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"Parental Rights" |
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| "Parental
Rights" efforts are proceeding on three separate tracks:
as proposed amendments to state constitutions, as
proposed federal legislation, and as proposed state
legislation. |
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The constitutional amendment proposed
in many of the state legislatures, drafted by Of The
People, reads simply: "The rights of parents to direct
the upbringing and education of their children shall not
be infringed. The legislature shall have power to
enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of
this article."12
Colorado is the
first state to put a parental rights amendment on the
ballot and for this reason is the focus of national
attention. With enormous financial and organizing
support from OTP, proponents managed to collect the
required signatures to qualify for this November. The
amendment utilizes OTP language but is even more
explicit than the generic amendment: "The Amendment
would add the right of parents 'to direct and control
the upbringing, education, values and discipline of
their children' to the Colorado
Constitution."13
Supporters and
opponents alike are closely monitoring the Colorado
ballot initiative, because they agree with OTP president
Ralph Benko that "What happens in Colorado will dictate
what happens in the rest of the country."14
Or as OTP chairman Jeffrey Bell put it at the 1996
Christian Coalition Road to Victory Conference, "There
are 27 states waiting on Colorado; we will win
there."15 Bell argues that winning in
Colorado "could be more important than Dole's election,
or the control of Congress," and declares the projected
victory "will be a turning point . . .the Grenada of the
Cold War"16
The Coalition for
Parental Responsibility (CPR) spearheaded the Colorado
initiative and collected 83,100 signatures needed to put
it on the ballot; only 54,242 were
required.17 According to local press in
Colorado, CPR's executive director, Leah Delay, was
hired by Of The People to lead the effort18
despite the fact that CPR bills itself as a local
group.19 CPR's financial disclosure records
show that of the $150,416 contributed to CPR, Of The
People has donated $146,000. In other words, OTP funds
more than 97 percent of CPR's campaign,20
which includes a major advertising blitz and media
outreach. OTP president Greg Erken--along with Delay--is
listed as a contact person on CPR press
releases.21
The Coalition for
Parental Responsibility has local support from such
groups as Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG), an
anti-reproductive choice group whose mission, in its own
words, is to "protect Colorado families from
exploitation by the abortion industry by carrying a
Parental Notice measure to the people."22 CRG
sponsored a successful ballot initiative in 1984 to
eliminate public funding for abortion. The initiative
has recently been declared unconstitutional. CPR also
has the support of the state Christian Coalition, James
Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, the Family Research
Council, Christian Home Educators of Colorado, as well
as Colorado Concerned Women for America.23
Several right-wing state legislators have voiced their
support for the initiative, including Rep. Mark
Paschall, (R-29th District) and Sen. Bob Schaffer
(R-14th District), who issued a joint statement
demonizing "paid government employees" and others who
"think the government is wiser and more benevolent than
you and therefore should have more to say about what
your children are learning in school...about
disciplining your children...about the morals and values
that will, in all probability, form the societal and
spiritual mores' [sic] of your children throughout their
lives...about what constitutes appropriate
'confidential' services for your minor children. Why?
