Latest news with #parentalrights
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Andy Cohen sparks feud with tennis star Martina Navratilova as he calls her comments on surrogacy 'dumb'
Andy Cohen has taken aim at Martina Navratilova's controversial stance against parental surrogacy, drawing some pushback from fans of the outspoken tennis star. The Emmy-winner, 57 — who is father to two children conceived via the surrogacy process — spoke about Navratilova's remarks Tuesday on his SiriusXM station satellite show, Andy Cohen Live. The St. Louis native addressed a now-deleted tweet Navratilova — whose wife is Bravo star Julia Lemigova, 53 — published last month that read, 'Surrogacy is just wrong. Sometimes you can't have it all.' Cohen didn't mince words on the latest episode of his SiriusXM show Andy Cohen Live as he said he felt Navratilova's remark stemmed from a place of ignorance. 'What Martina tweeted was, "Surrogacy is wrong." She said, "Surrogacy is just wrong. Sometimes you can't have it all" - well, here's the deal, that's just ill-informed and dumb. 'Basically, she's uninformed on the issue, so I just think she's not informed - it's ... a bad take, what can I tell you? She's just wrong.' Cohen added, 'You know, Julia did say on Watch What Happens Live ... what she said is Martina's tweet was kind of misinterpreted or misrepresented - what Martina tweeted was, 'Surrogacy is wrong!'' Daily Mail has reached out to reps for Navratilova for further comment on the story. The Bravo executive producer added that he 'didn't want to start debating it' with Lemigova during the live WWHL broadcast. Cohen said that the controversial topic would probably be up for discussion with Lemigova at the upcoming Real Housewives of Miami reunion. 'Julia and I have discussed this offline,' said Cohen, who has overseen a SiriusXM station Radio Andy for a decade. 'Martina will not be at the Miami reunion, so I will not be asking Martina about this.' In a July 30 appearance on Watch What Happens Live, Lemigova said of her spouse's controversial take: 'I completely disagree with her comments.' Lemigova told Cohen on the show: 'Well, you know, Martina and I share a bed, but we don't share a brain.' She added that her and Navratilova don't 'always agree on different views,' but that she believes in surrogacy. A number of Bravo fans took Cohen to task for his remarks in an Instagram comment thread - and said the tennis icon was well within her right to express her views without being labeled as uninformed. 'Surrogacy is 100% abused and babies become commodities to be sold,' said one user. 'So Martina is allowed her opinion! Whether he likes it or not.' Said another user: 'Why can't she have her own opinion???' One fan wrote, 'Sooo now people can't opinions that differ from yours! Cute.' Said one user: 'I'm not sure calling someone dumb is the right way to go about it tho. Keep it professional Andy.' Cohen has been open about his surrogacy journey as well as his experience with single fatherhood. The TV personality's first child — six-year-old son Benjamin Allen — was born on February 4, 2019. He then welcomed daughter Lucy Eve, now three, three years later on April 29, 2022. A year after Lucy's birth, Cohen revealed to pal Anderson Cooper revealed the thinking behind his decision to become a father as he neared 50. 'Your mom loved that Peggy Lee song, Is That All There Is?' said Cohen, referring to Anderson's mother, the famed socialite Gloria Vanderbilt. 'That's where I was. I was approaching 50, and I heard that song in my head. I was like: 'There's gotta be a greater purpose for me. This is wonderful, and I absolutely love it. But there has to be a greater purpose,'' he said on CBS. Having children has 'has changed me in every way. I mean, I think my priorities have completely shifted,' the Real Housewives producer explained. 'I think my sense of accomplishment has totally changed. And even just getting your kids breakfast and getting them out to school, when I drop him off at school, I'm like: 'You did it, dude! That was a rough two-and-a-half hours, you know?'' Andy also explained why he did not allow the fact that he was single to stop him from becoming a father - though it has changed what he looks for in a relationship. 'I just thought: 'I wanna do this. And I'm doing it. And I know it's gonna be really hard, and I don't know what that actually means.'' However he admitted in the 2023 interview that 'I think this year for the first time, I think having Lucy, my second child, I think suddenly I was like: 'Wow. I have two kids. I'm doing this alone.''
