Parental Rights: A Venerated and Protected Liberty
Parental rights have become the epicenter of national debate in recent years as aggressive attacks have been mounted against this long-recognized fundamental and God-given right. As our culture continues to decay it preys on young children in an effort to divide the nuclear family unit where parental rights stand as the gatekeepers. It is not and never has been within the jurisdiction of the state to tell parents how to raise their children. Essential to preserving the family unit is ensuring that parents have the sole right to oversee and dictate the care and upbringing of the children God gifted to them. Our highest court, the U.S. Supreme Court, has long since recognized the vital importance of parental rights and has sought to protect them for decades.
As interpreted by the Supreme Court, the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution recognizes the fundamental right to liberty. This right, however, is interpreted as encompassing a broad assortment of issues. As the Court views it, what it means to have liberty cannot be singularly defined. Exactly one hundred years ago, the Supreme Court determined in Meyer v. Nebraska, that liberty, “denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men”. (emphasis mine). A key piece of exercising one’s liberty is to raise a family free from government interference.[1] The only time in which it is acceptable for the state to get involved is in cases of abuse and neglect. When parents fall short of their sacred duty to care for their children, it is often necessary for the state to step in for the sake of the children’s livelihoods.
Proponents of gender ideology have sought to override this constitutionally protected right and when they fail in the face of a centuries worth of precedent, they seek to circumvent it by the only means available to them: the caveat of abuse and neglect. This caveat should be seldom and delicately used. There are legitimate times of need for the state to intervene to save a child’s life. But this police power needs to be exercised with caution and carefully reined in. Yet the recent narrative is that parents who do not affirm their children’s gender confusion are abusing them. This blatantly false idea is the only pathway the other side can use, short of circumventing parents completely by deceptive practices in public schools, which is a prevailing issue in and of itself.
Troxel v. Granville, a case well rooted in precedent, is very clear about the role of the state in child-rearing. “Accordingly, so long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children (i.e., is fit), there will normally be no reason for the State to inject itself into the private realm of the family to further question the ability of that parent to make the best decisions concerning the rearing of that parent's children.” Such strong language leaves little room for argument. Yet as the battleground intensifies, parents are finding themselves face-to-face with out-of-control police power and exploitation of the system.
As this issue increasingly comes to the fore, courts, specifically Juvenile and Domestic Relations courts, are going to be the ones to address it. But this is not something best fought out in the courts because, amid the legal battle, children are taken and kept away from their parents. This is a battle parents should never have to face. Just as Virginia legislated the Supreme Court’s findings that parental rights are fundamental (Va Code §1.240.1) the definition of abuse and neglect needs to be narrowly defined so families are not needlessly ripped apart at the hands of zealous gender ideology proponents.
States are currently wrestling with the concept of affirming biological sex as being classified as abuse. To stop this, just this year, legislators in Virginia attempted to pass a bill (HB 2432) that would have ensured that the definition of abuse and neglect did not include a parent merely affirming their child’s biological sex. Sadly, due to the progressive majority of the Virginia Senate, the bill failed. However, our team is committed to seeing this through, no matter how long and how hard it takes. And our legal team is here to stand in the gap for parents whose fundamental rights have been trampled on.
[1] Of note, jurists often debate regarding whether these broad protections are recognized under the Due Process Clause or the Privileges or Immunities Clause.
