Iowa Considers Mandatory Home Inspections With Chuck Hurley

Iowa Considers Mandatory Home Inspections With Chuck Hurley: Today we”re talking about the rise of home inspections for homeschoolers and how this is happening all across the nation – not just in Iowa! Is this constitutional? How can we bring change in this area? Tune in now to find out more!

Air Date:Â 04/01/2019

Guest: Chuck Hurley

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note: Â As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith And The Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live. We’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, entertainment, all these different areas. And we look at all these things from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

You can join us in that by listening to WallBuilders Live and also by going to our websites – WallBuildersLive.com and also WallBuilders.com, a lot of great information at both websites and a great opportunity. You get to click on that donate button and come alongside us as a financial partner. Your investment, you get a return on that investment called freedom. By investing in WallBuilders Live it helps to educate people across the country to get engaged as citizens and to implement a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. That’s the perspective we’re going to take today.

We have David Barton with us. He’s America’s premier historian and the founder of WallBuilders. Tim Barton is with us, national speaker and pastor, and president of WallBuilders. And my name is Rick Green. Be sure to check out those websites today and you’ll find out more.

Later in the program, Chuck Hurley will be with us. He’s from The Family Leader up in Iowa. We’re going to be talking about a bill coming out of Iowa. David, Tim, this bill is– I guess it’s not an entirely new concept. We’ve seen leftist legislators across the country and, unfortunately, around the world really try to crack down on homeschooling by implementing these, basically, investigations without cause and no due process. Where they come in and they want to know everything that’s going on in your home, and everything about your homeschool curriculum. All of these things that basically take away the whole reason you want to homeschool because now they’re trying to dictate to you what the curriculum is going to be as well.

At any rate there, they’re attempting this in Iowa and it’s a draconian deal where they want to come multiple times throughout the year to basically oversee your homeschooling.

Not Just In Iowa

David:

Well, let me read the article that describes this bill and what’s happening. And, by the way, it’s not just in Iowa this is happening. They’ll probably get it defeated in Iowa given the nature of the governor there. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s being advanced because it is the philosophy of a significant segment of the people. It’s likely to pass in other states and there’s already some states that are doing what’s proposed in this bill.

So, it’s an agenda that’s moving forward. It’s not like this is something that is a gadfly that they introduce this bill every time and every time it gets stepped on and crushed. No. We’re not looking at the kind of bill now. I think it will go down in Iowa, but that doesn’t change the fact that it reflects a growing sentiment in a large segment of the population. And in some states, it’s the majority of the population.

Here’s the description of the bill. Here’s the news article on it. This bill requires homeschool families who do not report to their school district in conducting their home education to submit to, “Health and safety visits quarterly. So, every three months I’m going to have a government inspector come into my home quarterly by the board of directors of a school district.”

If parents decline the proposed law says, “The juvenile court or district court upon a showing of probable cause may authorize the person making the home visit to enter the home and interview or observe the child.” So, now the court can order people to go into homes where parents don’t want them and observe the child.

And, by the way, who is it that usually does this? In other states that are doing this, it’s by the Child Protective Services. And if you know much about that, that is one of the most anti parental groups that exist bureaucracy.

Just The Parents?

David:

When you look at all the professions that are out, there social workers rank as one– depending on which study– as one of the two most liberal left leaning entities professionally in America. Psychologists and social science workers, they’re the two most liberal, the two most anti parental rights, the two most anti constitutional rights. They are the ones, “All the kids belong to us. We’re the experts. You’re just the parents.” So, that’s who gets to come in. That”s who–

Tim:

And, by the way, if you’re a social worker listening, God bless you, please tell your friends to stop being ridiculous.

David:

Thank you.

Tim:

Right. Because it’s kind of like we talk about the public school system. It’s a very broken system. It doesn’t mean there’s not good teachers in the public school. So, we know some social workers who are wonderful people, but there’s a very broken system. And any time that you have the government saying, “Social workers, you have the right any time, day or night, you go in, you make decisions, you take away if you want to. You can do what you want anytime.” Somebody is given power and authority that they should not have.