Times
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Times
Parents must know what schools are teaching about sex
T here are few things that upset parents more than finding out that their child has been taught or shown things in school sex education classes that they knew nothing about. No school should ever hide such content from parents and new government guidelines for England, announced yesterday, make it clear that there is no longer any excuse for doing this. Transparency helps to reassure sceptical parents. Those who are shown worksheets and lesson plans in advance are four times more likely to say they are comfortable with what is being taught than parents who are kept in the dark. Most schools get this right and understand the importance of talking to parents but from next year there will be no wriggle room. Across the relationships and sex education curriculum parents should be shown what is being taught and displayed in class: this is a nudge in the right direction towards transparency and is a welcome development for parents. • Parents heading for court to make smartphones in schools illegal Requiring some sort of consent from parents, even if they don't have a veto, acts as an emergency brake on sex education they think is inappropriate. If a parent is uneasy with what a school is planning to teach, they have the right to withdraw their child as a last resort. Department for Education edicts make it clear this should only ever be done after speaking to the school, a sensible position that strikes the right balance and protects parents. Good communication with parents reassures them and makes 'sex ed' less contentious. Most schools do a good job but according to a recent poll of parents published by Parentkind, the charity I run, a quarter of parents say there has been a breakdown of trust between parents and teachers. This means parents are more likely to be worried about what is being taught or shown to their children. In the battle over who decides what is suitable material for our children we should always side with parents. They are the best judges of what is age-appropriate for their children, which is why we need an unambiguous expectation of transparency when it comes to sex education. In backing these new rights, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has shown she is on the side of parents. Jason Elsom is chief executive of Parentkind, the UK's largest parenting charity
Wall Street Journal
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Opt-Outs From Gender Storytime Don't Suffice
You are correct to welcome the 'good sense' displayed by the majority of the Supreme Court, who recently reaffirmed the fundamental religious-freedom right of parents to direct the education and formation of their children ('The Court on Parental Rights and Porn Sites,' Review & Outlook, June 30). It should be remembered, though, that state-run schooling never was and never can be a neutral enterprise. Our government schools originated as an ideological project: Their purpose, of which the dissenting justices appear to approve, was to combat the competing influences of family, neighborhood and church—and of one church in particular.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Progressive parents in Oklahoma offer blueprint to mess with MAGA censorship
Justice Samuel Alito may hide behind stuffy robes, but the whiniest member of the Supreme Court can't hide that his personality is best summed up as 'worst parent at your kid's school.' Whether you've had children or were once a child at a public school, you know his type: the loathsome puritan who throws a fit every time he suspects a student might feel a pang of enjoyment during the process of learning. These are the parents who get Halloween costumes banned, demand that the fashionable toys be outlawed from playgrounds and, of course, want any book that threatens to be interesting enough to read banned. Unsurprisingly, Alito authored last week's 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case granting the most miserable parent in the PTA veto power over the entire school's curriculum. The case involved a school district in Virginia, where right-wing parents were abusing the 'opt-out' system meant to allow parents limited ability to take kids out of class for lessons that conflicted with the parents' religious beliefs. The school had recently added some picture books to the list approved for classroom use that featured LGBTQ characters, mostly for storytelling hours in elementary schools. Under a deluge of propaganda falsely portraying these books as sexual — which they most definitely were not — masses of parents demanded broad 'opt-out' rights of any lesson involving the books. The opt-outs spun out of control, threatening to make reading hour impossible, so the school tried to restrict the policy. But the Supreme Court's conservative majority forced the school to retain broad 'opt-out' rights for parents. Alito, who is as intellectually dishonest as he is self-pitying, tried to pretend the decision was a 'compromise.' He repeatedly misrepresented the content of the books with hysterical language. As legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern explained at Slate, Alito 'reframes these utterly innocent children's books as insidious propaganda designed to brainwash children.' The goal here is not only to reinscribe blatant homophobia into the law, but also to minimize the impact of the decision by implying it only impacts 'gay' books. But it's far broader than that, as Vox legal journalist Ian Millhiser notes. The ruling empowers 'parents who object to any form of classroom instruction on religious grounds' to demand opt-out rights — or the school to censor the material entirely. Stern continues: The problem with this request is that schools cannot possibly know, in advance, which religious views are held by which parents, and which books or lessons those parents might find objectionable. In the past, parents have sued school districts objecting, on religious grounds, to lessons that touch on topics as diverse as divorce, interfaith couples and 'immodest dress.' They've objected to books which expose readers to evolution, pacifism, magic, women achieving things outside of the home and 'false views of death.'The 'Harry Potter' books are a frequent