Mickey

Why? Are you saying the the constitutional fundamental right to excusively control what is and is not taught at a school by each individual parent is limited to sex so other parts of the curriculum, such a physical education, is not included? What are the limits of this new right? Can't I be just as offended by my daughter being taught about slavery, war or new math as you would be by the research questionaire involved in this case? I know you won't believe me but I could care less if the Ninth Circuit court quit working cases to open a nudist barbecue pit. I also have no vested interest in schools letting outside researchers conduct stupid studies. There are reasons why this precedent, so abhorrent to so many here, is so long and well established. My sense is that because this had sex involved, everyone is freaking out. So I am trying to lift it out of that reactionary realm where the core issue might be discussed with something approaching rationality.

I have always had that "appreciation", it is a conservative fantasy that liberals support any other approach. Where we do differ is the role of the court when it comes to interpreting the constitution. That is a far more complex issue, not one I sense anyone here is willing to discuss beyond their respective: ACTIVIST JUDGES, LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH, THE FOUNDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!! talking points. Whenever I see those phrases, I interpret them as meaning: "I don't know what I am talking about but I am mad as hell."

I'm not the one whining all the time about judicial acitivism. The right is, just not when it doesn't suit them. This case had no precedent, nothing at all to allow it to go the other way. Roe, for example, had Griswold and other cases, Supreme Court cases, to rely on. The idea that liberals are making up laws out of whole cloth is bs. You might not agree with a number of cases and perhaps for very good, sound, legal reasons. That just means that they were wrong, not that they made things up. That is the oversimplification from party central mass produced for consumption by the thronging masses. Lots of liberals have made lousy court decisions. Lots of conservatives have as well. There is plenty to discuss, debate and disagree with withoug carting out that kind of campaign commercial pap. What lefty, liberal judges (why always the stereotype?) are you talking about anyway? This was a three judge panel, one judge from the Eighth Circuit. Do you know his name, his background, who appointed him? I didn't think so but he must be a liberal lefty because he made a decision you disagree with, right? How about the Judges on the First Circuit who decided the case that the Ninth was compelled to follow, are they all liberal lefties? Who are they? How do you know they are liberal lefties? How about all those other cases from all those other circuits reaching the exact same conclusion? Are they all liberal lefties as well? Stop the liberal-conservative crap and tell me why you think there is a fundamental constitutional right of each parent to decide what is taught in each lesson in a public school and that if that right is denied, they should have the right to sue for money damages in federal court rather than just give the idiot teacher a piece of their mind at the next PTA meeting?

Can you or can you not differentiate between what was wrong, stupid even, and what is a fundamental constitutional right that is actionable in a federal court suit for monetary damages? Why are you picking on the Ninth, why not the Eighth circuit, one of their judges was on the three judge panel that decided the case. Why not the First Circuit whose leading precedent the Ninth simply followed? I am making a legal argument, I am no moral philosopher. Judges and lawyers are supposed to decide things based on the law, not our individual views of morality. This was a legal case and so I am discussing its legal merits and analyzing it from a legal standpoint. If you want to have a moral discussion about what should and should not be asked of kids, see you at the PTA or the next class period of "Ethics in Education". Tell me what legal precedent the Ninth violated? Tell what cases they cited that were not valid precedent? Tell me what statute was violated? Tell me why getting parental consent wasn't enough?

No, but I also won't let my daughter play dodgeball, do I have a constitutional right to shut down dodgeball at the entire school? Court cases aren't about what is right and what is wrong, they are about what is so wrong its actionable. In the constitutional realm, that bar is as high as it can get. Not everything that is right or wrong is a fudamental constitutional right giving rise to a federal case for monetary damages?

Certainly not appropriate to ask without getting parental consent first which in fact was done here. The problem is that the information sheet on the test used by the parents to make the decision wasn't very detailed, especially on these things. They didn't override parental instructions, they just did a lousy job getting consent. That is a problem easily remedied at the next PTA meeting or School Board election, it doesn't give rise to a constitutional fundamental right not recognized by any other court or judicial opinion. Call your congressman.

