prevail over the parents' view. The Court noted that in Plato's Republic
the state was to rear children, and "no parent is to know his own child, nor any
child his parent."
FOOTNOTE: 3 The Court concluded,
however, that the U.S. Constitution was founded upon precisely the opposite
principle--that parents and not the government should bear responsibility for
raising children: (emphasis Mine!)
"Although such measures have been deliberately approved by men of great genius,
their ideas touching the relation between individual and State were wholly
different from those upon which our institutions rest; and it hardly will be
affirmed that any legislature could impose such restrictions upon the people of
a state without doing violence to both letter and spirit of the Constitution.
FOOTNOTE: 4.
Time and again, the Supreme Court has recognized the rights of parents to
control the upbringing of their children--rights founded upon the First, Fifth,
Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. As recently as 1990, the
Supreme Court observed that, under the Fourteenth Amendment, the fundamental
liberty interest of the parent to direct the education of the child is subject
to strict scrutiny and cannot be overridden without showing a compelling state
interest.
FOOTNOTE: 5.
On the local level, however, the culture
wars are raging around the rights of parents in the health, education, and moral
upbringing of their children.
(again
emphasis Mine)
Local government encroachment into areas traditionally the province of parents
has resulted in a populist outcry and possible congressional intervention. Some
relatively recent examples of current case law serve to illustrate trends in the
ongoing battle between parents and the government.
UPBRINGING
In the 1970s and early '80s the
"children's rights" movement was in vogue. That line of sociological thinking
led to the idea that children should have an equal say in their own upbringing.
It was, perhaps, this underlying notion of childhood independence from parental
authority and supervision that led the Washington State Supreme Court to find
that parents could not punish a minor for involvement with sex and drugs.
FOOTNOTE: 6
Parents had grounded their eighth-grade daughter because she engaged in premarital sexual activity and smoked marijuana. When the parents continued to have difficulty getting their daughter to obey, they asked for state assistance. While recognizing that the parents had imposed "reasonable rules which were reasonably enforced" upon their daughter, the court nonetheless removed her from the home.
Social mores have guided much of the jurisprudence in the area of parental
rights. In the 1960s the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law banning the sale of
pornographic magazines to children under seventeen years of age. In so doing the
Court acknowledged that "constitutional interpretation has consistently
recognized that the parents' claim to authority in their own household to direct
the rearing of their children is basic in the structure of our society."
FOOTNOTE: 7
Thirty years later, Texas parents were denied the opportunity to see a mandatory
assessment test that asked students personal questions concerning their family
life, moral values, and religious beliefs. The parents sued and won, alleging
that their responsibility for the upbringing and education of their children had
been infringed. The Texas Education Agency on appeal asserted that "the right to
direct the education and upbringing of your child is not a fundamental right."
FOOTNOTE: 8 This position by the Texas Education Agency is not unique, but it is consistent with the view of many public educators that parental rights end at the schoolhouse gate.
Plainly stated, we are seeing eroding parental rights in relation to their
children's upbringing. What many lawmakers fail to see is this; the religious
conservative home has a different view then that of a liberal non-conservative
home. The conservative home ensconced in religious values taken directly from
the Bible, stands in stark contrast to the liberal home without these same
values. We then have a clash over cultural differences. Whose opinion or
lifestyle do we accept?
The Washington Supreme Court decision
has weakened parental rights. When parents cannot punish a child who is taking
drugs (a controlled substance) and having sexual intercourse out of wedlock, the
parents have lost control of their parental rights!
So why is Hawke writing on this subject? I will explain.
Recently we learned of a case where some parents were put to the parental rights
test. A file crossed my desk containing some very serious material.
The people who sent this file to Truth On The Net Dot Com, apparently have had
enough! Judging by the content, they feel they have been silent long
enough!
The child, a
female now in her late twenties brought allegations of sexual abuse against her
father. The alleged abuse supposedly took place about twelve years
earlier. Truth On The Net Dot Com found out the parents involved in this
child’s upbringing were from a strict religious culture that does not allow
smoking, drug use, or any sexual promiscuity of any kind. The parents
found out that their daughter was doing all of the above. The father who
believes that all children in the home, male or female must remain virgins until
married, discovered she was in violation of this directive.
