Archive for the 'Constitutional Law' Category

Big Brother Lives

There is a principle in internet discussion called “Godwin’s Law.” It states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” Sometimes, however, it doesn’t even take that long.

The 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles recently handed down a decision that required the home-schooled children in at least one family to be enrolled in a government school or a government-approved private school. Of course, the reasons are fairly transparent. The only reason for government to become this involved in education is to have a say in what children are taught. WorldNetDaily points out that the court’s ruling sounds similar to education officials in Germany, whose mandatory government education laws have been on the books since Hitler put them there in 1938 in order to indoctrinate Germany’s children with Nazi ideals.

In this case, the indoctrination taking place isn’t as simple as Nazism; it’s the new liberal fascism. California Senate Bill 777 was passed by the legislature several months ago and it requires government schools to offer only positive portrayals of homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality, and whatever else is found in that particular pot. This makes California the most “progressive” state to date, mandating that in government schools, any opinion is acceptable as long as it isn’t biblical Christianity.

Against this backdrop, the court’s ruling that homeschool children must be subjected to this sort of this is particularly startling:

[K]eeping the children at home deprived them of situations where (1) they could interact with people outside the family, (2) there are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children’s lives, and (3) they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents’ ‘cloistered’ setting.

Point #1 is clearly a red herring since it is well established that homeschool children generally are more socially mature than their government schooled counterparts. Point #2 is also curious and I would like to see the full opinion to see what the court was talking about. But point #3 really strikes at the heart of the issue.

“[T]hey could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents’ ‘cloistered’ setting.” The language implies that children should develop emotionally in a setting other than what their parents are providing. Given the backdrop of SB777, the fact that the children’s father said, “I don’t want to put my children in a public school system that teaches ideologies I don’t believe in,” and the fact that the court held that “sincerely held religious beliefs” don’t extend the 1st Amendment to cover the education of children, it’s pretty clear what the court wants the children to learn.