Religious right groups push new version of 'Parental Rights Amendment'.

A number of Religious Right groups have joined forces to promote a new constitutional amendment that will purportedly protect "parental rights" but that critics say is a stalking horse for religious school vouchers.

The "Parental Rights Amendment" (PRA) was first introduced in the mid 1990s. Supporters portrayed it as an effort to ensure that parents would have the right to educate and raise their children as they saw fit. Despite an aggressive push, the drive for the proposal soon fizzled.

The new PRA is being promoted chiefly by Michael Farris, a long-time home-schooling advocate in Virginia. Farris has recruited Religious Right organizations and others to back the drive mainly through a Web site, www.parentalrights.org.

The amendment consists of three sentences: "The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right. Neither the United States nor any state shall infringe upon this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served. No treaty nor any source of international law may be employed to supersede, modify, interpret, or apply to the rights guaranteed by this article."

Critics say it could open the door to mandatory school voucher plans. Under the Religious Right's theory, states would be required to pay for private school tuition to help parents exercise their constitutional right to oversee the education of their children.

The amendment could also create problems in the public schools. Parents could use it to demand modifications to curriculum or to insist that their children be excused from instruction they don't like. Creationists, for example, could demand their children be excused from biology courses.

Child-welfare advocates also say the amendment could make it harder to prosecute cases of child abuse.

Farris, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 1993, is also worried about a United Nations document called the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. On the PRA Web site, Farris asserts that the convention "is capable of attacking the very core of the child-parent relationship, removing parents from their central role in the growth and development of a child, and replacing them with the long arm of government supervision within the home."

Organizations helping Farris promote the PRA include Concerned Women for America, the Eagle Forum and Citizens for Excellence in Education. Also on the list is Christian Liberty Academy School System, a group that markets materials to fundamentalist home-schoolers and proclaims that it believes in "combating socialism, godless Communism, and all forms of collectivistic tyranny alien to our way of life."

Americans United pointed out that the Supreme Court has already ruled that parents have the right to direct their children's education in a 1925 case called Pierce v. Society of Sisters. A more recent case, Troxel v. Granville, invalidated a Washington state law guaranteeing grandparents visitation rights with their grandchildren, leaving such questions firmly in the hands of parents

For now, PRA advocates are relying on word of mouth to promote the idea. The Rev. Donald Wildmon's OneNewsNow.com reported last month that backers are being asked to recruit 10 other supporters to sign a petition, write to members of Congress and donate money.