This kind of goes back to the Declaration where the Founding Fathers said that, “No, no, we believe that rights don’t come from government. They come from our Creator. And government’s job is to protect those rights.” Well, arguably, people would say, “Yeah, but social workers, they”re social services, they’re trying to protect the rights of the kids.”

I get that in big picture, but the way we are now defining things, we talked about on the program not that long ago where there was a pastor who, from his pulpit, preached that you should spank kids. Didn’t even do it. Just said you should do it. He gets taken to jail for saying you should spank kids. Well, that’s been accepted–

When The State Tells You

David:

And, by the way, that’s bad. But the state ruled he can never again be a pastor. And that’s the one that, to me, is more onerous. When the state tells you what your profession can or can’t be and when it tells pastors whether they can or cannot preach, Tim:

And this is why I brought up the point of the Declaration. This is what the Founding Fathers came back and they said, “Whoa, okay, you’re violating all kinds of our rights.” And if you haven’t read the Declaration in a while, let me encourage you to read the Declaration. Go back and remind yourself of why we chose to separate from Great Britain in the first place. It’s because the king was violating what the Founding Fathers believed were all these inalienable God given rights that the king had no business getting involved in.

And the majority the rights they go through, or the majority of the abuses they cite, were done by judges, were done by legislators. Things that we are seeing very active today. And we’ve just kind of forgotten what this point is.

But, Dad, back to your point there’s a lot of social workers that are given a lot of power and doing a lot of bad things that they should not have the access, authority, or power, to do. And it really is undermining the the sovereignty of the parents to be able to raise the kids that God gave them.

David:

Yeah. If you had asked the questions 30 years ago, “Who’s in charge of the kids? Who’s in charge of raising the kids? Is it parents or the state?” Overwhelmingly it would have been parents. But you’re not going to get that answer today.

And particularly, from several professions, I think the first person really kind of reform Child Protective Services was Governor Mike Huckabee. Back before he ran for any national office, he was the governor and he said, “You know what? We’re not letting Child Protective Service folks social workers take the children out of the homes. We’re going to only do that if there’s actually been abuse.”

How Do We Get Social Workers Under Control?

David:

So, he had the highway patrol go in and investigate because they know what crime looks like. And the difference between what a social worker thinks is a crime, which is you’re spanking a child, as opposed to what is actually crime. It’s a different thing and put that bureaucracy under control. But now we’ve had in the last couple months several states come to us and say, “Hey, how do we get our social workers under control?”

Tim:

And, again, there are some great social workers out there. So, we’re saying this not to necessarily just be carte blanche. Because we know there’s some great people out there that are stuck in a bad and broken system. But then there’s some people that have a philosophical and ideological difference and they want to punish people who don’t think the way they think. And that’s where it’s just utterly wrong.

David:

So, we thought Chuck Hurley who is with Family Leader, Rick, as you said. And Family Leader is one of their really big state pro family policy groups there in the state. Good guys there. We’ve worked with them a lot. But thought it’d be good to let Chuck kind of give us the overview of what’s going on here and what the philosophy is that drives this because it is popping up in states all over the nation. It is popping up in a lot of bureaucracies as well. This is a battle that’s on the forefront.

I was just with a legislator from Montana here just a couple weeks ago and this is a big deal even in Montana. And you would think Montana that’s kind of a libertarian Cowboy State. Nobody’s going to do that to kids up there. Yeah, they’re even fighting this battle in Montana of all places.

So, Chuck Harley with Family Leader has a great perspective on it.

Rick:

Important topic for us to be covering. Very timely. Chuck Hurley, our special guest. Stay with us. We’ll be right back on WallBuilders Live.

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What”s Going On With This?!

Rick:

Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on WallBuilders Live. We”ve got Chuck Hurley with us. He’s vice president and chief counsel for The Family Leader up in Iowa. Chuck, always good to have you on, sir. Thanks for coming.

Chuck Hurley:

You’re sure welcome. Thanks for all you do, Rick.

