Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Homeschoolers have long relied on the Supreme Court's determination that the Constitution protects a parent's right to homeschool. Yet this is only flimsy security. Today on Home School Heartbeat, Mike Farris explains why.

Michael Farris:
The Supreme Court's ruling in Pierce v. Society of Sisters was a strong statement of parental rights. Homeschoolers have both praised and relied upon this decision. But we must recognize that the Court created a theory of "implied" rights since parental rights are not explicitly mentioned in the text of the Constitution.

This very same theory of implied rights has been twisted and perverted by the Supreme Court, which has given us Roe v. Wade, legalizing abortion, and Lawrence v. Texas, legalizing homosexuality. If implied rights are tied to history, then there's a solid basis for determining what rights the Founders would have recognized at the time they authored the Constitution.

But the notion of implicit rights becomes problematic when the "discovery" of these rights is left up to the personal opinions of the Supreme Court Justices. When this happens, the theory becomes a vehicle which justices can use to impose their personal political opinions on an entire nation. As a result, some judicial conservatives now believe that all implied rights should not receive constitutional protection. While this would be very good in areas like abortion and homosexuality, it would be disastrous in the area of parental rights.

The time has come to put parents' rights into the Constitution-parents' rights in black and white. That's the goal.

I'm Mike Farris.