[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25299]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              THE NINTH CIRCUIT COURT RULING ON PARENTING

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, like millions of parents across the country, 
we were shocked last week by the ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of 
Appeals. This ruling denies parents their right to have a say in the 
content their children are taught in school. In its decision, the Ninth 
Circuit said, ``We hold that parents have no due process or privacy 
right to override the determinations of public schools as to the 
information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as 
students.''
  Mr. Speaker, parents, not schools and certainly not the courts, hold 
the primary responsibility for educating their children, especially 
when it comes to more sensitive subject matters like sexual, moral, or 
religious instruction. But the Ninth Circuit, the same court that ruled 
the phrase ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance to be 
unconstitutional, would strip parents of this fundamental role in their 
own children's lives.
  Last week we addressed an errant court ruling on eminent domain and 
private property rights. Should this ruling stand, we will need to 
correct this wayward court yet again.

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