by Kerry Dougherty

Four years ago no one was talking about parental rights.

Now everyone is.

It all began with the covid lockdowns. Once schools were closed parents got a look at what was and wasn’t being taught in public schools.

And the scales fell from their eyes.

Parents began to see school administrators and some teachers not as allies who were trying to educate their kids and fill them with a love of country, but as indoctrinators filling their heads with gender theories and a skewed view of American history through a modern prism of critical race theory.

The Founding Fathers were no longer taught as enlightened men of their times determined to create a country where individual liberties were protected from the heavy hand of the state, but they were made small, reduced to nothing more than slaveholders.

On top of that, parents found that some middle and even elementary school libraries contained graphic books that celebrated masturbation, sex, gay and trans lifestyles. They learned that some school administrators – in Loudoun, for instance – were not reporting cases of sexual assault but were covering the incidents up. Even from parents.

The outrage in Virginia was so widespread that voters in what had become a reliably blue state elected Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears and Attorney General Jason Miyares, who ran on a GOP platform of restoring parents’ rights.

Democrats lost by doubling down on the exclusion of parents from schools. On the eve of the election Terry McAuliffe blundered by campaigning with the loathsome teachers’ union boss Randi Weingarten, who almost single-handedly was responsible for lengthy and damaging school closures during covid.

As public school enrollment plummets and more parents than ever are homeschooling, the parents rights movement has gone national and mainstream.

Last week the GOP-led House of Representatives passed a Parents Bill of Rights on a vote of 213-208, without the support of a single Democrat.

Despite demagoguing by Democrats this is really just a simple, common-sense measure that would require schools give parents access to curriculum, reading lists and school budgets. It would require schools to promptly notify parents about violent incidents in the schools, give them advance notice of plans to eliminate gifted and talented programs and give parents the right to speak at school board meetings.

It would protect student privacy by forbidding schools from selling student information and by not allowing medical exams of students without parental permission.

It would also require schools to notify parents if a child begins to transition to a different gender.

It’s that last component that has Democrats clutching their pearls.

A hysterical Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said this about the measure: “This Republican bill is asking the government to force the outing of LGBT people before they are ready.”

Is she nuts?

A child who is transitioning at school has outed him or herself. The only people who may not know are parents. They have an absolute right to know what’s going on with their kid.

The reason Dems give for wanting to keep secrets from parents is that they fear some won’t react with appropriate government-approved acceptance and celebration of the trans lifestyle.

Frankly, unless parents engage in child abuse, it’s none of the government’s business how they react to news their child thinks he or she is trans.

To believe otherwise is to believe that children are property of the state.

And that’s exactly what many Democrats believe. They forget that schools are government institutions, in government buildings, which are paid for by taxpayers. The children in them belong to their parents, not the state.

Given their votes last week, let’s quickly review some basic principles that Democrats hold dear.

Democrats don’t believe parents have a right to see the curriculum in public schools. Nor do they have a right to speak at school board meetings, or to meet with teachers twice a year for conferences. They believe schools should have the right to sell personal information about your child and they want to allow medical exams on your kids without your permission..

They believe parents shouldn’t know about violent acts taking place in the school. They believe that if your child is transitioning at school and changing his pronouns teachers and administrators have a right to keep that secret from parents.

Polling would show that most Americans agree with the Republicans on this issue. Democrats know their positions are un-American, but they’re counting on their devotion to abortion to carry them through the next elections.

Good luck with that, Democrats.

Republished with permission from Kerry: Unedited and Unemployed.