What can be their motives?"24 Representative
Paschall recently made the news when he offered up a
morning prayer in the state House of Representatives
that so offended a number of representatives that they
walked out of the chamber in protest.25 The
prayer read, in part: "We have worshipped creation and
multiculturalism instead of you...We have endorsed
perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle...We
have killed our unborn and called it expedient,
compassionate choice."26 (This same prayer,
written by a right-wing anti-abortion group, provoked a
similar reaction when it was read in the Kansas House of
Representatives earlier this year.)27
Tom Tancredo, a former Reagan-appointed regional
head of the Department of Education,28 has
also been a leader in the initiative effort. President
of the Independence Institute, a state-level think tank,
backed by corporations and right-wing foundations, that
advocates free market environmentalism, deregulation,
and privatization of public services, Tancredo is a
fierce advocate for school vouchers.29 The
general counsel for the Colorado Education Association
identifies Tancredo as a leader in "a faction that has
been working in Colorado for years...to take the public
schools away from the public."30 In addition,
former Reagan-appointed U.S. attorney Mike
Norton31 is now spokesman for
CPR.32
The ballot initiative is
opposed by Protect Our Children, a broad coalition of
more than 90 organizations, whose aim is to inform
Colorado voters about both the intended and unintended
consequences of the vaguely-worded amendment. The group
is large and diverse, with representatives from the
teaching and health professions, churches and religious
groups, unions, legal associations, adoption agencies
and children shelters, parents groups and local
government agencies. Members from the health care and
child protection professions include the Colorado
Academy of Family Physicians, Colorado Medical Society,
Colorado Nurse's Association, Colorado Chapter of the
American Academy of Pediatricians, Colorado AIDS
Project, Mental Health Association of Colorado, Rocky
Mountain Society for Adolescent Medicine, Mountain
Coalition to Prevent Child Abuse, Denver Children's
Advocacy Center, Adoption Alliance, Colorado Ob/Gyn
Society and the National Association of Social Workers.
Support from the religious community comes from the
Colorado Council of Churches, Rocky Mountain Conference
United Church of Christ, and Catholic Community Services
of Colorado Springs. Legal groups include the Colorado
Bar Association, Hispanic Bar Association, Colorado
Women's Bar Association--Board of Directors and the
American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. Colorado
Counties, Inc., which represents county governments and
commissioners, and the Colorado Municipal League,
representing city government employees, have also joined
the coalition. From the parent and education community
there is the Colorado Library Association, Colorado
Education Association and the Colorado PTA--Parent
Teacher Association. Additional members include the
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, the People
for the American Way Action Fund, Planned Parenthood of
the Rocky Mountains, the League of Women Voters,
Colorado NARAL, Colorado National Organization for
Women, Anti-Defamation League and Association for Senior
Citizens.33
Colorado governor Roy
Romer strongly opposes the initiative, calling it a
"chocolate-covered lemon" that is "explosive in its
ambiguity. The only thing certain about it is that it's
going to lead to very expensive lawsuits...This is a
full employment bill for lawyers. And I'm against
that."34 The governor also warned that the
amendment could "get in the way of reasonable child
abuse laws...[and] could permit censorship of materials
and programs in public libraries and schools. It could
limit a teen-ager's access to confidential services such
as substance abuse treatment, mental health care, birth
control and counseling."35 The Governor's
views notwithstanding, opponents of the initiative face
an uphill battle in defeating this deceptive and
dangerous proposal; fully 76 percent of Colorado
citizens polled by the Rocky Mountain News favored the
parental rights amendment.36 The Protect Our
Children Coalition will wage a large scale voter
education campaign through the media to clarify the real
stakes in the battle. |
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The Parental Rights and
Responsibilities Act (PRRA) is sponsored in the Senate
by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) (S. 984) while on the
House side, Representative Steve Largent (R-OK) is the
key sponsor of the bill (HR 1946). Representative
Largent is the new Of The People Vice
Chairman.37 Support comes primarily from
conservative Republicans, including presidential hopeful
Bob Dole, one of the bill's cosponsors before resigning
from the Senate to run for the White House.38
Parental rights language was also included in the
Republican National Platform.39
The
federal bill, drafted with the aid of longtime Religious
Right activist Michael Farris, president of the Home
School Legal Defense Association,40 includes
language very similar to the Of The People
constitutional amendment, but is much more specific than
the constitutional amendment, in that it establishes a
federal cause of action for parents who believe their
parental rights have been infringed, potentially adding
thousands of new cases to already clogged federal court
dockets. Moreover, contrary to its title, the federal
proposal delineates "parental rights" to discipline,
direct the upbringing and education of the child, and
make health decisions, but nowhere in the bill is there
language addressing parental responsibility. Hearings
have been held in both the Senate and the House and the
bill passed out of a subcommittee in the Senate, but no
full committee votes have been taken. |
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In some states, longer and more
complex parental rights bills have been introduced
either instead of or in addition to the OTP
constitutional amendment. OTP has stated that it is not
seeking nor promoting state statutes, and is focusing
exclusively on constitutional amendments. In Washington
state, for example, parental rights language has been
included in a broad piece of legislation that would
prohibit schools from counseling students (after an
initial session) without written parental consent. In
addition, the bill would require that parents be
notified about the specific issues discussed in
counseling, and that adolescents get written consent
from their parent or guardian to be tested for sexually
transmitted diseases. The legislation passed the House
but died in the Senate.