(Incidentally he took this law from the
Bible, Deuteronomy 22:13-21)
She was challenged on several occasions about allegations coming from sources
outside of the home, concerning her sexual behavior. She categorically
denied being sexually involved with anyone. The father insisted on the daughter
being examined by the family doctor for verification that her hymen was indeed
still intact. Needless to say this caused quite a problem between them.
We were informed that the daughter, rather then agree to an examination, fled
the family home. The trouble begins here.
Somewhere along the way the girl was given certain ideas not taught in the home.
Does the woman/girl have a right to do anything with her body? Is there an
age where the female can make her own decisions? While in the home of any family
that believes in parental responsibilities, the child must be under their
control! After she leaves the home as an adult, she can do as she pleases!
However, not until then! The Biblical age of accountability is twenty
years old.
We found out the young woman was having difficult times because of her multiple
sexual encounters conjoined with a multitude of different sex partners.
This information was revealed to her current live in. They now have
several children, all born out of wedlock. The live-in male throws her
previous lifestyle up in her face and then she blame shifts. She blames
the father and mother for exposing her lifestyle. She falsely accused her
father of sexual abuse. Blame shifting because she ruined her life and he
is the one responsible. If only he would have remained silent! Now
he stands accused of something he didn’t do! He must now fight these
allegations, because for some, only the accusation is valid, not his rights as a
parent to impose rules in his own house. And, forget about his innocence!
Only the accusation is valid! We see this all too often in law enforcement
circles! Guilty until proven innocent! All it takes is the
accusation to start the wheels of justice turning. The accused it seems has few
rights. He must counter prove the allegation. (Never mind the accusers
character was severely tainted by multiple sexual dalliances.) She is also
considered to be a very skilled liar! However; she must be right if she
says so, no matter what! This is how the system portrays the so-called
victim!
We have received some statistics about sexual abuse allegations.
Child Molestation
Nation Wide Representation
Over half of molestation-abuse
accusations are false,
Yet this crime has the highest conviction rate of any felony charge...
An accusation of molest can start in a divorce/custody battle and lead to
juvenile and criminal cases.
An anonymous accusation of abuse can
lead to the removal of your children, to criminal charges, to separation from
your spouse, and ultimately to a prison sentence.
Your only defense is understanding the system you face and having the most
experienced legal representation possible.
It is very easy to be falsely accused of child abuse or child molestation,
but it is
exceptionally difficult to be exonerated in court.
Even though 60% of molestation or abuses
charges are false, more of these trials end in the wrongful conviction of the
innocent than any other type of criminal case.
Widespread media attention has caused a state of hysteria
in which people who are accused are
presumed guilty.
This highly emotional charge tends to destroy the ability of the system to
handle such cases objectively.
One charge of molestation or abuse can send a parent, professional or any adult
who deals with children to prison for up to eight years. In most cases it is a
mandatory sentence and, therefore, many innocent people are now serving long
prison sentences.
If you are accused of molestation or abuse, you do not want to risk these odds
of being convicted for a crime you did not commit. That is why it is critical
that you understand what you face in this type of case and what you must do to
protect your freedom, your reputation, and your family.
(Article was
untitled in public domain therefore no credit will be given to author.)
What did we just read?
The facts are that 60% of those accused
of sexual abuse are innocent! That is almost two thirds! That is almost two out
of three people being innocent! Some system!
Yes, the rights of parents are being eroded by the legal system everyday.
Consider the assault on marriage by the homosexual community (if you can call it
that?) Should America become a Socialist state where the government
controls everything? No! We must fight against any injustice.
America was founded on certain laws regarding freedom from tyranny.
We must fight against anyone who would
try to destroy the family unit!
This ends part one! I want to look at Biblical injunctions imposed upon
the parents and children according to the word of Abba Yahweh in part two!
Yours in Yahshua, Hawke
© Truth on the Net Dot Com 2005