So DeLay, as executive director of a group called the Coalition for Parental Responsibility, has joined sides in America’s latest cultural war: a movement to get state legislatures – and the Congress – to strengthen the rights of parents by legislative fiat. Their weapon: a proposal, introduced in 28 states over the last two years, dubbed the Parental Rights Amendment. It reads: ““The rights of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children shall not be infringed.’’ Innocuous enough? Hardly. Like other ““family values’’ debates, it has exposed a cultural divide on a range of hot-button issues such as the teaching of evolution, corporal punishment and contraceptive information for teens.
The amendment exists only in briefing books now. It has been defeated in the three states where it has come to a vote – Kansas, North Dakota and Virginia. But advocates – largely conservative middle-class suburban parents and the Christian right – insist it can become a rallying cry for parents anxious about the fragile state of families and parenting these days. Greg Erken, executive director of Of the People, an Arlington, Va., secular group mainly responsible for the proposal, cites an array of government decisions, like a Georgia case where a school official supposedly drove teenage sisters to a birth-control clinic without the parents’ consent. ““Parents should be calling shots on such moral matters,’’ Erken says.
That sounds reasonable enough, but opponents say injecting the parental-rights language into state law has the potential to wreak havoc in education and child-welfare issues. By codifying parental rights as a constitutional right, states would have to meet a stiffer legal standard to justify overriding a parent’s wishes. But whose parents’ wishes should take precedence? Parents upset over safe-sex education or the language in ““The Catcher in the Rye’’ could take their complaints to the courts. School administrators envision being forced to craft ““designer curriculums’’ for individual students whose parents are unhappy about one thing or another. Bob Hayes, an Indiana Democratic state lawmaker, says parents could, for instance, withdraw their child from a science class teaching evolution – and use the parental-rights measure to force the school board to offer an alternative. Says Hayes: ““This is primarily a right-wing endeavor that’s founded on frustration some folks have in the teaching of evolution in school.''
That may be overstated, but it reflects the critics’ contention that the cry for greater parental rights is a cover for what proponents really want: to impose their brand of morality on school curriculums. They say battles over course topics are rightfully fought before school boards. Parents can send their children to private schools if they’re dissatisfied. Advocates of the measure retort they don’t want to change school curriculums; they want only beefed-up authority to keep their kids out of distasteful – or ““morally neutral’’ – classes. What’s driving parents, says Erken, is that ““parents do not feel that school boards and state legislatures are responsive.''
Ironically, the movement occurs at a time when tragic cases of child abuse by parents have spurred calls for more – not less – government intervention. New York City officials have been criticized for not acting quickly enough in the tragic case of Eliza Isquierdo, the young New York girl beaten to death by her mother after several past incidents. While proponents properly cite examples of bogus child-abuse investigations, the greater horror can be found in the cases of children who should have been taken from their parents but weren’t. Child-welfare agencies worry about the chilling effect of potential suits from newly emboldened parents. Asks Bob Black, Oklahoma’s chief child-abuse examiner: ““Is it fair to put those kids in harm’s way to protect the rights of a parochial minority who’ve had their feelings hurt because they don’t want their kids to hear about condoms?’’ His comment reflects that this debate is attempting to accommodate the needs of two entirely different types of families. One demands the legal right to raise their children by their own lights. Yet some families left alone might place their own kids at risk. Both camps have legitimate concerns and needs. But is a constitutional amendment really the best way to balance them?
