“[A] wide range of parental speech has been prohibited by family courts, all in the name of the child’s best interests. … Even more courts have based custody decisions partly on parent-child speech and religious upbringing. In Michigan, for example, courts routinely favor the parent who takes the children to church more often. Other courts have denied parents custody based partly on the parents’ teaching their children the propriety of racism, polygamy or homosexuality….
“[F]ew courts have grappled with the question whether judges are allowed under the First Amendment to make such decisions. … Many people would trade all their free-speech rights for the right to teach their own children. And government power to constrain how parents teach their own children is dangerous. Restricting the spread of ideas from parent to child can help today’s majority, or today’s elite, entrench its views. Also, the power to suppress parents’ speech might spread beyond divorces to intact families, too.” (Eugene Volokh (UCLA Law), L.A. Times/Newsday, Feb. 12)(discussion at Volokh Conspiracy).
3 Comments
Obviously, activist judges are very “special” people. Scott Adams defines them quite well …
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/02/the_specialness.html
By permitting publicly run education, aren’t courts already tacitly admitting that parents aren’t equipped to teach their children?
I’m not saying these judges are reasonable, just that it follows.
“By permitting publicly run education” – no… by REQUIRING it.