Tag Archives: Topic: Parental Rights

Eugene Volokh comments on and links to the opinion in this post on the Volokh Conspiracy. The AP reports: Court: Sect children should be returned to parents. It begins: “In a crushing blow to the state’s massive seizure of children …

The ACLU has issued this press release that reports: . . . Last month, TDFPS seized more than 400 children during a raid on the YFZ Ranch, where individuals affiliated with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints …

“A powerful coalition of England’s leading independent schools is demanding that the Government scale back its new national curriculum for the under-fives, claiming that it violates parents’ human rights by denying them the freedom to choose how they educate their children.”

In this essay, I argue that a strict scrutiny standard has no place in spiritual custody cases. It is hardly consistent with the basic principle that the custody court’s paramount consideration is the best interests of the child.

Undermining the rights of fit parents harms families and children,” said Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a national conservative legal agency. “A natural parent who has never been declared unfit as a parent has the right to prevent access to her children by legal strangers.” . . .

Are the beliefs of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), the polygamous sect that the state of Texas has also accused of child abuse, sufficient grounds for removing all the children from the group’s compound in Eldorado, Texas?

“State child welfare authorities on Friday appealed a stinging court ruling that said their seizure of more than 440 children from a polygamist sect’s ranch was unjustified, but they also agreed to reunite 12 children with their parents while the case moves on.”

The Mirror of Justice contains this article by Shawn F. Peters that begins: In recent months, prosecutors in both Oregon and Wisconsin have been confronted with a complex problem:  Should parents who choose to treat their children’s illnesses with prayer …

The AP is reporting that a court of appeals has ruled that Texas had no right to remove hundreds of children from a polgamist compound.

“In an interview with the Socialist daily El Pais this past Sunday, Spain’s Minister of Education, Mercedes Cabrera, reaffirmed the government’s policy of complete intolerance of parents who conscientiously object to the controversial course “Education for Citizenship,” reports Catholic News Agency.”

A coalition of legal and homeschooling advocate organizations are scrambling to argue for the rights of families in California to homeschool their children . . .

The state must hold that mothers and fathers are completely interchangeable . . . The state will be indifferent as to whether children have any connection with their biological parents . . .

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other officials have told an appeals court there’s no need to dig into state constitutional issues regarding homeschooling since state laws already provide for that choice for parents.

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel Austin R. Nimocks will argue before the Missoula County Fourth Judicial District Court on behalf of a mother who is asking the court to reject visitation and parental rights demanded by a woman not biologically or legally related to her children.

Part IV argues that the restriction preventing the father from advocating polygamy to his child should have been upheld. It criticizes the majority opinion for not providing the trial court with the broad discretion it needs when making determinations of a child’s best interest and for ignoring the factual findings that support the trial court’s decision to limit the advocacy.

The Maryland Court of Appeal ruled Monday in favor of a mother defending her parental rights against a non-parent’s claim to her eight-year-old girl. ADF attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the Family Research Council . . .

Texas officials are making it impossible for parents to get back their children, complained Willie Jessop, an elder of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which runs the ranch in Eldorado. “Every parent is accused of being bad and there’s no cure,” he said after the first day of hearings, which were to resume Tuesday and expected to last three weeks.

In a decision with broad ramifications for nontraditional families, Maryland’s highest court ruled Monday in favor of an adoptive mother who is seeking to deny her former partner visitation rights to a child that both had cared for during their relationship.

Issue: Whether a parental rights claim of a teacher denied a promotion for choosing to educate her children in a competing private school is subject to rational basis or heightened scrutiny.

The danger to parents is compounded by a growing movement among American and international academics to prevent parents from “indoctrinating” their children with religious beliefs . . .

Mental health workers sent to emergency shelters in San Angelo last month to help care for the hundreds of women and children removed from a polygamist sect’s West Texas ranch have sharply criticized the Child Protective Services operation, telling their governing board it unnecessarily traumatized the kids.

It has been nearly two years since the FDA fast tracked the licensure of Merck’s GARDASIL vaccine and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended it for universal use by all 11 year old girls.

“In a case of first impression for North Carolina, on May 6 the state’s court of appeals upheld a decision by Durham County District Judge Ann McKown to award joint custody of a child to Joellen Mason and Irene Dwinnell, former lesbian partners.”

