http://www.focusonthefamily.com/press/pressreleases/A000001094.cfm
March 6, 2008
Colorado Springs, Colo. — Focus on the Family Chairman James C. Dobson, Ph., D., today denounced as “an all-out assault on the family” a California appellate court ruling that could criminalize home schooling in the Golden State.
The decision, from the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles, stemmed from a single case involving charges of abuse brought against a home schooling couple. Home school advocates agree that the couple in question, based on the facts of the case, should have lost their ability to educate their children at home – but add that the court overreached in applying the restrictions to all home schooling families.
“The court is guilty of an imperious assault on the rights of parents,” Dobson said. “How dare these judges have the audacity to label tens of thousands of parents’ criminals – the equivalent to drug dealers or pick-pockets – because they want to raise and educate their children according to their deeply held values? The case before them involved one couple – the ruling should have been confined to that one couple, not used to punish an entire class of people, the vast majority of them religious conservatives.”
Dobson said Focus on the Family would do whatever it could to get the ruling overturned and to restore the basic rights of parents in California to determine how their children are educated.
“This is an all-out assault on the family, and it must be met with a concerted effort to defend parents and their children,” he said. “We will team with key allies and use every means at our disposal to make sure that not just every Californian, but every American, is aware of this miscarriage of justice. We will encourage them, by the hundreds of thousands, to make their voices heard on this matter. And we’re hopeful that, in the end, common sense and legal sanity will prevail.”
Dobson will address the court’s ruling on his daily radio broadcast Friday. Among his guests will be Michael Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association. To listen, visit www.family.org.
(719) 548-4570
or press@family.orgculturalissues@family.org.