The War Over Parental Rights Has Begun


Published May 19, 2022

WORLD Opinions

In today’s America, it is not only the cost of living that is subject to escalating inflation. The rhetoric of public discourse is also something that becomes more and more incendiary, fueled no doubt by the easy demonization of others to which social media lends itself. Sadly, however, social media has no monopoly on hyperbolic rhetoric and the sinister stupidity it often expresses. Indeed, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, provided a first-class example when she recently declared that parental rights bills are the way “wars start.”

Actually, no, it isn’t. No war has ever started because parents did not want their kindergarten children taught about sex, let alone the weird and not so wonderful rainbow of sexual acts and incoherent gender identities now becoming a standard part of our cultural toolkit. As such, it might be easy to dismiss Weingarten’s asinine comment as a sad sign of the times concerning the language of public discourse and the sloppy thinking of our leadership class.

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Carl R. Trueman taught on the faculties of the Universities of Nottingham and Aberdeen before moving to the United States in 2001 to teach at Westminster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. In 2017-18 he was the William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life in the James Madison Program at Princeton University.  Since 2018, he has served as a professor at Grove City College. He is also a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a contributing editor at First Things. Trueman’s latest book is the bestselling The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. He is married with two adult children and is ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Photo: US Department of Education/Flickr


Carl R. Trueman is a fellow in EPPC’s Evangelicals in Civic Life Program, where his work focuses on helping civic leaders and policy makers better understand the deep roots of our current cultural malaise. In addition to his scholarship on the intellectual foundations of expressive individualism and the sexual revolution, Trueman is also interested in the origins, rise, and current use of critical theory by progressives. He serves as a professor at Grove City College.

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