The Founders would have regarded such efforts to remove God from public life as a fundamental threat to liberty. They saw no contradiction between the First Amendment, which was designed to
protect
religious liberty, and the need for a free people to remember that their liberties come from God. Indeed, when George Washington spoke of the “sacred fire of liberty,” he implored the people to safeguard liberty by acknowledging God's providence and seeking His blessing on behalf of the nation.
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The most fundamental institution for preserving liberty arose before any other social arrangement, and has existed under every political system in history. The family is the cornerstone of society, and is the surest means by which the most cherished values of any culture are transmitted to the next generation.
The family can accomplish what no government institution can. No organization or association is better suited to imparting the values and principles of a free society. No department of welfare, department of health, or department of education can accomplish what the family does.
It is at the family hearth that children learn the essential truths about God and human existence, and are provided the foundational worldview that in turn shapes and informs their beliefs and interactions.
No government agency can teach children the value of personal responsibility and work; it is in the family that children gain their deepest sense of patriotism, their sense of self-worth and dignity, and their sense of justice and their commitment to freedom. It is the family that is most capable of inculcating the hearts and minds of children with the honesty, character, and virtue that is necessary to preserve a free republic.
Consider the words of former United States education secretary Bill Bennett. In his book
The De-Valuing of America
, Bennett writes,
Nothing more powerfully determines a child's behavior than his internal compass, his beliefs, his sense of right and wrong. If a child firmly believes, if he has been taught and guided to believe, that drugs, promiscuity, and assaulting other people are wrong things to do, this will contribute to his own well-being and to the well-being of others. And if this lesson is multiplied a million timesâthat is, taught a million timesâwe
have greater and broader well-being, fewer personal catastrophes, less social violence, and fewer wasted and lost lives. The character of a society is determined by how well it transmits true and time-honored values from generation to generation. Cultural matters, then, are not simply an add-on or an afterthought to the quality of life of a country; they determine the character and essence of the country itself. Private belief is a condition of public spirit; personal responsibility a condition of public well-being. The investment in private belief must be constantly renewed.
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A society that depends on family-instilled virtues must both protect the family as an institution and respect the rights of parents to raise their children according to the dictates of their own conscience. It is no surprise, then, that those who strive to socially reengineer American culture and replace it with radical, anti-religious secularism are seeking to undermine both the family and the timeless right of parental sovereignty within that institution.
As George Weigel has stated, at the heart of the word culture is
cult
, or religion. Religion is the primary means by which the deepest values and moral virtues are imparted to the next generation of leaders, businessmen, teachers, and history-makers. Since family is the main instrument for instilling and transmitting these ideals, it is families that radical secularists target in so many of their contemporary assaults on liberty.
The weakening or devaluation of the family creates debilitating societal costs. For instance, the success of our economy undoubtedly depends upon the virtue of those individuals who operate within it. While a successful business depends upon the quality, accuracy, timeliness, and reliability of the products and services in which the business trades, it depends far more upon the honesty, integrity, forthrightness, and reliability of those who work within and manage that businessâvirtues that are first cultivated within the family. If families fail to transmit these virtues, businesses will not be run capably and honestly, and the whole economy will suffer.
Strong virtues can also be cultivated in the workplace for the benefit of families and society. Millions of Americans have learned the value and rewards of hard work as employees of honest, well-run businesses. Such work opportunities have helped countless Americans pursue their God-given potential and strengthened family and community life. A nation committed to promoting economic growth and defending free enterprise therefore invariably promotes the strengthening of family life.
These reinforcing ties between economic freedom and the family make economic conservatives and social conservatives natural allies: those who seek to preserve economic freedom in America should be especially concerned with the defense of family life, and those who care about the dignity and purpose of every life should defend free enterprise. Both groups share common opponents, who typically attack both economic freedom and the institution of family.
Consider the drama that has played out in recent years in California. In November 2008, a majority of California voters approved a ballot initiative called the California Marriage Protection Act, or “Proposition 8.” The measure would amend the California state constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman.
The law was immediately challenged before the state Supreme Court as well as the federal district court. While California's high court upheld the measure, U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker overturned the proposition and suspended its implementation, with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals later extending the stay indefinitely pending appeal. As of this writing, the measure's fate remains in the hands of the courts.
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Whether in the effort by radical activists to cancel Proposition 8, or by the court's constitutionally insupportable decision to overturn it, or by the refusal of the state of California to defend it, we see the willingness of government elites, many unelected, to run roughshod over the principles of self-government in an effort to radically redefine an institution that has served as the bedrock of American society since colonial times.
Meanwhile, the California government's inability to produce a balanced budget, its adoption of job-killing business regulations and some of the nation's highest tax rates, and its refusal to rein in spending that
is often ideologically driven, have all brought the world's eighth largest economy to the brink of financial insolvency.
