====== FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ======

America First Party
1630 A 30th Street #111
Boulder, Colorado 80301
http://www.AmericaFirstParty.org

Friday, March 28, 2008

Homeschooling Is A Basic Right!

Boulder, CO -- The America First Party applauds the California Court of Appeal's action to reconsider its earlier decision to ban homeschooling, and welcomes the strong showing of support from government leaders and family organizations for the homeschool movement and the fundamental right of parents to choose their children's education.

The right to homeschool touches on key values related to freedom and prosperity, including the right of the individual and family to play the legitimate role they are capable of without unnecessary interference from government. The overarching principle is of subsidiarity, which specifies that the smallest government unit should perform its proper role in society, without usurpation of that role by larger government entities. The founders implicitly respected subsidiarity in the way they designed the Constitution, and in their enactment of the Tenth Amendment, thereby limiting the role of government.

Excluding the individual, the family is the smallest government unit. Since it has the most at stake in matters relating to its own welfare, it should be allowed to perform any role related to its own welfare whenever it is capable of it. It should be obvious that the nurturing of a family's material and spiritual well-being is logically of more concern to parents than state bureaucrats, and so this should be left to parents when possible.

AFP National Chairman Jonathan Hill stated, "Parents have a right to educate their offspring so as to cultivate in them their religious and moral values. Denying this tramples on their dignity, potentially relegating them to the status of breeders of future subjects for state indoctrination and manipulation."

AFP Press Secretary Michael Lynch stated, "Why should parents be stripped of the ability to shield their children from the drugs, violence, and poor educational standards often found in public schools? If anything, we should want more homeschooling, not less."

Contacts:
Jonathan Hill, National Chairman, 1-866-SOS-USA1, ext. 4
Michael Lynch, Press Secretary, 1-866-SOS-USA1, ext. 2

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