OPINION:
Parents deserve the right to raise their children as they see fit, and yet there appears to be a diabolical plot hatching in various quarters to erode this should-be inalienable freedom.
We’ve seen case after case in recent years of parents saying their children were covertly socially transitioned behind their backs, with some schools going so far as to intentionally conceal kids’ use of preferred pronouns — all to prevent parents from knowing about their kids’ gender struggles.
These sinister maneuvers have continued to make headlines as brave parents push back against nonsensical actions by public school bureaucrats seemingly bent on a mission to drive a wedge between parents and their minor children.
Such inappropriate moves teach children that lying to their parents and concealing the truth are values worth heralding, revealing yet again just how morally defunct some of our educational institutions have become.
Furthermore, schools that engage in such behavior send a covert — or even overt — message that educators know best and trump parental authority. These messages are dangerous, misplaced and must be stopped.
In the latest move to push back on the insanity, a Massachusetts family asked the Supreme Court to hear a case “challenging Ludlow School Committee officials for enacting a gender-identity policy that excludes parents from any knowledge or involvement in key decisions regarding their children’s care,” according to conservative legal firm Alliance Defending Freedom.
Parents Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri appropriately believe that cutting parents out is a blatant violation of their rights to raise their children as they see fit. And since Mr. Foote and Ms. Silvestri believe attempting to transition a child’s gender is harmful, they’re pushing back.
The case began after the parents learned that their middle school daughter was depressed and questioning her gender identity. After hiring a private counselor to help navigate the situation, the family requested that the school refrain from engaging in any private dialogue with their child about the issue.
But Mr. Foote and Ms. Silvestri say officials disregarded that request and started secretly helping their daughter socially transition, allowing her to use boys’ restrooms and go by a male name. A school counselor also encouraged the label of “genderqueer.”
The parents say they were kept in the dark, with ADF indicating this was nefariously done to conceal the truth from Mr. Foote and Ms. Silvestri.
“Indeed, school officials actively concealed their activities by using the girl’s real name and pronouns when communicating with her parents but using her male name and nonbinary pronouns at school,” the ADF statement read.
School staff were also instructed not to tell parents about the child’s in-school identification. ADF says an educator was fired when she finally shared this information.
Mr. Foote and Ms. Silvestri claim to have sought help from the principal and superintendent upon learning these details, but stated that they were met with resistance and a refusal to abide by their wishes for their child.
Now, they’re taking their case to the highest court in the land in hopes of settling this issue of parental rights once and for all.
These aggrieved parents are hardly alone in their battle against school officials who have gone too far, as ADF claims more than 1,000 public school districts across America have similar “secret transition policies.”
Other parents have taken legal action, and teachers are taking their districts to task on similar grounds. Deb Figliola, a middle school teacher in Virginia, told me last year that she successfully fought back against the Harrisonburg City Public School Board after being “asked to lie to parents about their own children.”
“A little over three years ago, we were given a training that told us as a staff — and this training was given to all staff and all personnel within the school district — that we would have to ask students for what they wanted to be called and what pronoun they preferred,” she said. “And then we had to always refer to them that way.”
Ms. Figliola and other educators partnered with ADF to fight back and were granted a religious accommodation that doesn’t require them to use pronouns or hide information from parents.
And she’s now encouraging other teachers to take similar action, boldly standing up to defend both parental and teacher rights.
“Don’t give up, because there are protections and there is a path forward,” she told me.
This deception won’t cease until parents and teachers take a stand. With the cultural winds moving in the right direction, now is the time for individuals and families to feel emboldened to speak out.
Parents ultimately reserve the right to raise their children how they see fit. Let’s hope the Supreme Court takes up the case and enshrines common sense.
• Billy Hallowell is a digital TV host and interviewer for Faithwire and CBN News and the co-host of CBN’s “Quick Start Podcast.” Mr. Hallowell is the author of four books.
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