PRF President Speaks at National Events
The first week of December was a very busy one for me as president of the Parental Rights Foundation.
First, on Tuesday (December 3rd) I was a guest panelist at The American Family in the Crosshairs: How Do Parents Fight Back?, an event at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. I was honored to join Notre Dame professor Melissa Moschella and Moms for Liberty cofounder Tiffany Justice, with our host, Sarah Perry of Heritage (above photo, right to left), to discuss ways parents can stand up to protect their children by knowing and defending their parental rights, especially in the public school context.
This was followed by a policy session involving various right-of-center groups to discuss strategies for the coming 2025 legislative session. While I can’t comment on who was there or what we decided on, I can report that it was good to have a seat at that table, and that it was an honor to be your voice in that discussion. Perhaps even more importantly, I was able to make connections that we can foster for the good of the parental rights cause going forward.
Then, on Wednesday I was a guest presenter to the Health and Human Services Task Force at the States and Nation Policy Summit of the American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC), also in Washington, D.C.
While I have had opportunity in the past to present model bills to this task force, this was the first time I was invited to present on a topic of concern to some of the lawmakers present, namely the need for Child Abuse Central Registry reform.
As I told our friends at ALEC, which includes many right-of-center state lawmakers from all over the country, we need to adopt laws and policies that provide a parent with due process in the courts before their name is added to a child abuse registry. As too many already know, in most states it is far too easy for a name to be added to the list even when the parent is innocent. In fact, two different courts of appeals have both found that there is a problem because three-fourths of those who appeal have their names removed from the registry.
That means three-fourths of those names should never have been listed in the first place!
We provided a model at ALEC back in 2020, which you can find at our website here, and I was happy for the opportunity to bring it back to the attention of ALEC members last week, especially as many are setting their legislative priorities for 2025.
Later in the week I was privileged to take part in another off-the-record policy session. Once again, for reasons of privacy and strategy I can’t tell you what was discussed. But I will tell you this much: parental rights was a recurrent theme throughout our discussions, even as we went from one topic to another.
It is conceivable that every major political gain to be had in 2025 will come back to the pressing question of parental rights. And, as much as parents have made their voices heard these last four or five years, that is as it should be.
If lawmakers haven’t figured out by now that parents of every stripe love our children and want what is best for them, that parents trust ourselves to make those decisions far more than we trust government bureaucrats, then they shouldn’t even be in office.
The good news is that I think they’re finally figuring that out. And I am hopeful we will see significant gains for parental rights in the year ahead.
Then, as we reached close-of-business on Friday, I was in another strategy session with our friends at the United Family Advocates coalition, working on the very same question: How do we promote parental rights in the upcoming Congress, and with the incoming Administration? Here, too, we see ourselves on the cusp of opportunities to preserve America’s families through policy and legislation.
In summary, in the year-and-a-half since I was named president of the Parental Rights Foundation, last week was the most president-y week I’ve had, representing your concerns and values to policy experts and lawmakers from around the country in five different policy events. It was an honor and a privilege to speak on your behalf—and on behalf of our children. And it was exciting to hear so many acknowledging the importance of parental rights at this moment in our nation’s history.
Standing together, I believe we will see great gains in the coming months, and I thank you for your support, which makes all of this possible.