– By Dr. Douglas Levesque –
“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” I Timothy 5:8. The Bible is clear that a Father has both responsibility and authority over his children. He must provide them with sustenance, spiritual leadership and protection. The mother, likewise, clothes her kids with both wool and wisdom. Nothing can take the place of a fully intact, properly functioning parent. On the other hand, government sometimes has to pick up the pieces of a broken family. They provide welfare, custody court, and sometimes foster care. If a child is in danger from his own parents, then the state steps in to remove the child from the disaster. This is a tenuous responsibility for the state and is an arm of authority that must only be used in the most extreme of cases. Who has the ultimate right over a child?
The modern policy proposals that would enable public schools to shield the parents from a child’s sexual identity or confusion is an abuse of this power. Just as the state sets the rules of driving to include training and sets the minimum age of operation at 16 years of age, parents are often the ones that allow the student to pursue this liberty or not. Some parents prefer to have the kids wait until they are 18 years of age. Both the state and the parent are acting in concert in this scenario. If a child comes to a teacher or counselor with an issue of sexuality or identity, the school should immediately contact the parent. If the age of sexual consent is 16, then no state authority should be discussing sexuality with a child younger than that. Parents should have both the right and the responsibility to decide how to train their children in matters of morality and sexuality.
The Constitution Party’s 2016 Presidential Candidate Darrell Castle has said, “It is the nature of the state to seek dominance over the population. Freedom will not ultimately remain intact if we leave it unattended.” One does not have to look only at modernity to find the contest between parent and state. Spartan culture took young boys away from their mothers at age 10 to train them in war and other mayhems. Roman authorities took the children of the conquered as assurance against further uprisings of foreign tribes. The Hasmonean King Herod commanded the death of innocent children to insure himself a future throne, as did the Egyptian Pharaoh. This ancient problem continues today. Where is wisdom? Who has the ultimate right over a child?
The danger of public schools acting as agents of the state is evident in the writing of the former president of Hillsdale College George Charles Roche III:
“Education in America has become a reflection of the insistence that education be a function of government, cost free to participating students, fully financed at taxpayer expense. What originated as local schooling supported by taxation in the immediate community (and therefore somewhat responsive to local and parental wishes) has inexorably moved toward bureaucratic bigness – the fate of all publicly funded projects.”
We must stand against the tide of allowing the state to be the authority over the child and furthermore we must reject the idea that the local public school is an agent of the state in all matters of parental rights.
Perhaps wise King Solomon could help us in this dilemma. Remember, two women had children, yet one somehow rolled over in her sleep and smothered her child to death. She then swapped the babies, a live one for a deceased one. Of course, the mother of the living baby awoke to discover the truth. This was not her deceased child, and the other woman now had her living child. They went to Solomon as judge and he wisely said “take a sword and cut the child in half”, all the while knowing the true mother would respond as she did. The impostor woman said “go ahead”. The true mother cried, “let the child live” albeit with the impostor. Solomon gave the baby to the real mother and the world marveled at his wisdom.
The lesson is clear. The birth parents have ultimate love, authority and right to the child. Solomon would never have killed the child, and he did not take the child away from its mother. He did not ask the mother if she was loyal to him, or a set of state inspired rules. He simply divined who was the real mom. I wish our state officials would be so wise. The audacity of hiding confused children’s sexual identity from parents smacks of an ulterior motive. Perhaps they desire a soft recruitment toward homosexuality, or simply the greater acceptance of transgender-ism as normal? That is called social engineering through the public education system and is a poison. Dr. John Austin is running for a third term and has acted as the chief engineer in this Herodian catastrophe in Michigan education.
The current board of education is a danger to society at large and children in particular. It is time for new advisers. John Austin must go. Protect your rights as parents by electing a Christian and a conservative to the board.
