When Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan was in high school, a history teacher typed and photocopied the Bill of Rights and sent the class out into the neighborhood for signatures. No one they approached could identify the document nor were they willing to sign it.
Even today few Americans understand the nature of American democracy, added the director of education at San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El, and the rights of a particular group of citizens — children — are being threatened.
It is up to Jews, who have profited enormously from American democracy, which champions such rights, to help defend them, he said.
Wolf-Prusan was among three panelists at a recent forum at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, titled “Public Schools Under Attack: the Parental Rights Movement.”
Sponsored by the American Jewish Congress, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Anti-Defamation League, the forum also featured Carole Shauffer, executive director at Youth Law Center in San Francisco, and California Assemblywoman Kerry Mazzoni (D-San Rafael).
Addressing some 30 people, speakers voiced concerns that the religious rights’ parental rights movement could undermine Bill of Rights guarantees as well as children’s rights.
The panel debated the Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act (PRRA), one of 10 planks in the Christian Coalition’s “Contract with the American Family,” would allow parents virtual veto power over the public school curriculum, threaten the separation of church and state and make it more difficult for government or educational agencies to intervene to protect a child’s welfare, Shauffer said.
Added Wolf-Prusan: “Xenophobia is so prevalent in this culture and children are paying the price.”
Shauffer characterized the movement as “a dangerous attack on the safety of children.”
While parental-rights activists say they are fighting for individual rights, she added, they are actually putting the rights of parents above those of children.
“It has taken us 200 years to establish the fact that children aren’t chattel,” said Shauffer. “They are people, too.”
Under the PRRA, she said, parents would have virtual control over their children’s access to birth control, pregnancy testing, abortion services and sex education.
“Are schools just for parents and children?” said Mazzoni. “No, they have a compelling community responsibility in public policy.”
Wolf-Prusan also expressed concern about the abuse of power by church-state alliances. He told of the dark side of Chanukah — that the Maccabees’ victory was followed by bloodshed and unhappiness, in part because the Maccabees held both civil and religious authority.
Today, he continued, the religious right is attempting to push forward its agenda through the “parental rights” movement. Though innocuous-sounding, parental rights represents a combination of religious and civil authority as dangerous as that of the Maccabees.
Mazzoni added that under the PRRA, parents would be able to sue school districts on almost any pretext.
“If the state steps back, we will see a watered-down curriculum and a system of chaos in public schools,” Mazzoni warned.
Still, Wolf-Prusan said it is too easy to solely blame the religious right for the erosion of civil liberties. He lamented that few people these days understand the nature of American democracy — or are willing to go to bat to protect religious freedoms.
While California’s Democratic-led Assembly and Senate are unlikely to pass parental-rights initiatives, Mazzoni said, we should nonetheless be mindful of the threat.For one thing, parental-rights supporters can learn from each defeat of proposed bills how to draft legislation more effectively. The Assembly also must coin a phrase that counters the positive-sounding “parental rights.”
“You don’t have a bumper sticker for that yet?” asked moderator Martin Kassman, a member of Americans United for a Separation of Church and State and an AJCongress activist.
“Not yet,” Mazzoni answered with a smile, “but we will.”