American Parents' Rise from ‘Domestic Terrorists’ to ‘Law-abiding’ Protectors

Charlie Kirk once said, “The greatest rebellion against the chaos of our modern world. . .[is] raising a family grounded in truth and light.”

He was right. Revolutions start at the kitchen table and with bedtime routines, not in the chaos and confusion of a world consumed with hate and violence—both online and off.

It’s at the kitchen table that tomorrow’s thought- and faith-leaders are sown, grown, and nurtured by the parents who know and love them best.

It’s there that parents exercise the full measure of their right and responsibility to raise and educate their children in what it means to be courageous, responsible citizens—and in what it means to respect authority, speak truth, love others, and engage with civility despite differences in race, religion, politics, or opinion.

Parents matter. It’s parents who raise truth-tellers, culture-changers, and difference-makers.

Protecting parents protects kids. Preserving parental freedom to lead and to guide means children thrive and families flourish. Safeguarding families happens when society recognizes—and respects—parents as the primary decision-makers for their children.

Our nation—and our courts—have long recognized the critical role parents play in their children’s lives. But despite this long history and tradition of respecting parents’ fundamental right to raise and educate their children, the tide had turned against them in recent years.

Parents were shunned, silenced, and sidelined when it came to their child’s upbringing, education, and well-being. Schools nationwide excluded parents from critical and sometimes life-altering decisions.

Dan and Jennifer Mead discovered that a Michigan school district was treating their 8th-grade daughter like a boy and actively concealing it from them.

Joe and Serena Wailes weren’t told that their 11-year-old daughter was assigned to share a hotel room with a male student on an overnight school trip.

Brett and Susanne Roller weren’t told that their 6th-grade son’s Outdoor Lab cabin (where he slept, changed, and showered on a four-day overnight school trip) would be supervised by an 18-year-old female counselor who identified otherwise.

And religious parents of young children were denied notice and opt-out rights from controversial LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks that violated their families’ faith beliefs.

Just four years ago, outspoken parents were even compared to “domestic terrorists” by the National School Boards Association and targeted for FBI investigation by then U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. Parents were denied the opportunity to speak at local school board meetings—and some were even arrested.

But the tide is turning.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion upholding the free exercise rights of religious parents who want notice and opt-outs from sexuality and gender curriculum that “substantially interferes with the religious development of their children.” The Maryland school district in that case has since announced plans to notify parents every nine weeks about upcoming classroom content, including instruction related to religion or “gender identity,” and to allow opt-outs on request.

And on Sept. 8, current U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a blockbuster memorandum putting school boards on notice that parents “have the right and the responsibility to speak out in defense of their children.” The federal government has made it clear that “when school board members, administrators, and other government officials threaten law-abiding parents, they can and will be held accountable” for the federal crime of “conspiring to violate constitutional rights.”

Concerned and invested moms and dads can now advocate for their kids with confidence, knowing the Department of Justice “stands with America’s parents.”

It’s a new dawn and a new day. Parents are no longer being seen as the “domestic terrorists” who threaten our nation. Instead, they’ve been empowered to exercise their First Amendment rights to speak freely and raise their children according to their faith. And they’ve been emboldened to raise a generation that loves God, country, and their fellow man.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was also right: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Recent events have made it abundantly clear that our country needs a revolution—a revolution of love and light that drives out hate and darkness.

Revolutions start at kitchen tables. Parents lead and guide their children around those tables—tables that become turning points where children are grounded in truth and light and prepared to overcome the chaos of our world. So let’s keep turning the tide.