Have You Heard About This?: Parental Rights Under Attack In Massachusetts

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000004008.cfm

Judge shoots down lawsuit brought by outraged parents.

"The shot heard 'round the world."

That's how Ralph Waldo Emerson described that moment in 1776 when the Minute Men fired the opening salvos of the American Revolution on the village green in Lexington, Mass.

It's also how parental-rights advocates describe what happened last week when a federal judge in Boston shot down a lawsuit by some parents who objected to what Lexington schools were teaching their young children about homosexuality.

Last Friday, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Mark Wolf told David Parker and Rob and Robin Wirthlin that they had no legal right to challenge the schools -- at all.

if you don't like your kid learning about diversity and tolerance, home school them. Then they can grow up as duplicates of you, without free thought.

the right to keep your children from learning that gay people exist, the judge made a good decision.

the judge most certainly did not say parents have no right in the schools -- just that the rights of gay and lesbian parents and their children to have a hate-free educational environment trump the rights of religious zealots to poison their childrens' minds.


If you're going to newsletters like CitizenLink (published by lunatic-fringe group Focus on the Family) for your info, you can't expect it to be unbiased. Not that my statement above wasn't unbiased in the opposite direction, but the fact remains that this story twists the truth.

that article is seriously slanted.


no, it's more like how if you wanted to open a "no blacks allowed" restaurant now, you would not be allowed to do so. Not the same thing at all.

This is fear-mongering propaganda. The school is not telling kids to be gay, how to be gay, or how to have sex - it is teaching that gay people are people too - they have families, rights (in theory), and feelings and DO NOT deserve to be ignored or shat upon by a secular democratic republic which allegedly espouses equal rights for all.

This is no more about "parental rights" than slavery was about "states rights"

Pay attention or all of your rights will go away, and stop feeding the trolls please.

EDIT:
sorry if that came across as rude.

Parental rights shouldn't trump everything if The Thing is teaching bias and prejudice. If these parents didn't want to learn about black history or black families would that be OK?

Kudos to this judge and to Mass. and screw these redneck asshole parents. May their children grow to be better people.
Lee

The judges position is that the public schools can teach pretty much what they want without parental interference if it falls into the catchall for fitting in to or about society. While the specific topic was GLBT family material, it could easily be something else.

Starting a while back there has been a steady stealthy infiltration of school boards by the fundies. Under this decision, instruction that supports that GLBT can be cured ala PFoX could not be contested by gay parents. Is this really where we want to go?

While one side is teaching religion, the other tolerance, we still need to find people who can actually figure shit out.

(I say that knowing the best educated states are those who tend to be more tolerant...but Im tired of any of this crap being taught one way or the other.

School should be how to read, do math, do science...with some civics, government, etc. tossed in. It seems schools are now nothing but places to do social engineering from one perspective or another.

I'm a human, a lesbian human...and there's not two sides to human rights and it certainly is important, just like black history and rights are important and relevant and do belong in the schools, with government, civics, etc.

I'm not an agenda; I'm not a perspective. I'm a human.
Lee

"I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice," she said. "But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'" "I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people," she said. - Reuters, March 31, 1998.
Speaking before nearly 600 people at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel,
Coretta Scott King, the wife of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Tuesday called on the civil rights community to join in the struggle against homophobia and anti-gay bias. "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood," King stated. "This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group." - Chicago Defender, April 1, 1998, front page.

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be," she said, quoting her husband. "I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy," King told 600 people at the Palmer House Hilton, days before the 30th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination on April 4, 1968. She said the civil rights movement "thrives on unity and inclusion, not division and exclusion." Her husband's struggle parallels that of the gay rights movement, she said. - Chicago Sun Times, April 1, 1998, p.18.

"For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human rights for gay and lesbian people," King said at the 25th Anniversary Luncheon for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.... "Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement," she said. "Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions." - Chicago Tribune, April 1, 1998, sec.2, p.4.

We have a lot more work to do in our common struggle against bigotry and discrimination. I say “common struggle” because I believe very strongly that all forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination. - Coretta Scott King, remarks, Opening Plenary Session, 13th annual Creating Change conference of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Atlanta, Georgia, November 9, 2000.

"We have to launch a national campaign against homophobia in the black community," said Coretta Scott King, widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the slain civil rights leader. - Reuters, June 8, 2001.

For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law.... I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” On another occasion he said, “I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible.” Like Martin, I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others. So I see this bill as a step forward for freedom and human rights in our country and a logical extension of the Bill of Rights and the civil rights reforms of the 1950’s and ‘60’s. The great promise of American democracy is that no group of people will be forced to suffer discrimination and injustice. - Coretta Scott King, remarks, press conference on the introduction of ENDA, Washington, DC, June 23, 1994.