“The new petition argues that the trial court abused its discretion in failing to return the children to their mothers and in denying them visitation rights.”

Vouchers are more successful than ever. And no wonder, because the research consistently shows that they improve education both for kids who use them and in public schools, they reduce racial segregation, they improve tolerance and other civic values, they improve services for the disabled, and have other beneficial effects.

In its amicus brief, LLI warns the Court of Appeals to apply a standard of strict scrutiny when determining whether to take custody of a child away from his/her parent, unless the state presents evidence to establish sexual exploitation or abuse exists.

ParentalRights.org has this unbelievable report: . . . Tenured University of Michigan classical archeology professor, Christopher Ratte, took his 7-year-old son to a Tigers baseball game at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan. He ordered a drink for himself and what …

However, the actual legal issue at stake in the Texas case is not polygamy, or child custody, or even “pedophilia” or “child sexual abuse,” which are terms usually applied when the victim is pre-pubescent. Instead, the issue is a crime usually referred to as “statutory rape.”

Don’t we normally arrest individual suspects and try them for their crimes? Do we normally and pre-emptively round up all the children in a community where it is suspected abuse is taking place without specific evidence?

The ACLU claims a high school principal violated two students’ freedom of association when she “outed” them to parents, teachers, and other students.

The article concludes that the best understanding of the current jurisprudence is that the constitutional protections are much less robust than currently thought, and offers some modest suggestions about the protections of the rights of unwed fathers that might be created by statute.

The State of Israel has agreed for the first time to register an overseas adoption by a gay couple and to grant the child Israeli citizenship.

. . . some . . . assert that the CPS may take all of the FLDS’s children away because . . . the “culture” of the FLDS is inherently abusive, as it encourages early marriage and leaves its children inherently isolated by homeschooling . . .

The ACLU of Texas has joined the debate over the removal of 416 children from a polygamous sect’s ranch more than two weeks ago.A Utah man also has gathered 1,000 signatures through an online petition site from people who oppose the blanket removal of the children from the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado.

. . . Excuse me, Judge? You issued a sweeping, house-to-house search warrant based on a highly questionable anonymous call that turned out to be phony. You refused to allow individual hearings for children, grouping them together like cattle.

This Note discusses how free exercise claims made in custody disputes should be handled post-Employment Division v. Smith. Before Smith, the Supreme Court had held that free exercise claims should be evaluated using strict scrutiny.

ut more troubling is the planned separation from their parents of all other children who had been living at the Yearning for Zion ranch, including infants still being nursed by their mothers, even though there doesn’t appear to be clearcut evidence that at least many of them were neglected or physically abused, according to the Dallas Morning News and other media reports.

The belief system at a polygamous sect is abusive and teen girls do not resist early marriages because they are trained to be obedient and compliant, an expert testified Friday in a custody hearing for 416 children seized from a secluded ranch.

“TEACHERS are being urged to stop using terms such as husband and wife when addressing students or families under a major anti-homophobia push in schools.”

On Wednesday, April 16, the House Ways and Means Committee released its 2009 budget with $500,000 that will go directly to to fund homosexual programs in the public schools.

The AP reports: “A court hearing to decide the fate of the 416 children swept up in a raid on a West Texas polygamous sect descended into farce Thursday, with hundreds of lawyers in two packed buildings shouting objections and …

Liberty Counsel has issued this press release. It reports: Today, Liberty Counsel presented oral argument at the Virginia Supreme Court in a case that highlights the conflict between states that recognize same-sex civil unions and those that do not. The …

The effect of the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Fields v. Palmdale was a virtual relinquishment of a parent’s ability to have a voice in what his or her child would be exposed to during the course of the school day, regardless of whether the information was a part of the curriculum.

Assembly Bill 2943 (Lieber) was approved today by the Assembly Committee on Public Safety. If approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor, the bill would make the ordinary practice of spanking a child by a parent a criminal act.

“Good parents in California could be jailed,” unless they rise up and oppose a bill intended to ban the spanking of children, a conservative group is warning.

On Thursday, April 17, 2008, the Virginia Supreme Court will hear the Lisa Miller case.

The Evolution Academic Freedom Act, which was approved 7-3 by the Senate Judiciary Committee, now moves to the full Senate.

Against the wishes of several area parents, the local Bisbee School Board voted this week to include condoms in the “prom bags” it gives away to teenagers at the annual dance.