Rick:

Hey, man, we usually see good stuff coming out of Iowa. What’s going on with this? As said in the article on CBN, it”s this Orwellian type bill that”s essentially going to allow for ongoing constant investigation of homeschooling families even if they’ve done nothing to warrant such investigations.

Chuck Hurley:

Rick, you said you usually seen good things out of Iowa. We do right now have a pro-life governor, Senate, and House, but believe you me there are still some of the most hardcore liberal leftist secular – even anti Christian – legislators that you would ever meet in any state like New York or otherwise right here in good ol” Iowa. And they have an axe to grind and have it in for homeschoolers. So, it’s just a matter of time before they get back into power.

Iowa is a purple state. So, we really do have a threat up here if, and more likely when, our state swings back to the blue column.

Rick:

So, the good news, I’m assuming, then is that this is hopefully a bill that will not pass, but that obviously requires action. I’m sure you guys are heavily involved in that. But the bad news is this is a growing element, probably, of folks that are not only anti homeschooling, but pretty much anti freedom and anti parental choice.

The Price Of Freedom

Chuck Hurley:

Well, yeah. And as some of our Founders said, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. So, we do have a really good homeschool group. Our ministry, The Family Leader, works hard on homeschool bills and private school bills. So, we’re in great shape probably for the next four years at a minimum because we’ve got such a great governor, even if the House and Senate flipped she’ll veto something this crazy.

But as recently as 2008 we had a trifecta of really big government types – pro-abortion, that sort of thing. And that very likely could happen with a blue wave that might sweep through one of these years.

So, I am concerned, Rick, about the homeschool laws in Iowa. The people who are losing precious dollars, the statists, the public school people, really have it in for the homeschoolers here in Iowa.

So, what happened, for your listeners, is there was a tragic situation where some– they weren’t homeschoolers, but they were bad parents– a couple of kids died due to neglect. So, the statists seized on that tragedy to introduce bills to basically outlaw homeschooling, or at a minimum to have state officials go into every homeschoolers home four times a year under this rubric of safety. It”s a– they”ll never waste a crisis, I think, is a phrase that sometimes used. And the left wing certainly didn’t want to waste that crisis.

Rick:

I see. Yeah. And now that they are attempting that– And actually, I”ll have to say, Chuck, you’re not alone. Every time one of these tragedies occurs around the country, and it’s been three or four that have really caught the attention of the news in the last 24 months or so, the leftists, like you said, they don’t they don’t waste it. They seize on it. And we even had folks here in the great state of Texas talking about doing exactly what you guys are having to fight off there in the legislature and we’ve seen it in other states too.

And I so appreciate your response and your philosophy. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and you can’t ever think that these rights and these freedoms that we enjoy are going to just last. We have to constantly fight for them. That’s why you guys do what you do and that’s why it’s great to have your attention on those bills and bringing attention to it.

Wake Up, Rise Up, Speak Up, and Show Up

Chuck Hurley:

You bet, Brother. Well, it’s great to be part of a network of believers around the country. I do feel like people like David Barton and you have really inspired the church to wake up, rise up, speak up, and show up. We’ve had eleven hundred pastors come to the Iowa Capitol in the last three and a half years for a full day.

Rick:

Wow.

Chuck Hurley:

And those pastors are coming up to minister to some of the heathen legislators. They”ll pray with anybody and for anybody. And they’ve actually thawed some pretty hard hearts just through showing love and prayer. So, we’re seeing some bipartisan good things here too. There are a few people on the left that just are extreme and very hard hearts and we’re just going to have to constantly beware.

Rick:

Well, I guess you’re already getting descended upon by all the Democrat candidates at least in the next presidential election. I’m seeing a lot of reports of events and whatnot up there. Do you guys feel like you’re already in the presidential race?

Chuck Hurley:

Oh very much so, Rick. If somebody”s never been in Iowa or New Hampshire during a presidential primary, you just can’t quite appreciate the access. Literally, these candidates will stay overnight in your homes oftentimes. I’ve had people say to me, “Oh, George Bush is coming to Des Moines to speak.” And people say, “Oh, I’ve already met him six times.” It just– it becomes ho hum.

