Parental Rights Under Threat: Equality vs. Religious Freedom

Parents do not have final say over what is taught to their children according to a judge in Ontario, Canada. 

He made the comments while ruling against a Greek Orthodox father who wanted to be notified when his children were going to be taught about things such as homosexuality and abortion in a way which violated his religious beliefs.

The judge ruled he could not make a 'black and white' ruling about parental authority, effectively saying that there are limits on what a parent can teach or not have taught to their children, even when it come to matters of faith and spirituality. 

What was particularly disturbing about the case was that the judge did rule that not informing the father was a violation of his right to religious freedom granted to him by Canada's charter on human rights. 

However, he also ruled that the school boards refusal to notify him was reasonable in light of their obligations to protect 'equality and multiculturalism', values also protected by the charter. 

The ruling highlights one of the problems with creating new 'rights' all the time when they start to conflict with other rights. 

What this means in practice is that judges get to decide which rights to prioritize and which ones to ignore and if a right can be ignored or overruled, the larger question is whether it was a real 'right' in the first place.

The judge suggested that the father could take his child out of the school if he didn't like what was being taught but defenders of religious freedom say that religious parents have as much right to use the public education system as anyone else and shouldn't have to violate their religious beliefs to do so.

The case is yet another example of a western government trying to undermine parental rights and maximize the state's role in education. 

The end goal is to indoctrinate children to believe what the state wants them to believe regardless of their parents' values. 

Prominent Canadian queer activist, S. Bear Bergman, even admitted as much in an article published in the Huffington Post last year. The title of his piece was: I Have Come to Indoctrinate Your Children Into My LGBTQ Agenda (And I'm Not a Bit Sorry)

This phenomenon of LGBT activists trying to undermine parents is not limited to Canada. In Australia, a similar battle is taking place with LGBT activists demanding that all schools adopt the 'Safe Schools program'. 

The program, according kidsrights.org.au promotes risky sexual behaviours as normal, teaches kids about gender transitioning and provides links to adult material through its online resources.  

Fortunately, the federal government stepped in at the start of the year to limit the program to high schools and made parental consent mandatory, but advocates are still pushing for that decision to be overturned.

In the USA, parents are increasingly pulling their kids out of public schools and homeschooling them due to the fear that Common Core will soon impose similar mandatory sex education programs on their children. 

They have good reason to be concerned, last year following the Supreme court's ruling on same sex marriage, the department of education changed its Facebook profile picture to a rainbow version of its logo. 

It remains to be seen what effect President-Elect Trump's administration will have on the education department but pro-family activists say that the appointment of Betsy Devos as Education Secretary is definitely a step in the right direction.