In Indiana, the state House
of Representatives passed a broad child welfare bill
that included language on parental rights.41
The bill, promoted by Citizens Concerned for the
Constitution, a right-wing, virulently anti-gay
group,42 was opposed by social service
agencies, school groups and police
departments.43 The original bill also
contained a provision that gave people falsely accused
of abuse access to transcripts of the reports of
suspected abuse which, according to Indiana Family and
Social Services Administration estimates, would have
jeopardized up to $35 million dollars in federal child
protection money because federal law requires such
reports to be confidential.
Opposition was so
strong that the section regarding access to reports of
abuse was modified to comply with federal requirements,
and the parental rights provisions were removed from the
bill and remanded by a conference committee to an
interim study committee for review.
In Kansas,
parental rights legislation "to protect the right of a
parent to direct the upbringing of a child" was
proposed; a watered down version was passed as part of
the Juvenile Code.44 In Michigan, a senate
joint resolution was proposed in 1995 that would have
put an OTP-style parental rights amendment on the
ballot. The resolution is languishing in committee with
no prospects for passage this session, as is a parental
rights bill in the Senate. However, parental rights
language was adopted as part of Michigan's 1995 School
Code, stating that "It is the natural, fundamental right
of parents and legal guardians to determine and direct
the care, teaching and education of their children. The
public schools of this state serve the needs of the
pupils by cooperating with the pupil's parents and legal
guardians...."45 Given the nebulous language
of the code and the recent attempts to direct public
funds to private and sectarian schools into that
state,46 the ramifications of this section
remain unclear.
Lawmakers in the 1996 session of
the New Hampshire legislature considered both an Of The
People-style constitutional amendment and a broader
education bill pertaining to parental rights. The
amendment was defeated in the Senate, but the education
bill passed the Senate in amended form before it was
killed in the House Education Committee. The original
legislation included a model letter to be provided to
every parent or guardian of public school students that
stated in part: "Parents have the right to be assured
that their children's beliefs and moral values are not
undermined by the schools. Pupils have the right to have
and hold their values and moral standards without direct
or indirect manipulations by the schools through the
curricula, textbooks, audio visual materials or
supplementary assignments."47
Following those statements in the letter is a
list of topics and activities in which the child may not
participate without the prior written consent of the
parent. These topics include: "Nuclear war, nuclear
policy, and nuclear classroom games; Globalism,
one-world government, or anti-nationalistic
curricula...Education in human sexuality, including
premarital sex, contraception, abortion, homosexuality,
group sex and marriage, prostitution, incest,
bestiality, masturbation, divorce, population control,
the roles of males and females, sexual behavior and
attitudes of pupils and their families...Organic
evolution, including Darwin's theory; Discussions of
witchcraft, occultism, the supernatural, and Eastern
mysticism." In other words, children whose parents send
in this form cannot study basic biology (Darwinian
evolution), take part in Halloween or read fairy tales
(witchcraft and the supernatural), attend health and
sexuality education classes (human sexuality), take part
in environmental and earth studies (population control),
participate in the model U.N. (globalism, one-world
government) or read literature such as Romeo and Juliet
(premarital sex, roles of males and females) without
prior written parental consent. They also may not
participate in "role-playing or open-ended discussions
of situations involving moral issues and survival games,
including life and death decision exercises," or
participate in "[c]ontrived incidents for self
revelation...including the keeping of a diary, journal,
or log book."48 |
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