California Family Council has always stood as a champion for parents’ rights. We believe strongly that mothers and fathers have the right to raise their children how they see fit. Education must fit a family’s needs in a manner consistent with their sincerely held and religious beliefs. But many lawmakers in Sacramento don’t see it that way.
Too often, government officials see your kids as their property, and view it as their right to instill their worldview and morals in your children. They believe the state, not parents, should have the authority to make life-altering and sensitive medical decisions for your children. Horrifically, most lawmakers in Sacramento are completely fine with your teenage daughter or your grandchild getting an abortion without you ever finding out.
The battle for parental rights has fully arrived in California.
Renowned journalist Abigail Shrier recently wrote a piece in City Journal that explores the phenomenon of State encroachment on parents’ rights. The stories highlighted in her piece uncover the radical and aggressive tactics used by state-sanctioned programs to capture children’s interest and to move the decision-making process deliberately away from parents on issues related to gender. And so many of these stories come from California, Oregon, and Washington – three states that have prided themselves on “social progress.”
But is it really social progress to use government to coerce kids away from their parents, and away from those who know them, care for them, and love them, to make life-changing decisions in a vacuum without full disclosure of side effects, consequences, or stories of regret? That’s exactly what’s happening in our government-funded public schools.
This isn’t just anti-American. It’s evil.
It doesn’t take a village to raise a child; it takes a family. This is why CFC advocates for the nuclear family. A mother and father in a committed, loving marital relationship is the best environment for a child to succeed. Government isn’t and shouldn’t be a part of that sacred bond and relationship between parents and children.
If government-funded schools only exist to insert government into that parent-child relationship, then I believe it’s really time to consider whether or not we – as parents who care for our children – can continue to allow our kids into environments that pull them from safety and care, and into risk and regret.
Government has further asserted itself into the parent-child dynamic by passing legislation that bans therapy or counseling that doesn’t affirm a child’s confusion over his or her actual biological status.
“One mother I spoke with had had Child Protective Services called on her by her own therapist,” Shrier wrote, “after she had explained in therapy why she had chosen not to “affirm” her young trans-identified teen daughter.”
Government doesn’t belong in these conversations at all, nor do they have authority to initiate these conversations and cause distrust in the parent-child relationship.
