{"id":1904362,"date":"2023-03-24T12:10:24","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T16:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-passes-parents-bill-of-rights-act\/"},"modified":"2023-03-24T12:12:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T16:12:11","slug":"house-passes-parents-bill-of-rights-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-passes-parents-bill-of-rights-act\/","title":{"rendered":"House Passes Parents\u2019 Bill of Rights Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhouse-passes-parents-bill-of-rights-act%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1904362&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"post_content\">\n<p>The U.S. House of Representatives on March 24 passed H.R. 5, the Parents\u2019 Bill of Rights Act.<\/p>\n<p>The bill passed the lower chamber in a 213\u2013208 party-line vote.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans easily defeated a Democrat measure to recommit the legislation to committee.<\/p>\n<p>H.R. 5, the fulfillment of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy\u2019s (R-Calif.) long-promised \u201cparental bill of rights,\u201d would do several things, each with the overarching goal of ensuring that parents know what\u2019s going on in their children\u2019s classrooms.<\/p>\n<p>The bill comes after COVID-19 restrictions led many parents to receive a better glimpse into their children\u2019s education, as they were learning at home via their computers. Many parents learned in this setting about the far-left ideology being pushed in the classroom.<\/p>\n<p>In turn, parents across the nation began showing up to school board meetings to protest the curriculum.<\/p>\n<p>Later, Attorney General Merrick Garland was caught in an Oct. 4, 2021, memo offering federal resources and legal aid to states days after the \u200bNational School Boards Association wrote a letter to President Joe Biden saying the country\u2019s \u201cpublic schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat\u201d from these parents and called verbal confrontations and other incidents at local school board meetings across the country \u201cdomestic terrorism and hate crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since that memo came to light, McCarthy has vowed to deliver legislation to ensure that parents\u2019 control over their children\u2019s education is legally protected.<\/p>\n<p>Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, made the issue his campaign\u2019s primary concern. Voters rewarded Youngkin by giving him a wide-margin victory over his Democrat rival in the blue-leaning Dominion State.<\/p>\n<p>The main component of the bill would require schools to publicly disclose the contents of their curriculum and library materials to parents. Currently, many schools teaching radical ideology do so without the parents\u2019 knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the bill would\u00a0establish the right of parents to see their kids\u2019 schools\u2019 expenditures.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPublic schools are paid for by taxpayer dollars,\u201d Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said of the measure during a House Rules Committee hearing on the bill. \u201cMothers and fathers deserve financial transparency and to see how their money is being used.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bill would also ensure that parents are notified of, and give consent to, any medical procedure performed on their child on school grounds.<\/p>\n<p>A similar provision would require that parents be notified of any violent activity on school grounds.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said that the bill would establish new \u201cchecks and balances\u201d for parents over their children\u2019s education.<\/p>\n<p>House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) called the bill \u201ca basic concept but a powerful statement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During floor debate on the bill, Foxx accused education bureaucrats and school district employees of\u00a0\u201cpushing progressive politics in the classroom while keeping parents in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cParents will finally be empowered to examine\u00a0classroom curricula and protect the safety and\u00a0privacy of their children without fear of being\u00a0targeted by the federal government.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats spoke against the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), who led Democrat opposition to the bill, dismissed the legislation as the\u00a0\u201cPolitics Over Parents Act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Scott said the bill was part of a GOP plot \u201cto allow a vocal minority to impose their beliefs on all parents.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Protecting Parents Who Speak Out<\/h2>\n<p>One of the Republicans\u2019 key goals in crafting the bill was to ensure that parents who speak out against what is being taught to their children do not face retribution from local, state, or federal authorities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo longer will [parents] have their speech denied, or feel threatened for expressing their concerns at school board meetings,\u201d Foxx said.<\/p>\n<p>The comment was in reference to a late-2021 controversy in which Attorney General Merrick Garland offered federal resources and guidance to local law enforcement to target parents who attended school board meetings.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, the United States saw a deluge of concerned parents coming to school board meetings to speak out against left-wing ideology in the classroom.