I’m sick, I’m really sick. When I wrote back in May about what I suspected was a legal strategy by HSLDA to make homeschooling a fundamental right, I said that I hoped I was wrong. I hoped that HSLDA’s end game wasn’t giving parents the right to do almost anything to their children short of killing them.
The following was posted on the ParentalRights.org Facebook page on Monday:
Read that again.
The Parental Rights Amendment establishes that courts must give the highest level of protection – strict scrutiny review – anytime a government action would infringe on parents’ rights. Nearly every law or government action held to this level of review in the past has been declared unconstitutional.
What this means is that under the Parental Rights Amendment that HSLDA is campaigning for, remember, an amendment that provides no exceptions to strict scrutiny other than for parental action that would end the life of the child, any attempts to legislate what parents may do to their children is subject to a level of scrutiny where, “[n]early every law or government action held to this level of review in the past has been declared unconstitutional.”
Remember, this is an amendment that specifically had to spell out that murdering your child did not fall under strict scrutiny. That sure looks like they know that without exempting actions causing the death of a child from strict scrutiny, even the decision to murder one’s own child would be a protected parental right subject to the virtually insurmountable strict scrutiny requirements. The fact that the amendment says nothing about beating a child within an inch of his or her life being exempted from strict scrutiny means that even horrific levels of child abuse are subjected to a level of scrutiny where, “[n]early every law or government action held to this level of review in the past has been declared unconstitutional.”
This is one time where I don’t want to be right. The idea that HSLDA and Michael Farris could be willfully pursing a constitutional amendment that would de facto legalize child abuse makes me sick to my stomach. And yet here we have the official Facebook page for the Parental Rights Amendment reassuring parents that the amendment makes it so that it’s nearly impossible for any regulations or laws relating to parental rights to direct the upbringing of their children to pass constitutional muster.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. HSLDA and Michael Farris, prove me wrong on this. Demonstrate why the Parental Rights Amendment is not enabling child abusers. Modify the amendment to specify that child abuse is not a protected parental right. Do the right thing to protect children.
I really hope I’m wrong.