The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill to protect parental rights in public education.

The Parents Bill of Rights Act (H.R. 5) passed the House on March 24, 2023, by a vote of 213-208. Two hundred and thirteen Republicans voted in favor of the bill, with five voting against it, while 203 Democrats opposed it with none in favor.

In urging his colleagues to support the legislation, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy said the bill would empower parents to know what their children are learning in school, how their taxpayer dollars are being spent and whether their child is safe.

“Once you are a parent, you will give your life for your child,” Speaker McCarthy said. “You have a right to get the basic information about your children’s education … the Parents Bill of Rights is an important step towards protecting children and dramatically strengthening the rights of parents.”

As the Daily Citizen previously reported, the bill would ensure that parents have the following rights concerning their children’s education nationwide:

  1. Right to know what’s being taught in schools and to see reading material.
  2. Right to be heard.
  3. Right to see school budget and spending.
  4. Right to protect their child’s privacy.
  5. Right to be updated on any violent activity at school.

It wasn’t so long ago that a bill as innocuous as defending parental rights in education would have received unanimous support from both parties in Congress. It’s unfortunate that such a bill is even needed in the United States of America.

But it is.

Sarah Parshall Perry, a senior legal fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, writes in the Washington Examiner that there are reportedly over 6,000 public schools in the United States where “children are being encouraged to inch toward fateful decisions with lifelong impact, all without their parent’s knowledge or consent.”

She notes that the U.S. saw a five-fold increase in irreversible “sex change” surgeries for teens just from 2016 to 2019, and that an estimated 300,000 teenagers between age 13 and 17 now identify as transgender.

This medically unexplainable phenomenon of thousands of adolescents suddenly believing themselves to be the opposite sex has become a “social contagion” – defined by the American Psychological Association as “the spread of behaviors, attitudes, and affect through crowds and other types of social aggregates from one member to another.”

In fact, the term “rapid onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD) has been adopted to describe this sudden rise of transgenderism among young adults.

Jay W. Richards, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religions and Family and William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, has stated that ROGD seems to have emerged, in part, because of schools, teachers and school counselors, and social media.

Richards has noted that “rough estimates are that 65% [of adolescents] are first introduced to this sexual identity confusion by influencers on social media.”

In other words, much of the skyrocketing rise of “gender dysphoria” among young adults can be explained by educational indoctrination, social media and the persuasive influence that young teenagers have on each other.

Schools have been a large part of pushing this agenda, and the Parents Bill of Rights Act would help protect children by mandating that public elementary and secondary schools respect the right of parents to know if a school employee or contractor acts to:

  1. Change a minor child’s gender markers, pronouns or preferred name;
  2. Allow a child to change the child’s sex-based accommodations, including locker rooms or bathrooms.

H.R. 5 is not expected to receive a vote in the U.S. Senate in the current 118th U.S. Congress.

It’s extremely important for parents to be intensely involved in their children’s education. Parents must be aware of what their children are learning in school.

If you’re worried about what your child is being taught in school, check out the following resource from Focus on the Family: Back to School for Parents: A busy parent’s guide to what’s happening in your children’s classrooms and practical steps you can take to protect them.

Additionally, if you or someone you know need help dealing with the transgender issue, check out Focus on the Family’s Transgender Resources page here.

Related articles and resources:

Back to School for Parents

Large Increase in U.S. Adults – Especially Gen Z – Identifying as ‘LGBT’. Here Are Some Reasons Why.

Congressmen Introduce ‘Parents Bill of Rights’

Photo from Getty.