August 22, 2006MA Parental Rights in Jeopardy
by Kim Trobee
http://family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0041722.cfm
In the eyes of Massachusetts schools, your religious concerns about your child’s education are as legitimate as Native Americans wanting to smoke peyote.
Massachussets parents went to court to exempt their children from the pro- gay instruction. The state in turn called for the case to be dismissed, citing a court ruling in Oregon that denied Indians the use of peyote, a hallucinogenic, in their religious ceremonies. Kelly Shackelford with the Liberty Legal Institute responds to the claim.
“What they’re trying to do is use that case as a way to say, ‘Look, you don’t have free exercise anymore. If we do something and we’re not aiming at your religion, then your religion is not violated and you don’t have any claims that you can make.”
In any case, it’s an insult and not a very good comparison according to Dr. Warren Throckmorton with Grove City College.
“Smoking peyote is illegal. There is a statute making the possession and the use of it illegal. It’s not illegal to believe that marriage should be between a man and woman.”
He accuses the school of overstepping its bounds.
“Schools need to see themselves as a business providing a service to parents and children. Religious rights don’t stop because a child goes to school. Parents have the right to train their children, instruct them in the way they believe is proper.”
With the state of America’s public schools, it seems they should put more emphasis on the three R’s and leave morality instruction to the home.