Supreme Court Issues a Slam-Dunk Ruling in Favor of Parental Rights. AG Platkin’s Lawsuits Should Be Dropped, Mendacious Michael Gottesman Should Stop His Harassment

Another slam-dunk ruling in favor of parental rights, this time from the US Supreme Court. California’s law prohibiting schools from notifying parents of their child’s gender transition without the child’s consent is a violation of parents’ constitutional rights. Given the Supreme Court’s strong language based on longstanding Supreme Court precedents, it is highly likely that this will soon be the supreme law of the land. Previous Attorney General Matt Platkin and his anti-parental rights lawsuits against several New Jersey school boards are on the wrong side of the law. So are Mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman and his NJEA-funded New Jersey Public Education Coalition (NJPEC), who have harassed school boards for passing pro-parental rights politics. This is particularly true of the Colts Neck school board, where the progressive zealot Gottesman and NJPEC have organized loud protests in an effort to intimidate the school board for its “Parental Bill of Rights.” Governor Sherrill should drop the lawsuits and Gottesman and the NJEA-funded NJPEC should stop infringing on parents’ constitutional rights. Colts Neck and the other school boards are vindicated and the rest of the state should take note. Parents, not schools or the state, are the primary protectors of their children’s interests.

The US Supreme Court rules strongly in favor of parental rights. The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of California parents who challenged a state law that prohibited schools from notifying parents about their child’s gender transition without the child’s consent. As Sunlight reported, in a summary judgement (the case did not even make it to trial), a federal district court in California had previously issued a permanent injunction against the state law. That was a slam-dunk decision in favor of parents.

Supreme Court overrules the Ninth Circuit. The state appealed and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (a notoriously liberal court) stayed the district court’s permanent injunction pending a ruling on the merits of the appeal. The Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s stay and reinstated the permanent injunction. That means the state law is blocked until the Ninth Circuit decides the case on the merits. In the meantime, parents have the constitutional right to be informed of their child’s transitioning at school. So this is another win for the parents.

Strong parental rights language from the Supreme Court. But that’s not all the Supreme Court did. The court also made very clear that it believed that the federal district court’s ruling was correct and that the parents would again prevail when the Ninth Circuit decides the case on the merits. Here are some of the court’s key findings, which are backed by longstanding Supreme Court precedents:

• Parents are the primary protectors of children’s best interests. The Supreme Court: “We conclude that the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim.” In other words, parents who claim that their constitutional right “to guide the religious development of their children” was violated by the state law are likely to prevail on appeal. The court made clear that the state law “cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.”
• The state law also violates parents’ due process rights. The court also ruled in favor of the parents on due process grounds: “parents — not the state — have primary authority with respect to ‘the upbringing and education of children.” As a result, the state law ” likely violate[s] parents’ rights …”
• Parents, not the state, have the primary responsibility for their children’s safety. The state claimed that its law was necessary to protect children’s safety, but the Supreme Court dismissed that argument: “the injunction here promotes child safety by guaranteeing fit parents a role in some of the most consequential decisions in their children’s lives.” In other words, it is parents and not the state who are primarily responsible for their children’s safety.

Parental rights will soon be the law of the land. This is another slam-dunk ruling in favor of parental rights. The Supreme Court made it very clear they believe the parents will prevail when the Ninth Circuit decides the case on the merits, and the language the court used, which is based on longstanding Supreme Court precedents, leaves the Ninth Circuit little room to disagree. That makes it highly likely that this will soon be the law of the land because either the Ninth Circuit will reach a decision that accords with the Supreme Court’s, or the Ninth Circuit won’t and the Supreme Court will reverse it.

Platkin and Gottesman are on the wrong side of the law, and the Colts Neck school board is vindicated. Previous Attorney General Matt Platkin and the anti-parent policies he pursued are on the wrong side of the law. His lawsuits against Hanover, Middletown, Marlboro, and Manalapan-Englishtown will likely not stand and should be dropped. The same goes for Mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman and his NJEA-funded New Jersey Public Education Coalition, who have harassed school boards that passed pro-parent policies, particularly the Colts Neck school board and its “Parental Bill of Rights.” Gottesman and NJPEC are also on the wrong side of the law and Colts Neck is vindicated. It’s time for the progressive zealot Gottesman and his NJEA-funded NJPEC to stop interfering with the free exercise of constitutional rights. Governor Sherrill should take note.