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Elizabeth is 5 years old.
Recently she was forced to sign a "Safety Contract" at her public school, without her parent's knowledge.
Is she a threat to others in her class?
Apparently she is, at least in the mind of the school.
The reason she was forced to sign the "contract" and the content of the document is almost unbelievable---"almost" but not quite unbelievable, given the state of affairs in government run education.
The school district is now requesting Elizabeth see a psychiatrist.
WPMI TV 15 is reporting that Rebecca, the girl's mother, "is angry."
She says, "They told me she drew something that resembled a gun. And according to them, she pointed a crayon at another student and said 'pew, pew'."
Five years old.
Following the incident, Rebecca says her daughter was given a questionnaire to "evaluate her for suicidal thoughts."
She says they asked her daughter if she was "experiencing depression."
Elizabeth was then given, without the consent or knowledge of her parents, a contract to sign agreeing that she would not kill herself or others.
The mother says, "While I was in the lobby waiting, they had my 5 year old daughter sign a contract about suicide and homicide."
WPMI TV points out that according to Alabama state law, minors cannot legally sign a contract.
TV 15 also contacted the school officials to determine proper protocol when handling "violent like behavior."
The school had not returned their call as of yesterday afternoon.
Rebecca says her daughter asked, "What is suicide, mommy? Daddy, what is suicide?"
The parents are now demanding the incident be removed from their daughter's permanent record.
Rebecca says, "As a parent, that's not right. I'm the one who should be able to talk to my child and not have someone else mention words like this in front of her at all."
I don't know the true motives of the folks at Elizabeth's school, however, I do know this fits a pattern that is becoming all to common.
Three years ago this month, Robert P. George, professor at Princeton, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times expressing concern that sex-ed is undermining parental authority.
Pointing out that public school sex-ed introducing middle school children to the concept of "mutual masturbation" is not helpful or healthy. Particularly when parents are often kept in the dark as to what is actually being taught and discussed in the classroom.
He further explains that this is being done in a so-called "value free" or "neutral" sex-ed environment.
George says there is no such thing as "value free" sex education. There is, he says a "competition of values"---one that often pits parents against public education.
Beyond the rival moral visions, George says this raises another "deeper issue." "Should the government force parents----at least those not rich enough to afford private schooling---to send their children to classes that may contradict their moral and religious values on matters of intimacy and personal conduct," he asks?
Professor George says, "Parents are responsible for bringing new people into the world, bound to them by blood and, ordinarily, deep feeling. These people are incapable of developing their uniquely human capacities on their own, giving parents an obligation to their children and to society to help them to reach maturity---one that requires attending not only to children's physical and emotional needs, but their intellectual and moral growth as well."
"This is why parental rights are so important," he says. "They provide a zone of sovereignty, a moral space to fulfill their obligations according to their consciences."
George says, "The right to parent is rather like the right to exercise one's religion."
Therein, I believe, is the problem.
In the past three years we have seen a continual encroachment and undermining of parental rights which directly corresponds to the war on religious freedom. At its heart, it is a battle for which moral vision will prevail in our culture, with the children as the targeted prize.
The "Tenth Plank" in Karl Marx's Manifesto for destroying our kind of civilization advocated the establishment of "free education for all children in public schools."
Why? So the education could be manipulated to advance an agenda.
While Marx and Lenin failed to realize their ultimate goals of completely transforming western culture by force, their beliefs and values were not lost on Antonio Gramsci.
It was Gramsci who recognized that "force could not ultimately transform western culture."
He said, "We must Marxize the inner man" leading to our present worldview of "Cultural Marxism" that dominates public education and too many in government today.
This is not new or unique to our times.
There is a very sad narrative in Deuteronomy 28. It describes a culture in which (v. 32), "Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand"---nothing you can do about it.
Verse 41 says, "You shall begat sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity."
There is something you can do about our current condition. Moses had already instructed God's people, prior to his describing the consequences of their failure.
Deut. 6:5-9, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength."
It always begins in my heart first.
(v. 6) "And these words...shall be in your heart."
(v. 7) "You shall teach them diligently to your children..."
Here's how:
(v. 7) "...talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up."
Relate your life to your faith and God's Truth.
You must own and personally practice God's Truth.
(v. 8) Bind them as a sign on your hand,,,as frontlets between your eyes." Show your children Christianity, don't merely describe it to them.
And...
Be Diligent. Be Vigilant. Be Discerning. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.