To the editor:
We express cause for concern over the Sept. 19 Deseret News article regarding Constitution Week.Although we agree the U.S. Constitution should be studied and students become educated concerning its values and uses in their lives, we were concerned enough to take a team of women into the Utah State Board of Education curriculum office and survey the "law-related education" mentioned in the above article.
We found many good things that we liked; however, we were very concerned at the amount of materials presented from the advocacy of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). We feel that any article written by the Deseret News should be very careful in pointing out the source of information being given when students are learning about our U.S. Constitution.
We ask parents to be very careful as to the slant of the U.S. Constitution that their students are being given in public schools. Recently, a mother reported to us that a well-meaning teacher had given a lesson on constitutional rights wherein the students (in the majority) voted that the children should not have to live with parents who disciplined them. (Evidently, students are becoming confused with parental responsibility of disciplining their children vs. child abuse.)
Perhaps in the end, child abuse laws will perfect parents; but in the process, we certainly should not give our children over to state agencies, programs or social workers who would forget one of the basic rights and responsibility empowered by our U.S. Constitution from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, "The rights to conceive and to raise one's children have been deemed `essential,' `basic civil rights of man,' and `rights far more precious than property rights'."
Joy Beech, founder and executive director
Families Alert
Salt Lake City