From: Ernest Hua <hua@chromatic.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 17:17:52 +0800
To: mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)
Subject: Re: Filtering out Queers is OK
In-Reply-To: <199607200000.RAA10799@netcom11.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <199607230003.RAA00839@server1.chromatic.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>  > clear that the government may force a child to accept
>  > secular ideas that may violate the child's religious
>  > background, even if the government has a compelling secular
>  > interest in doing so.
> 
> This is the usual smokescreen the "parents rights" lobby brings
> to the bargaining table.  Rather than make the debate over the
> rights of the child, and what resources the state should make
> available to the child to protect those rights, they make it a
> contest between the parent and the state to see who gets to
> violate the child's rights the most.

I am not anybody's lobby, so you can just cut the accusation crap.

Secondly, I expect to have full control over the education and the
upbringing of my child.  I DO NOT have to let him go the library.
I DO NOT have to let him read any literature.  I DO NOT have to
let him have an open mind.  It is NOT in the Constitution.

I will do so because I believe it is good for him.  Anyone who
wants to change what I decide is good for him will have to do so
over my dead body.

> So instead of arguing whether children should have access to
> education, libraries, computers, and other resources in their own
> right, we get the usual endless debate over whether the state or
>
> Been there.  Done that.  And as the Scottish would say, "It's
> Crap."

I really could care less what you feel about how I should raise my
child.

> Again, children have a right to go to libraries, get educated,
> and use telecommunications resources without interference by
> EITHER the state or their parents.

This truly IS pure crap.  Parents have a responsibility.  Your
arbitrary choice of "parental rights" is just rhetorical method for
implying that parents are selfishly fighting for their own good at
the detriment to the child.

In fact, most parents are loving, caring, and try very hard to do
what is "good" (in their mind) for their child.  You, sir, do not
have some God-given monopoly on knowing what is good for any child,
let alone, mine.

Therefore, nobody (not you, not the PTA, not the school, not the
Congress) has any right to tell me what is good for my child.

Call it what you want; you ain't brainwashing my child with your
bull.

Ern