Thursday, November 03, 2005

Mother Constitution, Father Court

The traditional role of parenting has been viewed for years as a bi-gender relationship, which through procreation, establishes a family unit in which the maternal parent made decisions about the rules of childrearing and the paternal parent's role was usually to be the enforcer of those rules. In a ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this traditional role has been deemed unconstitutional in the verdict handed down in the case of the California parents who sought to sue the school system for having their children subjected to sexually oriented material without being duly informed. The material had been presented to third, fourth and fifth graders in the form of a survey and asked such questions as,
"...if they ever thought about having sex or touching other people's "private parts" and whether they could "stop thinking about having sex."
The parents who sued the Palmdale School District felt that it was not appropriate for the school district to conduct such a survey and,
"The parents argued that they -- not the public schools -- have the sole right "to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex."

The three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit dismissed the case, saying,
"There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children...Parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."

With true paternal bearing the 9th has taken upon itself to declare that the new tradition regarding procreation will remove the decision making and enforcing roles of humans and elevate it to a higher level, that in which the Constitution will be the designated "mother" and the courts will serve in the role of the enforcer "father". This coming from the same court that ruled in 2002 that the Pledge of Allegience was unconstitutional because of the words "under God".

In the scheme of things, "Daddy" has spoken. Maybe "Daddy" should remember that when a parent is seen as only an enforcer through the eyes of a child this will create an environment in which oftentimes the child will rebel. Perhaps this court, in all it's wisdom, will see fit to take part in a parenting 101 class. It would seem that having removed the right to parent from those involved in a traditional procreational unit, the court has now made itself responsible to deal with all the dirty diapers.

posted by Is It Just Me? at 8:24 AM