"Parental rights" started on the Christian fringe -- now it's the GOP's winning issue

[Nevilledog]

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Portia Vaxxed and Boosted McGonagal
@PortiaMcGonagal
Let's be clear. This is white parents. And it's all about whitewashing curricula.

"Parental rights" started on the Christian fringe — now it's the GOP's winning issue
Right-wing Christians have pushed for parental control over education for years. Suddenly it's the GOP's main focus
salon.com
7:48 AM · Jan 12, 2022

https://www.salon.com/2022/01/12/parental-rights-started-on-the-christian-fringe--now-its-the-gops-winning-issue/

Not that long ago, the notion of "parental rights" as a conservative organizing principle was primarily associated with subcultures of the religious right. In the late 2000s, Michael Farris, founder of the advocacy group Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) as well as Patrick Henry College — the homeschool-marketed institution briefly attended by Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina — started another nonprofit, ParentalRights.org.

That group's primary purpose was to advocate for the passage of a constitutional amendment declaring, "The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children is a fundamental right," which no international treaty or law could supersede. Farris's HSLDA published tip-sheets advising parents what to do "when social workers come knocking" (basically, don't answer), and took frequent aim at the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which Farris claimed would prevent parents from "reasonably" spanking their children and would place decisions about making kids wash dishes or go to church under the purview of an "18-member international panel." He even wrote a novel with an anti-homeschooling villain named after Hillary Clinton, who upends society by signing the CRC.

But as the last few months — and even the last few days — have made clear, parents' rights is a fringe issue no more. This Monday, former Republican senator David Perdue, now running for governor in Georgia, unveiled a new "Parents' Bill of Rights" that would require schools to make teaching materials and other information about educators and school funding available to parents. Perdue's proposal echoed a federal bill, the Parents' Bill of Rights Act, introduced last November by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., as well as numerous bills recently passed or proposed in states including Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri, and, as of last week, Pennsylvania.

In a Daily Caller op-ed promoting a national Parents' Bill of Rights — maybe Hawley's, maybe his own — House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy called for all schools that receive federal funding to post a list of any reading materials available to students, vowing that "the Republican Party will be the Party of Parents and Education."

*snip*

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[Thomas Hurt]

2. Welcome to the Christian Republic of the United States...Christofascist theocracy coming up.

[AngryOldDem]

3. This is playing out in Indiana in real time.

AG Todd Rokita — who is kissing the far Right’s ass here to advance his own career — wants to add a Parents’ Bill of Rights to the state constitution.

And there have been some threads here about how the General Assembly wants to micromanage school curricula and tie the hands of teachers as to what they can teach.

It ALL goes back to the OP. This crap has infiltrated at least 20 states. Out of 50. It’s a concentrated effort. It smacks of authoritarianism. And it’s gaining ground because people are too damn ignorant to see how those in power are manipulating public institutions for their own bad agendas.

[Walleye]

4. But a woman has no right to decide if she doesn't want to become a parent

[Midnight Writer]

5. We're going to end up with a Red State education system and a Blue State education system.

Very much like what we saw earlier in our history, when plantation States wanted raw labor with little education to work the farms, and industrial States needed educated labor that could run and repair complex machinery and follow complicated written and verbal instructions.

The Blue States will continue to move ahead, and the Red States will be mired in their imaginary Golden Age where everybody "knew their place" and not much else.

[Probatim]

11. In the end, Blue states will continue to supplement red states.

And red state governors will parse that money out to their cronies.

[Midnight Writer]

14. Absolutely. And the wealth gap in Red States will grow because their folks are uneducated.

[maxrandb]

6. JFC! What my kids were taught in school was never a frickin mystery to me

A fucking bill requiring that teaching materials be made available to parents?

Is this a fucking secret? Do parents even talk to their children anymore?

Are there no options, like parent/teacher conferences, open houses...oh, I don't know...asking your child what they are working on, checking their homework?

Seems that information is already available.

My God! This is not about keeping parents informed, it's about trying to block what is taught.