It should be no surprise that threats to family life and threats to free enterprise are interrelated. To counter these threats, social and economic conservatives should unite, recognizing their common interest in defending the principle that underlies both their causes: the dignity of the individual.
CHILDREN AND THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM
Just as abolitionists understood that slavery could not coexist with human freedom; just as Americans came to understand that eugenics is appalling and dehumanizing; and just as the civil rights movement demonstrated that liberty is unfulfilled unless the law guarantees equal protection to
all
people; so must Americans eventually realize that without the unalienable right to life for every human being, including the unborn, every other right we possess is devalued and weakened.
Abortion is perhaps the most contentious public issue today, testing the professed American principle that every human life is precious and entitled to constitutional protection. With the advent of increasingly sophisticated ultrasound technology, public opinion on abortion has shifted, with a majority of Americans now identifying themselves as pro-life.
As with any public policy, the more strongly public opinion is swayed in defense of unborn life, the more our laws should and will change as a result. For example, the federal government can immediately cease appropriating public funds to abortion providers. Planned Parenthood, the country's largest abortion provider, has been receiving more than $330 million in federal, state, and local government funding every year. In 2009 Planned Parenthood performed 332,000 abortions and fewer than 1,000 adoption referrals. A mother was 340 times more likely to have her child aborted rather than adopted if she went to Planned Parenthood for advice.
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It is logically and ethically indefensible for our representative government to continue allocating taxpayer funds to a practice that the majority of Americans find morally abhorrent.
Whether in the cases of slavery, eugenics, or the denial of civil rights, history has proven the willingness of the American people to reject even the most entrenched policies once it becomes clear that those policies conflict with our most deeply held values and principles. While government has usually been slow to respond to these shifting sentiments, respond it has and respond it must.
A separate issue pertaining to the family is the need to protect parents' time-honored right to direct the upbringing of their own children, and specifically to choose the type of education that is best fitted to the needs of their children.
In 1922, Oregon voters passed a referendum to amend the Oregon Compulsory Education Act and require all children between the ages of eight and sixteen to attend public schools. In its 1925 decision in
Pierce v. Society of Sisters
, the Supreme Court struck down the Oregon statute as unconstitutional, affirming the right of parents to direct the upbringing and choose the best form of education for their children:
The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.
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The Court's ruling became a landmark case affirming parental rights over their children's education. Almost fifty years later, in the 1972 case
Wisconsin v. Yoder
, the Court reaffirmed this fundamental principle by stating, “The primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.”
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Despite these clear rulings, the case law is becoming increasingly conflicted as parental rights are once again coming under serious threat. Consider the following cases:
⢠In 2007, a West Virginia mother was ordered by a family court judge and a local circuit judge to share custody of her four-year-old daughter with two of the girl's babysitters whom the judges referred to as “psychological coparents.”
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⢠In Washington state, a thirteen-year-old boy was encouraged by his school counselors to complain to Child Protective Services that his parents took him to church too often. He was removed from his family, placed in foster care, and only returned to his family after his parents agreed to take him to church less frequently.
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⢠In 1980 the parents of a young teenage girl in Washington state sought to place their daughter in a receiving home after she began running away from home and indulging in drug abuse. The girl filed a complaint with Child Protective Services, citing conflict between parent and child. She was removed from her parents' home and placed in foster care. Despite the judge finding that the girl's parents had acted within their rightful authority, state law upheld the authorities' right to remove her from her family.
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Such cases reveal an effort to radically change the long-established authority structure between families and government by forcibly inserting the state between parent and child. The issue is especially relevant today, as our public school system is increasingly geared toward serving the needs of government employee unions and other special interest groups instead of the educational, moral, and emotional needs of our children.
With public schools becoming increasingly bureaucratic, hostile to religious expression, and unresponsive to parental input, American families are increasingly choosing alternative education methods for their children such as private schools, charter schools, and homeschooling. Such options allow parents to customize their child's curriculum and learning environment, provide a safe environment free of drugs and violence, and impart strong religious values.
More than two million students are currently being educated at home, and that number is increasing by as much as 8 percent every year, reaping significant social benefits. Home-educated students score an average of fifteen to thirty points higher than public-school students on standardized tests, including the SAT and ACT, regardless of their parents' level of formal education or the level of family income.
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Because families who homeschool do not depend on taxpayer-funded resources, taxpayers save an estimated $16 billion each year thanks to homeschooling.
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The point is not to demonize the public school system; many of America's (and indeed the world's) greatest leaders, scientists, educators, and businessmen have been products of that very system. Rather, the point is to reinforce the time-honored principle that the authority and responsibility to raise children, direct their education, and instill in them the values that make a free society flourish, all reside with the child's parents, not the state. Except in cases of demonstrable neglect or abuse, lawmakers and judges must enact and enforce policies that support the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children and choose the educational model that best suits the child's needs, whether public school, private or parochial school, or homeschooling.