Posts by Sheila Roberts
Joining the Parental Rights Movement, with Shaun Alexander and Ethan Demme
Welcome to week two of our celebration of 15 years of ParentalRights.org! This week, Michael talks with Shaun Alexander, 2005 NFL MVP and Vice President of the Parental Rights Foundation, and Ethan Demme, CEO of Demme Learning and former chairman of the Parental Rights Foundation Board. Shaun and Ethan share why protecting parental rights is important to…
Read More15 Years of Parental Rights, with Michael Farris
In this first episode of our fourth season, we talk with Michael Farris, founding president of ParentalRights.org and currently the president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom. This month, ParentalRights.org is celebrating its 15th anniversary! To celebrate, we’re interviewing key figures from our organization’s history, beginning with our founding president. Michael explains to us why he…
Read MoreReasonable Independence
View the model as adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council. A “Reasonable Independence” bill (formerly “Free Range Parenting”) is simple common sense. This model clearly excludes from a state’s definition of “neglect” a host of reasonable decisions any parent could make to allow their child to grow in independence and responsibility. Decisions like allowing…
Read MoreParents Are Winning. That’s Why Opponents Are Turning Us Into Bogeymen.
Are “parental rights” some secret Bat Signal for right-wing evangelicals? The answer is yes, if you are writing for Salon. In a recent article, author Kathryn Joyce argued that “parental rights” is really the latest attempt of right-wing evangelicals to win elections. Joyce has a long history of trying to pin blame on right-wing evangelicals. She…
Read MoreCentral Registry Due Process
View the model as adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council. A “Central Registry of Child Abusers” should be just that—a list of people convicted of abusing a child. Instead, far too many innocent parents get included because it is way too easy to end up on that list. Parents have even gone to family…
Read MoreFundamental Parental Rights
View the model as adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council. The United States Supreme Court has long held that parental rights are “among those fundamental liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.” Yet, the level of respect these rights should receive, especially at the state level, has been left a little…
Read MoreConfidential Reporting
View the model as adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council. “Weaponizing the system:” That’s what we call it when someone places an anonymous call to a child abuse hotline to gain some personal advantage. It may be a parent in a nasty divorce situation trying to gain custody or more parenting time by making…
Read MoreDees v San Diego
Read the brief. A 9-year-old girl with special needs was taken from class to be interviewed by a child welfare investigator without a warrant, a judicial order, parental consent, emergency circumstances, or even probable cause. The mother sued for a violation of her parental rights, but the defense argued that the child wasn’t taken from…
Read MoreThe Babysitter Case
Read the Complaint In 2021 the Virginia legislature passed a bill amending the Virginia Civil Rights Act to make it illegal for parents to consider religion when hiring a babysitter. That’s a problem for devoutly religious parents who want to hire someone who shares their worldview and can help pass it on to the parents’…
Read MoreIn Re: CJC, Relator
Read the brief. He was all she had left in the world. But a judge removed her from his care and gave custody to her late mother’s fiancé. Could the court elevate the authority of this unrelated male to equal the role of the girl’s own father in her life? We argued in an amicus…
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