It was recently reported in the Arkansas Times that the Arkansas Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union was looking into allegations that juvenile probation officer William Hall had spanked probationers with a belt and wooden paddle.

I suggest that disaggregating and redefining parentage may allow for recognition of all the relevant adults in a child’s life, yet not grant equal parental rights to all individuals, unless specifically agreed upon.

The superintendent of a public school that sparked a federal lawsuit by teaching homosexuality to children as young as kindergarten has told another worried parent he can review course material, but he has no right to withdraw his child from class during lessons.

Should the law recognize an individual’s right not to be a genetic parent when genetic parenthood does not carry with it legal or gestational parenthood? If so, should we allow individuals to waive that right in advance, either by contract or a less formal means?

“Assemblywoman Sally Lieber has introduced a bill that will effectively ban spanking in California. Identical to last year’s highly publicized AB 755, this new AB 2943 will make it a crime to spank a child.”

Our judicial system has become grossly iniquitous,” Leslie writes in an open letter. “Medical professionals responsible for unbiased and honest evaluations have the power to devastate and destroy families with no legal accountability.”

ADF attorney Mike Johnson appears on the Mike Corley Show to discuss various cases currently pending around the country including the California home school ruling. The mp3 file is here. It runs just over 12 minutes.

But why is education the business of government? It’s taken for granted that the state is every child’s ultimate parent, but there’s no justification for that in a free society. Parents may not be perfect — some are pretty bad — but a cold, faceless bureaucracy is no better.

Before this weekend’s Democratic Party state convention in San Jose was barely under way, operatives of Planned Parenthood were circulating among delegates sounding the alarm that another parental notification initiative was about to qualify for the ballot.

The Vaccine Awakening blog has this post: Ever since the historic National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Reagan, federal health officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human …

The three siblings of a girl who died of diabetes that went untreated as her parents prayed instead of taking her to a doctor have been removed from the home during an investigation, police said Friday.

The parents of Melissa Busekros, the German teen who was taken by police from her home and placed in a psychiatric ward because she was homeschooled, now are being billed by the government for the cost of her forced stay, according to attorneys who are working on her case . . .

Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, Westchester County is sponsoring legislation that would waive the consent requirement for minors. The vaccine is most effective when given to girls before they are sexually active, she said . . .

The Volokh Conspiracy links to a series of posts discussing the vaccinations controversy and government efforts to force parents to have vaccinations. On the same topic, Glen Reynolds has this InstaPundit post in response to a post by Michelle Malkin. …

Joseph M. Knippenberg has this analysis of the recent California homeschooling decision on First Things.

The Kansas court ruled 4-2 last fall that a sperm donor who wants to have parental rights with any subsequent children must have a written agreement with the mother.

. . . Faced with opposition from the parents over the vaccination of “Baby M,” the doctor called in hospital social service worker Joni Vohs, who reportedly threatened the parents with the loss of custody of their baby if they did not comply with the vaccination schedule . . .

365Gay.com reports that the Vermont Supreme Court has declined to reconsider its earlier ruling in favor of visitation for a former lesbian partner as against the child’s natural parent. Liberty Counsel’s March 13th press release discussing the case is here.

UC Davis Law professors Vikram Amar and Alan Brownstein have this commentary on Findlaw discussing the California ruling and the larger policy implications of homeschooling.

Via LifeNews: Led by votes from pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Senate rejected a measure on Thursday night that would have promoted parental involvement when it comes to a minor teenager girl who is considering …

The Michigan parental consent law was supposed to increase parental involvement and reduce the number of teen abortions.

This is a precedent-setting legal battle between Virginia and Vermont over same-sex unions and the right of fit, biological parents against unrelated third parties.

Two sets of parents in Belgium were recently handed five month prison terms for failing to vaccinate their children against polio.

The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming . . . “We’re happy,” said Lloyd Porter, who is on the California Teachers Association board of directors. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell issued a statement saying he supports “parental choice . . . ”

“Every California child deserves a quality education and parents should have the right to decide what’s best for their children,” the governor said in a statement.

“If people think that such hostility toward parental rights and choice in education isn’t possible in America, this decision demonstrates otherwise.” said ADF attorney David Cortman

“In 2005, Parker was arrested at his son’s school following a classroom lesson on same-sex marriage using the book King & King.”