Opinion

Democrats believe parents don’t have the right to raise their own kids

They think your kids belong to them.

In my home of Montgomery County, Md., parents just received a notice from the public school system.

MCPS’s email declared, “Parents and students may not choose to opt-out of engaging with any instructional materials, other than ‘Family Life and Human Sexuality Unit of Instruction’ which is specifically permitted by Maryland law.

As such, teachers will not send home letters to inform families when inclusive books are read in the future.”

The school district is infusing books about gender and sexuality into the curriculum starting in kindergarten, and parents not only can’t opt out; they won’t even get a heads-up from the school about what their kids are learning.

This is why the US House of Representatives just passed a Parents Bill of Rights: to protect families in counties like mine from overreach like what’s happening in our public schools.

The US House of Representatives just passed a Parents Bill of Rights which would require public schools to disclose all curricula, reading lists, library books and budget costs. The Washington Post via Getty Images

The bill would require public schools to disclose all curricula, reading lists, library books and budget costs, and force administrators and teachers to seek parents’ consent before changing a child’s gender status.

The Parents Bill of Rights would also force administrators and teachers to seek parents’ consent before changing a child’s gender status. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) asserted after the bill was passed, “Parents are the primary stakeholders in their child’s education, and House Republicans are working to protect their right to know what is going on inside their child’s classroom.”

Children belong to their parents; they are not wards of government schools.

Stefanik faced opposition among House Democrats, none of whom voted in favor of the bill.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) declared, “They want to ban a book called ‘Melissa,’ a book describing, in very personal terms, the experience of a trans girl beginning to understand her identity.”

“Melissa,” by Alex Gino, is one of the most challenged books in libraries for several years running, according to the American Library Association, and for good reason.

They hide behind phrases like “book banning” when the reality is these books aren’t promoting “inclusion” but are instead pure indoctrination.

Here’s a sample from that book Jeffries referenced: “She had since read on the Internet you could take girl hormones that would change your body, and you could get a bunch of different surgeries if you wanted them and had the money. This was called transitioning.

“You could even start before you were eighteen with pills called androgen blockers that stopped the boy hormones already inside you from turning your body into a man’s.”

House Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries did not vote in favor of the bill. Getty Images

Gino makes it sound like transitioning is as easy, painless and reversible as popping a Tylenol.

The reality is that gender transition causes lifelong and irreversible damage to developing bodies.

Not wanting schools to assign this kind of content to children is “fascism” according to squad member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

She proclaimed, “When we talk about progressive values, I can say what my progressive value is, and that is freedom over fascism.”

AOC is free to read her children whatever books she wants, but she doesn’t have any.

She wants it so parents aren’t allowed to block their children from reading “Melissa” in class. That isn’t freedom.

For progressives like AOC, progressive values are a religion.

Just imagine progressive backlash if red states started including biblical values and literacy into curriculum and wouldn’t allow an opt-out or notification.

Progressives want to proselytize their own religion, and anyone who dares object is labeled fascist and a bigot.

Progressives want taxpayers to subsidize their indoctrination of our kids.

AOC is right that the Parents Bill of Rights is part of a fight against fascism, but she’s playing on the wrong team.

Bethany Mandel is the author, along with Karol Markowicz, of “Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation.”