“Focus on the family” groups

You know them, religiously driven groups who tell you the government is evil and wants to teach your children things you don’t want them to learn from teachers, such as sex and evolution. Each family should be able to decide what is best for their children to be learning right?

Then the same groups pressure different forms of media into no longer playing commercial ads or into censoring shows those certain groups do not deem appropriate for their own family, therefore it is not appropriate for everyone’s family?

On one hand they want the government to stay out of their children’s education when it comes to certain classes, yet on the other hand they want to involve themselves in censoring things and deeming what is appropriate for others and others families.

These people are opportunistic hypocrites who should focus on their own families.

Do you think these people are really invested in protecting people from others trying to impose on their parental rights? Do you think they are misguided? I doubt either, I think they use religion as a means to have the kind of power they want, otherwise they’d use all that energy on something more constructive and that warrants more attention then creating a school system that deliberately makes our children ignorant.

Now if you are apart of or defend these groups please do not get upset with my view point, please counter it logically and show me why I am wrong about these groups. And please do not confuse my opinion of “Focus on the family” groups with my opinion of people who do not wish their children to be taught sex-ed or who do not wish for their children to be taught evolution. I’m focusing on the groups that as stated above say they want people to have control of their own family, yet try to decide what the best decisions are for that person’s family.


***EDIT: Let me apologize for poor grammar. The debate that sprung from this thread went on late in the night my time and I began to get tired and wrote some scarcely coherent sentences.


[edit on 25-7-2008 by rapinbatsisaltherage]

I'm not sure you know much about focus on the family, maybe just got an e-mail or heard a radio show. They don't teach you gov. is evil they preach that YOU should raise your kids not the gov. Yes it does presure groups who wish to tell our children life info we as parents are not prepared or they most importantly are not prepared to recieve. You see it's a let me be the parent to my child not you mentality. If the schools want to teach evolution, then teach jesus. but they wont. and don't get me started on sex ed. that is a family conversation not one to be directed by an individual who has been taught to teach beliefs that may be different then yours. teach my kids, english, math and history. leave the rest to me! Sorry if your a lazy parent but education goes beyond the classroom. It's called parenting, and i chose to be one and thus accept the responsibilities.

You seem to have ran away so i'll take my assumptions as correct. In the future try not to belittle those of us who are trying to raise productive members of society.

my child not you mentality

I'll get more into the "them versus government" issue and what some groups teach about the government tomorrow, right now I don't have the time.

Yes many of these groups claim such a mentality but then can you tell me why so many: yet on the other hand they want to involve themselves in censoring things and deeming what is appropriate for others and others families.

Especially the actual group who calls themselves Focus on the Family does this kind of double talk.

I'm trying to get them and their supporters prospectives.

Now again as I said in my first post I'm not simply targeting this debate towards parents who want sex-ed and evolution to be strictly a family issue, it is geared towards hypocritical groups such as the one I stated and why they think they have the right to decide things and censor things for all families and deem what is appropriate for others to watch instead of focusing on their own family and following their own mentality?

Originally posted by anotherdad
You seem to have ran away so i'll take my assumptions as correct. In the future try not to belittle those of us who are trying to raise productive members of society.

Wow, you gave me less than two hours to reply to you and assumed I ran while I was posting a reply to you?

I am now going to assume you are arrogant. And how are those groups productive? They use religion as a farce to control content. Do you know anything about FOTF?

It's not censoring

Obviously,

A. You don't have any idea what group I'm talking about or you wouldn't keep getting confused.

B. I'm not talking about censorship in the schools, I'm talking about how the same group pressures and attempts to censor media claiming they are doing what is best for families with out allowing parents the individual freedom and responsability to decide that for their own children.

I know where your coming from and I agree wih you; I too find FOTF hypocritical.

Strong arm tactics are used by groups such as FOTF to undermine parents decisions and decision-making skills, which is essentially what FOTF does - and yes - I think it's all disguised in a neat little religious wrapper.

they work to give me the right to raise my child in a safe loving home as i see fit.

So you do not wish for parents to be able to decide what forms of media are appropriate for them or their children or the parents themselves to watch?

FOTF is a group that tries to push their social conservative public policy on everyone esle. If you won't do it willingly, they'll attempt to get you to do it by force. So you don't care if other parents have choices long as this groups censoring goes along with your own belief system?