{"id":233213,"date":"2025-09-17T06:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T06:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/233213\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T06:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T06:54:11","slug":"huntington-beach-is-standing-up-for-parental-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/233213\/","title":{"rendered":"Huntington Beach is Standing Up for Parental Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

A previous opinion writer<\/a> and Judge Lindsey Martinez<\/a> make several errors concerning Huntington Beach\u2019s policy on restricting minors\u2019 access to certain questionable books on sexual matters in the Huntington Beach library.<\/p>\n

First, they assert that children have the same first amendment right as adults to access any reading material they wish regardless of their parents\u2019 wishes.<\/p>\n

Second, they imply Huntington Beach was preventing children from accessing these books even with their parents\u2019 permission.<\/p>\n

Third, they assert that all such books can only help any children who access them since they include \u201cinformation,\u201d and that parents inserting themselves between children and government employees in deciding what is appropriate for their children can only cause harm.<\/p>\n

Let us examine these assertions.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court has never held that children have the same rights as adults when it comes to what they read.\u00a0 For example, they have never ruled the movie industry\u2019s rating system to be a violation of the first amendment.<\/p>\n

The challenged program in Huntington Beach never banned any books and never prevented children from access to any books.\u00a0 It merely required and facilitated parental control over these choices.\u00a0 Any parent could get any book for any child they wanted.\u00a0 Parents also had a choice for their children to get either a restricted or unrestricted library card. With an unrestricted card they could check out any book they wanted without further parental involvement.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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Not all \u201cinformation\u201d is helpful for all children at all ages, and books do not only contain values-neutral \u201cinformation.\u201d They also contain opinions, suggestions, the biases of writers, and all kinds of ideas, good and bad. A given book could either help or hurt a given child. Every child and every family is different.\u00a0 Who is best to judge whether a given book or topic is appropriate for an individual child if not their parents?<\/p>\n

Well, under California\u2019s Freedom to Read Act, and the judge\u2019s decision, no one is to judge, not the parent and not the librarian.\u00a0 All kinds of books, good and bad, must be in the children\u2019s section.\u00a0 Does that sound like a good thing?<\/p>\n

There is other deceptive propaganda out there on this topic.\u00a0 We are told that innocent sounding books like Everybody Poops and The Amazing Human Body were restricted.\u00a0 This was an example of malicious compliance, with librarians moving these books in pretended compliance with the council\u2019s direction, all staged before invited TV cameras, in order to embarrass the policy and mislead the public.<\/p>\n

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What is going on here is an effort by the state to use public schools and public libraries to drive a wedge between parents and children, particularly where those parents have conservative moral and religious views. What do you expect in a one-party Democrat state like California?\u00a0 Democrat legislature, Democrat governor, Democrat judge just appointed by the Democrat governor, what hope do conservatives have when it comes to protecting their children?<\/p>\n

In a one-party state, like Russia or China, the state, including its courts, work for the party, not the people.\u00a0 California is moving dangerously in that direction.\u00a0 Just what pool of lawyers do you think Governor Newsom looks to when appointing new judges?<\/p>\n

It is not reassuring for Judge Martinez to outsource her own responsibility to lawyers for the plaintiffs<\/a>, Alianz Translatinx, directing them to draft her writ of mandate telling the city all of the detailed steps necessary to comply, essentially making the plaintiff the judge.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there is hope. On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Mahmoud v. Taylor<\/a>, where Muslim parents objected to mandatory LGBT lessons in the Montgomery County, Maryland public schools.\u00a0 In this opinion, the court affirmed the rights of the parent over that of the state when it comes to their children\u2019s education on religious and moral issues. \u00a0They held that denying parents control over such matters which may substantially interfere with the religious development of a child or poses a very real threat of undermining the religious beliefs a parent wishes to instill in his or her child.<\/p>\n

The facts in this case, where Huntington Beach seeks to uphold and facilitate these parental rights and the state of California seeks to undermine them, are very close to the facts in Mahmoud.\u00a0 The city brought this to the judge\u2019s attention, but she chose to dismiss this argument out of hand, saying the parents\u2019 rights were not impacted since they could just not use the public library they pay for. \u00a0\u00a0Of course she did.<\/p>\n

We ought to be encouraging strong families and healthy parental communication with their children, not undermining it. \u00a0Huntington Beach should appeal this wrongful decision, all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary and continue to stand for parental rights.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Russ Neal is a 21-year resident of Huntington Beach, former Naval officer and retired engineer.\u00a0 He is active in several Republican and conservative organizations. <\/p>\n

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\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A previous opinion writer and Judge Lindsey Martinez make several errors concerning Huntington Beach\u2019s policy on restricting minors\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":233214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[125522,1022,171,32807,125523,1269,125524,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-233213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-alianz-translatinx","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-huntington-beach","12":"tag-huntington-beach-library","13":"tag-opinion","14":"tag-russ-neal","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115218328135235208","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}