It wasn't a "sexuality survey" and it is disingenuous to call it such. The language you are screaming at me above doesn't at all effect consent. Having the right to pull your kid from school the day they are teaching about slavery is not the same as insisting that the school not be permitted to teach about slavery at all because it offends you. Certainly you can pull your kid, you just can't tell the school what to teach and what not to based on a constitutional fundamental right. You can do all sorts of things to control you schools curriculum from being on the school board to the PTA. This isn't about that, its about having an actionable, fundamental right to control the curriculum via a federal case. I am sure you understand that the right to raise your kid is still yours, you can send him to school or not if they are doing something that day that concerns you. You just can't tell them that they have to call the whole lesson off for the whole school because you think it is a bad lesson. Try and imagine how things would work if what you suggest was permitted, if the school needed a fully informed consent from every parent on every lesson before it could be taught. The school here wasn't trying to force a sexuality survey on ususpecting kids as part of some sick joke they had a hankering to play. This psychologist came up to them and asked for permission to do this research that could benefit kids who have trouble learning due to emotional and psychiatric reasons. Among the several tests and many, many questions, were a few about sex. It got by them. They weren't out to idoctrinate kids into a porn ring. They screwed up, it happens. Lets not let one goofy idea at one lousy school district about an obscure research project give rise to a brand new fundamental constitutional right that makes it impossible to play duck-duck-goose during recess whithout each child making a written waiver in the presence of a court appointed attorney.

Don't pick on this court, they were following endless precedents on the issue. Plus, one of the three judges was from another circuit. The decision to dismiss was made by the District Court Judge and the controlling precedent was out of the First Circuit. The parents consented in the first place and could have asked for more information in the second place. The alternative was to send all of the tests out to all of the parents so they could read each and every question to see if it passed their muster. That is what they meant by "exclusive" control on the issue. If a parent had that right, you couldn't have disciplinary rules at the school, a whole host of problems would arise. You would have to get a consent form to play dodgeball that was 25 pages long explaining every rule. The only reason this is even getting any media attention is because the word "sex" is involved. I understand that the consent form and information sheet sent home was not as accurate as it should have been but there is no constitutional fundamental right to perfectly accurate handouts. The holding in this case was that they failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. That is the easiest standard to meet to avoid dismissal in all of the law. It means that even if every factual allegation made by the plaintiffs was absolutely accurate, they still lose on the law. This was wasn't even close Tom, there are lots of cases like this on different school issues, this one is notable only in that it involves sex. I can't get the link to work to get back to the case but my recollection is that there were 2 or 3 tests involved with lots of questions, only a few (3 or 4?) having anything to do with sex. It was not a "sexuality survey" as some are hysterically calling it. One interesting facet of this is that those usually complaining the loudest about judicial acitivism want this court, in this case, to embrace activism by creating a new fundamental right long denied by a list of precedents a mile long. As I have always said, the "judicial acitivism" complaint is a canard.

For now I have to go with D. Looking good in camp and playing well in a real live game are two different things. We just don't know what we have yet in Roscoe. For now, he just isn't that good but he has a lot of football ahead of him.

All thjose posts and I forgot to link the opinion I keep telling everyone to read. Whoops. Here it is: Fields v. Palmdale School District

Given the preformance of our defense this year, I would be hard pressed to say that any one of our starters is playing solid football.

Which part is lunacy, the test or the parents having consented for their kids to participate in the study and then sued over it?

Don't you think it is interesting that the article you cited failed to mention the fact that all the parents involved signed a consent form? Isn't that kind of an important detail to leave out, assuming honest journalism as opposed to propaganda is the goal?

Ummm.....the parents in this case all signed a consent form for their kids to participate in the study. Congratulations on helping me with my pet theory that many conservatives are better described as reactionary insult machines.

The parents who sued all signed a consent form for their kids to participate in the study. The decision followed a long line of precedents, the parents conceded this and simply argued for the Court to invent a new right, one not recognized by any other case. They followed almost verbatim the opinion in a First Circuit case and the District Court that first heard the case also dismissed the parent's action. One of the three judges who decided the case was on loan from the Eighth Circuit. This was a very non-activist decision and it is one that would have been made in any of the Circuits based on the plentiful precedents in this area of the law.