I can see it now:

Concerned citizen Karen: "Hey, I noticed in the material that there's nothing about God creating the world in 7 days, or how childbearing was womens punishment because of some snake in a tree."

We are fucked. Someone needs to unplug America, wait 10 seconds and plug it back in.

[YP_Yooper]

9. +1000

[YP_Yooper]

7. "House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy called for all schools that receive federal funding to post"

This has nothing to do with parent's rights since any decent parent, and certainly any parent who wants to go to these extremes, can be active in their kid's education and know what's being taught.

This is purely an effort to give non-parent crazy RW political hacks from across the country the fodder they want to push the culture wars

[TheBlackAdder]

8. "Pro-Life," "Biblical Inerrancy," "Glossolalia (speaking in tongues)" & Holy Spirit choosing people

.

These were all started by fringe religious actors and have made their way into mainstream Christianity.

Not just with the Evangelical & Charismatic sectors, but in the traditional Catholic and Protestant churches.



With dwindling church attendance, many churches are offering traditional and contemporary services,
the contemporary ones integrate the Evangelical principles of Assemblies of God & COGIC. This is a premise
that if you speak in tongues than the Holy Spirit has chosen you to either be a vessel to deliver a message
to others, or the Holy Spirit has selected to integrate with your being as one, guaranteeing you a seat by
Jesus in the afterlife and ANYTHING you do on earth is sanctioned by God.

This is very attractive to many because who doesn't want God to select them, live within them, communicate
directly with them and sanction all of their behaviors as having some divine purpose? It sure is more attractive
that God being on the outside, where people have to constantly struggle to obtain approval.

.

[in2herbs]

12. The moment a child is born the USSC has held that the child is the "property" of the

state (government.) I don't remember the exact ruling (several decades ago) but the ruling gives the USSC the final decision making authority over the child, not the parents. This is the ruling that led to the USSC declaring it had superior jurisdiction in parental rights cases, not parents. It is the same ruling that the USSC depends on for jurisdiction in abortion cases.

In other words, your children are not yours to do with as you please, any decision you make must please the government. In most cases, the government (USSC) "allows" the parent(s) to run the day to day decisions over the child. But those decisions are always subject to whether or not the government (USSC) agrees with you.

[Zeitghost]

19. 100% false

n/t

[FakeNoose]

16. I don't know how to say this without offending some people ...

I'm a babyboomer who grew up in the 50s and 60s going to Catholic schools. My parents paid tuition to send us kids to Catholic parish school (another word is parochial) even though they paid state and county taxes to support the public schools. The point is that the Catholic schools provided the curricula and discipline that Catholic parents wanted for their children. It was an expensive option for sure, but Catholics were OK with the cost.

Fast forward another 50 years, and now there are "religious-right" Christian parents demanding that the public schools bend to THEIR demands and the curriculum THEY want, regardless of the tax-payers' wishes. What gives ANY fringe parents the right to demand ANYTHING special for their child only? You crazy Christians want a separate curriculum? OK you can build your own school and hire your own teachers. Keep your hands off the public schools and stop this disruption.

I believe the courts need to step in and shut down these school board protests. They're disruptive, unproductive and maybe even unconstitutional.

[FakeNoose]

21. +1000 That's a very good point

[PortTack]

17. This week.....it will be something different next week. By the end of the month like the rest of

Their faux outrage no one will remember

They are just an angry bunch of idiots that swing from one excuse to the next

[underpants]

20. This is welfare checks in Cadillacs stuff

Instead of it being black people taking YOUR money (or women) it’s black people are ruining your (stupid) kid.

[inthewind21]

22. Blah Blah Blah

What is being taught, what reading material is available to students etc. has ALWAYS been available to parents. All they had to do was get up off their dead ass and go find out. It's called school board meetings, parent teacher night, PTA and a whole host of other avenues. And last but not least, get off twitter "doing your research" long enough to take a look at your kids god damn homework! Basically we have a bunch of lazy asses that can't be bothered and need to be spoon fed everything. It took Tucker Carlson hysterically informing them their high school kids have history class and are not just "researching" on FB all day at school.