The Liberty Counsel, based in Orlando, Fla., will represent parents who objected to a survey that officials in the Palmdale, Calif., school district said was designed to measure "children's exposure to early trauma." It included questions about sexual topics such as "thinking about sex" and "touching my private parts too much."
Writing for a three-judge panel in a Nov. 2 decision, Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said: "... There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children."
Mathew D. Staver, president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel, said Monday (Nov. 7) that he plans to ask the full court to set aside the decision.
"The parents feel like their children were mentally raped when they were subjected to embarrassing and inappropriate sexually explicit materials," he said. "Americans will be stunned to learn that parental rights stop at the threshold of the school door."
The ruling has been a major topic of conversation for conservative Christian leaders across the country.
Connie Mackey, vice president of government affairs for the Washington-based Family Research Council, said Reinhardt is "notoriously out of the mainstream." R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., called it "one of the most outrageous infringements upon parental rights ever made by an American court." The Rev. Jerry Falwell said the ruling "effectively authorizes schools to conduct social engineering on our children."
Other groups that have been critical of "activist judges" in general, and the 9th Circuit court in particular, said the ruling exemplifies their concerns.
"This is judicial tyranny at its worst and gives public schools free reign to teach children whatever they want about sexuality -- even if it violates the religious beliefs of parents," said Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Washington-based Traditional Values Coalition.
Said Carrie Gordon Earll of Colorado-based Focus on the Family Action: "Anyone who wonders why pro-family organizations like ours have been so concerned about activist courts only has to look at this case."
| _Related Features | |
|
|
 |