They didn't rule that it trumped their authority. What you are missing is the fact that the parents involved here signed consent forms for their kids to participate in the study. Thus, the district in fact gave control over the issue to the parents from the git-go. The reason the parents got ticked and sued is that when they signed the form they didn't know all the questions that were going to be asked in the study. The only way they could get around the consent forms they signed was to argue that they had a right to exclusive control. Accordingly, they argued, the school had to send them the entire test, not just an info sheet on the test. Any involvement by the school would be a problem under their claim for exclusive control. There is a long, long line of precedent that grants the right to bring up your kids the way you want as a fundamental right but it doesn't translate to exclusive control over the curriculum. Their remedy was to not have their kids participate in the study and they were given that choice. If you hear something that sounds too stupid to be believed, it probably shouldn't be believed. I think that is the case here.

All the parents who sued in the case had signed a consent form for their child to participate in the study. Further, the parents acknowledged that there was absolutely no case law supporting their legal position, they were inviting the Ninth Circuit to invent one. Interstingly, one of the three judges who decided the case was from the Eighth Circuit. Also, the case was first decided by the District Court which had reached the same conclusion the Circuit Court ultimately did, The Circuit Court affirmed the lower court's opinion on the case. The Ninth Circuit's ruling was based on the First Circuit's holding in Brown v. Hot, Sexy & Safer Prods., Inc., [i'm not making this up!] 68 F.3d 525 (1st Cir. 1995) The idea that this was a rouge decision by an activist court is just not accurate. In fact, given the precedents on this issue, the "activist" decision would have been to rule in favor of the parents. The key issue in the case was the Parent's assertion of a constitutional right to exclusive control. Some quotes from the opinion: "It is clear, and the parents agree, that no court has ever held that parents have a specific fundamental right “to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs.”" "We note at the outset that it is not our role to rule on the wisdom of the School District’s actions. That is a matter that must be decided in other fora. The question before us is simply whether the parents have a constitutional right to exclusive control over the introduction and flow of sexual information to their children." "The Supreme Court has held that the right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children is a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause." "As with all constitutional rights, the right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children is not without limitations. In Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944), the Court recognized that parents’ liberty interest in the custody, care, and nurture of their children resides “first” in the parents, but does not reside there exclusively, nor is it “beyond regulation [by the state] in the public interest.” [emphasis in the original]. "Likewise, lower courts have recognized the constitutionality of a wide variety of state actions that intrude upon the liberty interest of parents in controlling the upbringing and education of their children. See Littlefield v. Forney Indep. Sch. Dist., 268 F.3d 275 (5th Cir. 2001) (upholding school district’s mandatory school uniform policy); Hooks, 228 F.3d at 1036 (upholding state statute denying speech therapy services to home-schooled children); Hutchins v. District of Columbia, 188 F.3d 531 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (plurality opinion) (upholding a municipality’s curfew ordinance that was only applicable to minors); Swanson v. Guthrie Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 1-L, 135 F.3d 694 (10th Cir. 1998) (upholding school district’s full-time attendance policy); Herndon v. Chapel Hill- Carrboro City Bd. of Educ., 89 F.3d 174 (4th Cir. 1996) (upholding school district’s mandatory community service program)." Finally, there are a number of cases that have upheld the constitutionality of school programs that educate children in sexuality and health. See, e.g., Leebaert v. Harrington, 332 F.3d 134 (2d Cir. 2003) (upholding school district’s mandatory health classes against a father’s claim of a violation of his fundamental rights); Parents United for Better Sch., Inc. v. School Dist. of Philadelphia Bd. of Educ., 148 F.3d 260 (3d Cir. 1998) (upholding school district’s consensual condom distribution program); Brown v. Hot, Sexy & Safer Prods., Inc., 68 F.3d 525 (1st Cir. 1995) (upholding compulsory high school sex education assembly program); Citizens for Parental Rights v. San Mateo County Bd. of Educ., 51 Cal. App. 3d 1 (1975) (upholding school district’s non-compulsory health and sex education program against parental challenge). Neither Meyer nor Pierce provides support for the view that parents have a right to prevent a school from providing any kind of information — sexual or otherwise — to its students. As the Brown court said, “Meyer and Pierce do not encompass [the] broad-based right [the parent-plaintiffs seek] to restrict the flow of information in the public schools.” Id. at 534. Although the parents are legitimately concerned with the subject of sexuality, there is no constitutional reason to distinguish that concern from any of the countless moral, religious, or philosophical objections that parents might have to other decisions of the School District — whether those objections regard information concerning guns, violence, the military, gay marriage, racial equality, slavery, the dissection of animals, or the teaching of scientifically-validated theories of the origins of life. Schools cannot be expected to accommodate the personal, moral or religious concerns of every parent. Such an obligation would not only contravene the educational mission of the public schools, but also would be impossible to satisfy.

