Texas: Vote ‘Yes’ on Proposition 15

This November, your ballot will include the opportunity to enshrine fundamental parental rights in the Texas Constitution. Proposition 15 (Senate Joint Resolution 34) would amend the Texas Constitution to include language that recognizes and affirms a parent’s "responsibility to nurture and protect the parent’s child and the corresponding fundamental right to exercise care, custody, and control of the parent’s child, including the right to make decisions concerning the child’s upbringing.”

You can find the full text of the proposed amendment here.

The Parental Rights Foundation supports Proposition 15. While it does not create any new rights, it codifies in the highest law of Texas the natural rights of parents as already recognized by the Supreme Courts of Texas and the United States. This will protect those rights from shifting ideologies of the courts for all future generations—just as the Bill of Rights protects fundamental liberties that were at the core of our fight for independence. Those rights persist today expressly because they are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

Connecting parental responsibility directly to “the corresponding fundamental right” (emphasis added) of decision-making will protect families from government overreach or any attempt to redefine what a parent must do. Short of actual physical harm by abuse or neglect, it is the parent’s role “to make decisions concerning the child’s upbringing.”

Adding this language to the Texas Constitution would provide additional legal protection to parents by demanding that state actors recognize these rights as fundamental.

Texas Home School Coalition (THSC) and Family Freedom Project both worked hard to get SJR 34 through the Texas legislature, and now its success is up to you, the voters. (You can visit THSC’s page on Proposition 15 here.)

I am hopeful that, with Texas leading the way, additional states will want to add parental rights protections to their constitutions, as well. But it all starts right here.

Thank you for standing with other Texas voters to protect children by empowering parents with your vote for Proposition 15, the Parental Rights Amendment to the Texas Constitution.