<\/p>\n<p>Many parents came to their school board to speak out against critical race theory (CRT), a highly contentious left-wing theory that holds that white people are inherently \u201cprivileged\u201d and that non-white people are inherently oppressed. Critics of CRT note that it has its origins in the political thought of Karl Marx, the ideological founder of communism; the theory has also been criticized as racist for its efforts to reduce the individual to a member of a group on the basis of their skin color.<\/p>\n<p>In his remarks against the bill, Scott suggested that CRT was \u201can accurate recounting of our nation\u2019s history,\u201d and that the legislation would \u201cpunish librarians\u201d who pushed CRT.<\/p>\n<p>Other parents came to school board meetings to speak out against fringe left-wing notions of sex and gender. Many left-wing activists claim that gender is a social construct and that a person can change their gender based on their feelings.<\/p>\n<p>One parent, Terry Newsome of Chicago, who spoke out against allowing \u201cGender Queer\u201d in his kids\u2019 school library in 2021, was later placed on a terror watch-list with no warning or further explanation.<\/p>\n<p>In an Oct. 4, 2021, memo Garland sent to U.S. attorneys across the nation, the attorney general offered to help local law enforcers to round up and file charges against parents who spoke out.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans took the memo as a sign that the administration was prepared to target parents for protected First Amendment activity. Since then, they have vowed to deliver a \u201cparents\u2019 bill of rights\u201d to protect against such abuses if they took back the House.<\/p>\n<p>During his questioning, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) explicitly referenced the Oct. 4 memo as part of the reason for the bill\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Book Banning\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Allegations of \u201cbook banning\u201d took up a large portion of the debates over the legislation.<\/p>\n<p>Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a series of state legislatures and school districts have prohibited certain books with overtly sexual or racial themes from certain schools or age levels.<\/p>\n<p>For instance,\u00a0many school districts and states have barred the book \u201cGender Queer\u201d by Maia Kobabe from school libraries. The book, delivered in the form of a graphic novel, recounts the experience of a minor female who believes she is male; during an especially graphic part of the story, the main character is depicted engaging in oral sex with another biological female who identifies as male.<\/p>\n<p>Another such book, \u201cFlamer\u201d by Mike Curato, traces the homosexual experiences of a minor boy at summer camp with another minor boy.<\/p>\n<p>Though these and other controversial works remain protected by the First Amendment and can be purchased in stores or online, they are inaccessible from many school libraries due to their highly-sexual content.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, Democrats have insisted that restricting children\u2019s access to these and other books is tantamount to censorship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cState Republicans are going on a book banning spree that would make the Chinese Communist Party blush,\u201d House Rules Committee Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said later.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-five states have passed such laws.<\/p>\n<p>McGovern depicted this as \u201cRepublican legislators telling students what they are, and are not, allowed to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat allows one racist or homophobic person to tell an entire class, an entire\u00a0<em>school<\/em>, what they can and can\u2019t read,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>During later questioning at the Rules Committee hearing, Scott admitted that nothing in the bill would ban books. But he suggested that if libraries were forced to disclose their inventory, more books would be banned.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the bill, school libraries would be required to publish the full list of books in their library, and to update those lists in a timely fashion when they purchase new materials.<\/p>\n<p>Scott painted a portrait of right-wing organizations mounting crusades to have certain books removed from school libraries: \u201cThis bill will make the logistics of that easy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) responded to this argument later in the hearing, citing \u201cFlamer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf libraries have to publish their lists, yeah, some things might be removed,\u201d Roy said. \u201c[Flamer] <em>should<\/em> be removed. But it\u2019ll be debated. It\u2019ll be discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. House of Representatives on March 24 passed H.R. 5, the Parents\u2019 Bill of Rights Act. The bill passed the lower chamber in a 213\u2013208 party-line vote. Republicans easily defeated a Democrat measure to recommit the legislation to committee. H.R. 5, the fulfillment of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy\u2019s (R-Calif.) long-promised \u201cparental bill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":1904363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[3653,5007,5448,5579],"class_list":["post-1904362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-house","tag-parents","tag-passes","tag-rights"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1904362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1904363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1904362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1904362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1904362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}