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

[AZProgressive]

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."

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

[Emile]

1. The cons are always embracing their latest wedge issue to

get the working class pissed off enough to shoot themselves in the foot and vote Republican. And it's great entertainment for tax evading billionaires.

[Sugarcoated]

2. Is it really a winning issue, though?

Or, is this the media running with unproven bullshit conclusions?

[jimfields33]

3. Parents are ultimately responsible for a child's education

I’m not mad about the one bill showing a budget and curriculum. I’m surprised a bill is needed. That should be done in every district in the country.

[janterry]

5. I think the curriculum should be available

makes sense. I honestly always thought it was (in the schools my daughter attended)