The Texas Eighth District Court of Appeals ruled last week that homeschooling parents were not constitutionally protected from not teaching their kids based on the belief that the “rapture is near.”
The Raw Story reported that according to the ruling, Michael and Laura McIntyre removed their nine children from private school ten years ago to be homeschooled. The couple used the empty space in a motorcycle dealership as a classroom. But, eventually the McIntyres abandoned teaching their kids anything because they told their kids “that they did not need to do schoolwork because they were going to be raptured.”
According to testimony from Tracy McIntyre, Michael’s twin brother, his brother and sister-in-law were never seen reading, “using computers,” doing math, or any other schoolwork. The homeschooling situation facilitated by the McIntyre’s became so horrendous that their daughter, Tori, ran away so she could go to high school, said District attendance officer Mark Mendoza.
In 2007, Mendoza filed filed truancy complaints against the family; in response, the McIntyres filed a lawsuit for “injunctive relief based on Texas Education Code, the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Texas Constitution, and the United States Constitution.” However, the court decided that neither of those statutes were viable enough to excuse the fact that the McIntyres were robbing their children of an education.
“No parents have ever prevailed in any reported case on a theory that they have an absolute constitutional right to educate their children in the home, completely free of any state supervision, regulation, or requirements,” stated the ruling. “They of not have an ‘absolute constitutional right to home school.’”
Though not terribly rampant, the phenomenon of wacko, Christian right-wing homeschoolers occurs far too often. These people are dumbing down the country’s youth under the thought of there being some kind of ultra-religious, biblical fervor.
Josh is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. Follow him on Twitter @dnJdeli.
