It's Wednesday, January 7, 2006.

I'm Albert Mueller, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian

worldview.

The rights of parents in raising their children should be recognized as paramount.

As Christians think about this, we need to understand this is basic to creation

order. That is to say, in the order of creation, we have the creation of human beings, male and

female, then we have the institution of marriage, the command be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,

and then we have the institution of the family, which means that couple, primarily and the children

who are given to their union. Now, there's more to the family than that. There's extended family,

but the very center, the nuclear cell that defines human civilization begins with parents and

their children. And the recognition of any sane society is that parents

have to be recognized as the primary decision makers, authorities. They are, after all, the ones

who parent the children. Now, when looking at this, we recognize that in our secularizing,

liberalizing society, and especially with the influence of so much

progressivist ideology in the culture, there are those who think differently.

And one of the authorities that thinks quite differently is the state of California.

The state of California has in some ways basically declared war on parents in that state,

and one of the ways they've done so is by

establishing policies that require public school teachers to hide a child's gender identity

at school, even from the child's parents. Now, when you think about that, it's hard to imagine

anything more basic, anything more basically irrational and wrong than that.

And that's why a recent court action should have our attention, and frankly, the attention

...