Monday, October 06, 2008

Supremes Push Mad Dad Aside

Certiorari denied without comment to David Parker ex ux. et al. by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Lexington parents who figured they could tell the school what to teach figured wrong.

(A vigorous flip of the toupee to J.J. Krawczyk in Lexington for the link. See page 9.)

This case has been one of my obsessions and I can't restrain a giggle. In January, when the two couples lost in U.S. District Court in Boston, they said they were headed to the high court. They were positive they would, as the expression goes, make a federal case out of it.

Cross-posting: This appears on Blue Mass Group.

The Parkers' delusions of forging history seemed to have joined the slag in the furnace. They will not be known as people who created case law giving parents the right to tell schools:
  • what books their children can read or have read to them
  • what subjects are optional per student
  • what topics - even if they arise spontaneously in class - require removal of individual students by parents' demands

There's lots of background at MassResistance Watch and Marry in Massachusetts. Search for David Parker or Mad Dad.

In theory, they could return to Massachusetts courts to try to twist the parental notification law. They failed before in several levels of court. A huge problem for them is that the judges don't see to agree in the slightest that an early reader that says there are same-sex couples in a state where same-sex marriage is legal is sex education.

Moreover, by the time this dirty snowball rolled into federal court, they hoped to establish the right of parents to determine what their kids are exposed to in public schools. Today's Supremes decision could be a resounding clank of a closing lid on that.

Meanwhile, neither Parker's site nor MassResistance has posted any rants or comments of any type. We may hear the keening and rending of garments when they discover that what we considered inevitable has happened. Lackaday.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Too bad, huh? Maybe appearing on a protect marriage webcast, calling judges dictators and being declared the "Rosa Parks of the defenders of the rights of children" was what sealed their fate.