target of ire from Alito-esque parents who think fantasy novels literally teach kids how to perform occult magic. Ironically, the author, J.K. Rowling, supports the anti-trans hysteria that helped lead to this decision. But that underscores the Pandora's box of chaos the Supreme Court, in a homophobic fit, has unleashed. Anything can be framed as a 'religious belief,' entitling parents to meddle with what's available in the classroom. In Florida, the 'Don't Say Gay' law that offered similarly broad parental complaint rights led teachers to pull all books from shelves, lest some unhinged parent declare that 'See Spot Run' offended their reading of Genesis 7:2. This was fine by Florida Republicans, who have long suspected reading leads to thinking — and eventually to voting for Democrats. However, mischief can cut in multiple directions, as parents in Oklahoma have figured out. As Judd Legum of Popular Information reported last month, progressives in the state are using a broad 'opt-out' provision to fight back against efforts to use public schools to push right-wing propaganda on students. The Donald Trump-worshipping state superintendent, Ryan Walters, has imposed a social studies curriculum teaching outright lies, such as 'discrepancies' in the 2020 election and that the U.S. was founded as a 'Christian' nation. The state also passed a law in 2024 giving any parent the right to withdraw a child from any lesson they deem 'harmful.' The legislation was intended to give right-wing parents the ability to disrupt lessons in science, history or other subjects that make Christian nationalists grumpy. But a group called We're Oklahoma Education (WOKE) is encouraging parents to use it to pull kids from classes teaching these false views of history or other lessons corrupted by right-wing propaganda. Another group of Oklahomans is also suing to block the new curriculum on the grounds of religious freedom. The lead plaintiff, Rev. Dr. Mitch Randall, explained his views: 'As a Christian, I object to Oklahoma's new social studies standards that require teachers to deceive students by presenting inaccurate information as fact.' I am but a humble journalist, and so I'm not in the business of recommending action to folks on the ground. Still, the Supreme Court's decision has opened the door for parents and activist groups in many states to take similar actions, citing religious objections to efforts by Republicans to inject right-wing propaganda into the classroom. Randall's lawsuit, which is backed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, broadly objects to teaching any religion in schools, claiming such lessons could conflict with religious views taught at home. Similar arguments could be used against states like Texas and Louisiana, which are trying to mandate the Ten Commandments on classroom walls and replace regular reading classes with Bible studies. Multiple states have also introduced 'PragerU' materials in classrooms — including video lessons containing factual inaccuracies, like Frederick Douglass describing slavery as a 'compromise' that benefited the country — even though they are merely right-wing historical revisionism full of disinformation. Lying to kids no doubt violates the religious beliefs of many liberal parents, who just got the green light from the Supreme Court to use that fact to interfere with classroom lessons. Recent history shows that the Supreme Court has regretted hasty decisions rooted in far-right ideology due to the chaos they have unleashed. In 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion restraining governments from gun regulations that weren't 'consistent with' the laws of the 18th century. As people not blinded by NRA propaganda noted, this meant the law could never reflect changes in technology or social structures that have occurred in the past 250 years. Sure enough, disorder followed. Plaintiffs challenged laws restricting wife-beaters from owning guns, because beating your wife was legal in the 18th century. Others claimed they were now allowed to have military-style assault weapons, because they weren't invented in the 18th century, which means they couldn't be banned. Plaintiffs argued children should be able to own guns, like they did in the 18th century. Some argued they have a right to own machine guns. The Supreme Court has been playing clean-up ever since, using convoluted non-logic to argue that the 'no new laws since 1776' logic doesn't apply to domestic abusers or federal laws restricting deadly gun modifications. They have also quietly let states keep restrictions on assault weapons, and kept in place laws allowing federal authorities to prosecute illegal arms dealers. Thomas' fantasy America — where everyone, including junior high school kids, is packing a machine gun — was not as great as he envisioned. There were a lot of radical decisions this term that promise to create similar legal bedlam, especially one that seemingly cleared the way for Trump to deny the plain text of the Constitution granting birthright citizenship. This history of gun control decisions, however, shows the conservative justices are often not prepared to deal with the fallout from problems they create. The justices were so blinded by homophobia that they gave parents broad rights to challenge any book based on vague religious objections, without considering how that power could be used by all manner of people, including those with more progressive views. Maybe nothing will come of it. Or maybe the Supreme Court will come to regret this as one of many half-baked decisions. The post Progressive parents in Oklahoma offer blueprint to mess with MAGA censorship appeared first on
Bloomberg
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
The Supreme Court Is Right to Respect Parents' Faith
The ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor should remind public schools that they're working with parents, not competing against them. Save Here's why I think the Supreme Court might be on to something in its Friday decision allowing a group of Muslim and Christian parents to opt their young children out of public-school lessons that feature 'LGBTQ+-inclusive texts': my wife and I sent our kids to private school. How does B lead to A? Let me explain. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal
