California’s War on Parental Rights

 

Has California Created a War on Parental Rights?

 This guest post is from Regent Law 2L Ryan Bianchi:

          In August, California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta commenced a lawsuit against the Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education (“Board”), seeking to end the Board’s gender identity disclosure policy. The Board’s policy requires teachers to notify a student’s parents if the student requests to be addressed by a different name or pronouns. Bonta lambasted the policy, claiming it violates California’s Constitution and will cause students mental, emotional, and even physical harm. Upon announcing the lawsuit, Bonta posited his belief that students have the right to learn in school environments that promote “privacy and inclusivity.” Bonta outlined the basis for California’s argument against the Board’s gender identity disclosure policy is primarily based on his assertion that the policy violates California’s Equal Protection Clause, conflicting with student’s due process and privacy rights. 

          In the United States, parental rights flow from the Fourteenth Amendment and have been upheld and expanded by the Supreme Court time and time again. Beginning with Meyer v. Nebraska in 1923, American jurisprudence has vested parents with the right to raise their children as they choose and broad discretion to make decisions about their children’s upbringing. The Supreme Court recognized parental rights as “the oldest of fundamental liberty interests recognized,” stressing the Court’s cardinal interest that the “custody, care, and nurture of the child reside first in the parents.” Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000).

          While the issue of mandatory gender identity disclosures in public schools has not yet been addressed by any high-level court, the Supreme Court has created a clear precedent in favor of parental rights over state interests in regulating how parents ought to raise their children. Bonta’s lawsuit leverages student privacy to drive a wedge between children experiencing gender discomfort and their parents who have the child’s best interest as top priority. The consequences of Bonta’s policy was exemplified in 2019 when a 19-year-old Californian took her life after her high school encouraged her to transition her gender without informing her parents. The mother, Abigail Martinez, has now waged years of litigation against the school district while grieving the loss of her daughter.

          Rob Bonta’s lawsuit against the Board reflects a greater war on the nuclear family and God’s design for humanity. As Christians, we understand our sex is given to us intentionally and with a divine purpose. The state’s active encouragement of disrupting a child’s God-given sex is bound to result in substantial harm. God has also intentionally set apart the nuclear family as an essential sphere of authority and spirituality (Duet. 5:16, Eph. 6:4, Gen. 18:19). Parents have and will always be the best keeper of their children’s best interests. The state of California and Attorney General Rob Bonta will never love a child more than his or her parents. It is the Christian’s duty to lovingly push back on the cultural and political falsehoods that endanger the well-being of our most vulnerable—our children.