Happy election season (otherwise known as the Super Bowl for political nerds). On one night of the year, DC is the only US city where bars and restaurants are packed, not to watch some ball game, but to spend hours watching vote totals roll in from across the country once the polls close on election day.
A major issue on the ballot this year is parental rights, and some members of Congress are acting accordingly. It’s unusual for legislators to do anything substantive this close to an election, but sometimes the political moment is right for a particular bill to be introduced.
That bill, in this case, is the Parental Rights Amendment.
If you’ve been following HSLDA for some time, you’re probably already familiar with the Parental Rights Amendment. Our sister organization, ParentalRights.org, has championed the Amendment for several years. But it has never been so relevant as it is right now, when the spotlight is focused on the rights of parents.
Whether it’s candidates saying out loud that parents shouldn’t have a role in what schools teach, districts allowing students to get vaccinated without their parents’ knowledge or consent, or Child Protective Services (CPS) investigators’ subjecting children to unnecessary and intrusive abuse investigations, the past few years have shown that there is an attack on the role of parents in their children’s lives. Pro-family legislators cannot stand idly by any longer.
One such legislator is Rep. Debbie Lesko from Arizona, this year’s sponsor of the Parental Rights Amendment in Congress. The Amendment would codify the fact that parents have a crucial role to play in the upbringing of their children, and no governmental institution should get in the way of that. The Supreme Court has recognized this right for over a century, but that precedent, unfortunately, is clearly not enough. A constitutional amendment is the strongest action Congress can take to prevent state and federal governments from further eroding the family unit.
While the Amendment won’t pass with only a few weeks left in this Congressional session, this introduction means it’ll be ready to be introduced early in next year’s Congress, signaling that parental rights are a priority for the upcoming legislative session. And even though it won’t get a vote before the end of the year, you can still contact your Representative and urge them to take a public stand in support of families by supporting the Parental Rights Amendment.
There are other pieces of parental rights legislation being drafted for introduction in the near future, and I will keep you updated when they are.
In the meantime, I can’t tell you who to vote for. But there is, perhaps, no more important right for homeschooling freedom than that of parental rights. And if your representative isn’t willing to fight for that right, you should let them know what you think about that at the voting booth.