Jeff Jacoby's latest opinion piece in the Boston Sunday Globe provides a spot-on analysis of the recent decision / dismissal of a suit regarding the right of public schools to control their own curriculum. As always Mr. Jacoby does an excellent job identifying the root of the problem: Government control over our daily lives. A summary of Parker v. Hurley can be found here and here.

Time and again, on most topics Mr. Jacoby illuminates the issue behind the issue. In this case, 4 parents attempted to sue the Lexington Public Schools for a curriculum that attempted to show same-sex families as normal and healthy. The parents asserted that the curriculum violated their rights to teach their children that homosexuality is immoral and wrong. While the issue on the surface seemed to be weather or not we should be discussing homosexuality in elementary classrooms, Mr. Jacoby identified the real issue at stake:

Parents should have the same freedom in educating their kids that they have in clothing, housing, and feeding them. You wouldn't let the government decide what time your kids should go to bed, or which doctor should treat their chicken pox, or how they should spend their summer vacation, or which religion they should be instructed in. On matters serious and not so serious, parents are entrusted with their children's well-being. Why should schooling be an exception?

Get government out of the business of running schools, and a range of alternatives will emerge. Freedom, innovation, and competition will do for education what they do for so much else in American life: increase choices, lower costs, improve performance -- and eliminate conflict. So long as education is controlled by the state, the battles and bad blood will continue. With more liberty will come more tolerance -- and more resources spent on learning than on litigation.

So, why can't Mr. Jacoby apply the same principles of reason and liberty to the on-going debate on gay marriage (and by gay marriage I mean, simply, the right of two consenting adults to enter into a contract that is protected by the state)? Over the last 3 years, the normally reasonable and conservative writer has become increasingly shrill over the prospect of allowing gays and lesbians into the marriage fold.

Mr. Jacoby continually refuses to admit that the exclusion of any individuals from state protection, and the application of a special category of rights (in this case the "right" to marry) is detrimental to democracy and severely limits individual freedom. He argues that the current definition of marriage has been a staple of civil society and that only heterosexual marriage is a reliable environment for raising children. In short, America will not survive and children will be the collateral damage if gays and lesbians are allowed to receive the same state-funded protection that their heterosexual counterparts receive.

Further, Mr. Jacoby clearly states that the wishes of the majority in this case outweigh the rights of the minority. Additionally, he condemns the courts that applied their own reason and did the job they were hired to do.

The only valid civil rights are those that have the consent of the governed. Their legitimacy comes from the democratic process, not from judicial fiat or political correctness.

That statement is a contradiction to his current opinion of Judge Mark Wolfe's decision in Parker v. Hurley.

Mr. Jacoby, if you apply the same principles, you must wonder: what role does government have in marriage anyway? The federal government should not be involved in any way. The local and state government should only offer a means of protecting the contract between two individuals.

In both cases, government is doing nothing more than limiting or defining the rights of U.S. citizens. Both sides of the marriage debate should be wary of allowing the government to define marriage in any way. We have given our government control, via taxes, of almost every aspect of our lives. Add yet we gasp and cry foul when that power is used.

-JHB