Tim and Maureen

You may have heard that Canada is about to become the third country in the world to allow same-sex marriage. This right was won by striking at government's (federal in this case) legislation using the constitution.

I also worked for three years as the chief administrator in a village on the BC North Coast. One of the things that they hammered into us was the chain of legislation, starting with the Canadian Constitution, that protects citizens from their government. This is the principle of "ultra vires" or being "outside the law." As the chief bureaucrat I could NOT write a bylaw unless the constitution and the chain of legislation gave me permission to do so.

Canada's marriage laws have been deemed by 3 courts to be outside the law. So gov't is re-writing it to allow that union.

Looks to me like Joyce has nailed it. I think this family is fighting an "ultra vires" battle, not a homeschooling battle. A homeschooling flavour, but an "ultra vires" battle.

My (Legal Latin) thots

Tim T

----- Original Message -----
From: Fetteroll
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 3:20 AM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Re: Home-schooling standoff in Waltham,WOW!!!!!!!!!


on 6/17/03 3:05 PM, Heidi Wordhouse-Dykema at heidi@... wrote:

> I dunno, but I'd have to disagree with the notion that what the family in
> Waltham is doing is wrong.

I didn't say they were wrong. I said they weren't fighting for
homeschooling.

> They're standing up for what they believe are their legal rights. They
> trusted the courts to maintain those rights

Uh, no. They believe the constitution doesn't allow the state to create laws
beyond the constitution. The courts are there to uphold the laws the Bryants
don't believe should exist.

They aren't wrong for holding strong beliefs. But it is wrong to
characterize them as poor naive homeschoolers being beaten up by the big bad
bureaucracy. Anyone who believes the constitution doesn't give the state the
right to create laws beyond the constitution and then chooses to take a
legal stand about it is savvy about legal matters!

> - only to find that the court
> took away legal guardianship of their children (THAT must've been a
> shocker!)

Not possible. The case was in and out of court for over 4 years.

> and now that that's happened, they're continuing to safeguard
> their children's right to a child-focused education. They're making the
> best they can of a seriously fubar'd legal situation. (and, the kids don't
> seem to be adversely affected by what's gone on. The quotes in the article
> were from the kids, weren't they?)

I admire them for having been able to balance a very time consuming project
while giving their children the attention they needed. (Or so it appears. We
can't really know.)

But they chose the battle. They chose to take a stand on the constitution
while raising a family.

> If the family does as the state wants, then they lend authenticity to the
> state's current belief that the state, not the parents, have charge of each
> child's education. This can harm independent homeschoolers in the years to
> follow. (and yes, there is also the difficulty that the state may get
> punative because of this dedication and demand for legal rights.)

These are wonderfully rousing words.

But how would it feel if I, as a resident of MA, using misinformation and
guesswork and wishful thinking, told you what the atmosphere was like and
what the future held for homeschoolers in California?

> If I were them, I'd probably have gone underground or found an out-of-state
> unschooler to umbrella me instead of submitting even a few sentences of
> 'curriculum' or whatever they want to 'overview' of my kids
> education. Thankfully, I live in California where I can do away with
> intervention by declaring myself a private school.
> Thank goodness for that.

So you need to ask yourself why they didn't do that. They aren't stupid.
They aren't naive. They went into this with open eyes. They could have moved
to another town when they started having difficulties with Waltham. (Waltham
didn't start it. The town asked for what they believe the state says they
can ask for. (And if they were wrong, it's easy enough to point out the
relevant parts of the case law to them.) The Bryants *chose* not to submit
an education plan because they believed the state didn't have the right to
make any laws beyond the constitutuion. *Not* because the request is
burdensome. It's very easy to comply. So, again, the Bryants weren't caught
unaware.)

The Bryants could have bailed at many points during the 4 years. The first
court case ended with them being ordered to submit an education plan. (Right
back where they started, except they had to submit retroactive education
plans. Stupid, yes, but their initial stance about the ed plans didn't have
a basis in reality either.) They chose to keep battling. Unlike the western
states which are so large, it's easy to work in MA and live in another
state. They could have done that. Why didn't they?

I seem to have met a good many unschoolers in MA. Or at least relaxed
homeschoolers who claim to be unschoolers ;-) Anyway there are quite a few
of us. We're the home of John Holt and Growing Without Unschooling after
all. If it was difficult to unschool in MA and the Bryants were fighting to
make it possible, they would have had a lot of support. But they weren't
fighting for that. So they didn't get a lot of support.

We too are not stupid. We don't need outsiders to tell us after the fact how
to interpret what was happening right in front of us. We *lived* it. We
didn't read about it in some biased alert.

Joyce


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Mary

From: "Tim and Maureen" <tmthomas@...>


<<You may have heard that Canada is about to become the third country in the
world to allow same-sex marriage. This right was won by striking at
government's (federal in this case) legislation using the constitution.>>


Who are the other two?

Mary B