read the entire ruling

I haven't had time to read the entire opinion. I did read however that the school district sent a letter home to all the parents about the survey asking for their consent before having their child participate in the study.

The others are Jack & Diane, Night Moves and Ballroom Blitz. I used to know Tonight's the Night because it practically guaranteed sex in college in the early '80's but since I got married, I forgot it.

Yep, all they have to do is get 4-5 turnovers and we are all set. I am hopeful to but the only way you allow a guy to run over you for a buck 50 and get kiled in the total yardage, first down and TOP stats and still win the game is with turnovers, lots of them. You can't really count on those to bail you out, especially on the road in good weather. We need to stop them the old fashioned way, by tackling.

That is one of 4 songs I can actually play on the guitar.

What rejection of religion are you talking about? The people of this country overwhelmingly accept religion. By that kind of logic, I would conclude that all these nasty things must therefore be caused by religion. I see no causal relationship between religion and all the bad things in the world nor all the good things either.

My gawd, I actually learned something at this site. Wonders never cease. Thanks Campy

God Exists How do I know? I was born in a society where every one believes he does and they instilled that now familiar, comfortable belief in me. From the beginning of my own existence I have been drilled in the rituals praising his existence. The only life I have known has been organized and patterened after his exisence from the days of the week to the holiday of the year. When I sneeze, I am met with a chorus of confirmations of his existence by other believers. Before I eat a meal, I have been trained to confirm his existence by praising and thanking him. Before I go to sleep, I am trained to confirm his existence by praising him and by seeking his help. Weekly I gather with other believers to jointly declare and praise his existence. Every milestone in life; birth, marriage and death is marked by a ritual that confirms his existence. Whenever I or anyone else I know of have expressed any doubt as to his existence, such doubt was met by overwhleming anger and retribution from other believers. I have seen how, throughout history, believers have treated doubters. Thus, I dare not doubt. Have I seen him? Not in the wishy-washy sense of "I see his hand in the beauty of every flower, in the magic of a child's laugh" kind of thing. I mean seen him like I see everything else, a real live image. No, I have not seen him. Have I heard him in the same sense that I hear everything else that makes a sound loud enough to be heard given the auditory capabilies of my ears? No, I have not heard him. Have I felt his physical touch the way I feel the touch of everyone else who has ever touched me? No, I have not touched or been touched by him. Have I seen proof of his existence in the customary form "proof" takes in every other field of human endeavor I value? No, I have seen no proof of his existence. Do I believe or have I simply been successfully trained to believe? How would I know the difference? Why do I believe what I cannot see, cannot hear, cannot touch, cannot prove? Faith, I have been taught, is the answer. What is faith? Belief without proof. In every other field of human study, belief without proof is held in disdain yet belief without proof is cherished as the greatest of virtues in relgion. Why do I tolerate this inconsistency? Is it because it is true or is it because I have been trained, taught, rehearsed and immersed in its truth from birth onward? Is a public school really the place to teach me answers to this type of inward questioning or is it perhaps proper to leave science teachers the job of teaching science while my parents, my family and my priest help me with these other questions?