Appeals Court Declares Parenthood Unconstitutional, Group Says -- 11/03/2005

If you think that's an exaggeration, I've got news for you: Investor's Business Daily doesn't. At issue was a lawsuit brought by parents of several lower schoolers in the Palmdale (CA) School District after that district administered a highly suggestive sex survey--in the lower schools. In my day, any pupil asking such questions of another pupil would have drawn a summons to the principal's office--because if the teacher hadn't overheard it, the pupil would have gone to the teacher to ask about it. (Especially if the pupil was a girl.)

Here is what the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Appeals actually said:

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...[N]o such specific right can be found in the deep roots of the nation's history and tradition or implied in the concept of ordered liberty.

In other words, after you give life to a person, you just have to stay out, and let the teachers fill your kid's mind with whatever garbage they please.

The irony of the Court's reasoning is particularly rich in view of Griswold v. Connecticut and, of course, Roe v. Wade. Where are the "penumbras" and "emanations" suggesting a right to privacy here? Clearly everything depends on the purpose being served.

I'll tell you where I find such a right in the Constitution:

The enumeration in this Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

That's the Ninth Amendment. And where do you find other rights retained by the people? In English common law, of course. The statement that parents have no such rights in American legal tradition is worse than false: it is a bald-faced lie.

Now you know why judicial nominations are so important. Frankly, the authors of that disgusting opinion deserve removal from the bench on impeachment for, and conviction of, contempt for the Constitution and for the people's liberties thereunder.