Individuals strive in vain to live according to what they do believe as long as the government will tell them what they must believe – what they will be allowed to believe.  

The Nanny we let in the door is no longer satisfied with telling us what is politically correct, nor even with making sure we comply.  She has determined to make us say we like it – that we believe she was right all along.

She told us we must all get along and play nicely together. To help clarify her meaning, she generously legislated what we could do or say - to or about whom, and under what circumstances.  

But it turned out that some people were following the basic rules without submitting to the ideology behind them.  This will no longer do.  Recent court decisions, legislation and bureaucracy from around the globe are illustrative:  Nanny wants our thinking in line with her own.

To this end, the definition of discrimination has been redefined, at least in the case of homosexuality, to include the failure to actively promote, as evidenced by California legislation SB 777, which went into effect the first of this year.  

British foster parents Vincent and Pauline Matherick found this out last fall when social services forcibly removed a boy from their care for their refusal to sign the government’s Sexual Orientation Regulations.  These require caregivers to instruct preadolescents in the benefits of alternative sexuality.  That the Christian couple had never acted in a discriminatory way towards any individual was irrelevant.  Having admitted to the thought crime of disapproving of homosexuality, they were of no further use to the State.  International uproar and a law suit eventually led local social services to settle for a signature on a compromise document, but not before showing who was boss.  

Massachusetts parents who don’t care to introduce homosexuality to their 5 and 6 year olds will have it done for them by the State by way of “diversity book bags” or reading material depicting gay romantic leads.  The Federal Appeals Court, ruling against parents who wished to “opt out” of this service, admitted that the elementary school named in the suit chose books like “King and King” with the express purpose of influencing youngsters in ideological matters, but asserted that this did not constitute indoctrination but rather a “legitimate state interest.”  The weasel wording belies the belief that indoctrination IS a legitimate state interest.

The half a dozen ACLU lawyers who helped represent the school are so emboldened by the judicial activism they routinely encounter that they no longer feel any need to pretend that actual diversity – diversity of belief – will be tolerated.   One of them openly stated that it was “a tremendous bonus” for children to be exposed to things their parents don’t approve of.  The court agreed, despite the existence of the Massachusetts Parental Notification Act, which acknowledges parents’ rights to direct the moral upbringing of their own children, and provides a means for opting out of classes that treat issues of human sexuality. For resisting, one of the boys concerned was beaten up by several of his schoolmates on the playground, and the plaintiff father was jailed overnight.  Nanny recommends submission.

A German Baptist family who refused to enroll their children in public schools where their beliefs were not represented was forced to ring in the New Year by fleeing to England after the mayor of their town tried to seize custody of their children. The European Court of Human Rights has come down on the side of Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, which has repeatedly ruled against home schoolers, stressing “the general interest of society to avoid the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions.”

Spanish parents find themselves in a similar situation. Though the Spanish Constitution explicitly includes language guaranteeing the right of parents to choose the education of their children, the courts uphold government initiatives that blatantly usurp this right.  When a new course – Education for Citizenry – was mandated for 9th graders this year, many parents and schools were outraged at the overtly agnostic, relativist and gender ideology it sought to impart.  When individual parents in the region of Catalonia removed their children from the classroom, the regional High Court ruled that they had no right to objection of conscience.  One Catholic foundation that runs several prestigious schools throughout the country has refused to teach the class.  The Catalan government has responded by taking the Barcelona school to court to have its accreditation rescinded. The government has won every step to date.

Mistress will not take “no” for an answer.