Rick:

Right.

Using The Megaphone Of National Media

Chuck Hurley:

And it”s really really hard to even fathom that if you haven’t lived it. So, yeah, the state is being crisscrossed by, in this case, Democrat presidential candidates. And what’s so cool, Rick, is we have an opportunity now to expose the extreme pro-abortion, even pro infanticide, viewpoints of six of those who were in the Senate when Ben Sasse”s bill was brought up – the Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Â

So, we’re looking at this as an opportunity, Rick, to educate Iowans, and the world, through the megaphone of national media of just how extreme the pro aborts have become around the country. Six of them running for president. And my guess is another six or eight of them are just as extreme on late term abortion and infanticide.

Rick:

I think you’re exactly right. Even from here in Texas, Beto O’Rourke supports it all the way through nine months and I think they’re all going to have to tack left like that. Before I let you go, I”ve got to ask you about how different is it for you when you’ve got a sitting president from the Republican Party– and typically, Republican candidates greatly court you guys at The Family Leader, and you all have a lot of influence up there. Do the Democrats run from ya’ll? Or do they in any way, shape, or form, try to make headway into the faith community?

Chuck Hurley:

Well, as a practical matter, no. They”ll make a statement here and there saying how they”re pr faith or they”re for spirituality. But, boy, the divide has gotten wider, Rick. Twenty years ago, twenty four years ago, twenty eight years ago, when I first got heavily involved in presidential politics, there were a few on the Democrat side that I think at least thought of themselves as Christian and so forth. But there’s not much pretense to that anymore.

Where They”ve Made Their Bed

Chuck Hurley:

Now, I think Corey Booker has said he’s a Baptist or something. But he’s about as extreme as they get on abortion, and LGBTQ, and that sort of thing. So, yeah, they stay away from us. We’ve invited them. We’re a nonpartisan group. We work with anybody and everybody that’s willing. But, yeah, they really have made their bed all the way on the left side. So, they avoid us.

Rick:

And so far, no serious opponent to President Trump as far as you’ve seen on the ground in Iowa in the primaries?

Chuck Hurley:

That”s right. I saw Bill Weld over the weekend making noise. It wouldn’t surprise me if somebody like Bill Weld gets in the race or maybe Kasich. But we certainly haven’t seen anybody here yet.

Rick:

Alright, well, we’ll get you back soon and get further updates. But please tell Bob and the whole Family Leader team hello and thank you from David, and Tim Barton, and myself, and our WallBuilders team. We appreciate you guys and look forward to having you on again soon.

Chuck Hurley:

Glad to do it. Back at you. We love you guys. You guys are true American heroes and I mean that in every sense of the word.

Rick:

Well, thank you, brother. We feel same about you all. That”s Chuck Hurley from The Family Leader and their website, by the way, is TheFamilyLeader.com. Stay with us. We’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Share a veteran’s story

We Want To Hear Your Vet Story

Rick:

Hey friends! If you have been listening to WallBuilders Live for very long at all, you know how much we respect our veterans and how appreciative we are of the sacrifice they make to make our freedoms possible. One of the ways that we love to honor those veterans is to tell their stories here on WallBuilders Live. Â Once in awhile, we get an opportunity to interview veterans that have served on those front lines that have made incredible sacrifices have amazing stories that we want to share with the American people.

One of the very special things we get to do is interview World War II veterans. You’ve heard those interviews here on WallBuilders Live, from folks that were in the Band of Brothers, to folks like Edgar Harrell that survived the Indianapolis to so many other great stories you heard on WallBuilders Live.

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This Is Not New In History

Rick:

We”re back on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us and special thanks to Chuck Hurley for joining us today as well from The Family Leader up in Iowa. I’m back with David and Tim.

And, guys, of course, Chuck’s obviously focused on Iowa and, as we talked about, at the top of the program and in the interview with him, this is not just an Iowa program. But this legislation is representative of the type of movement out there trying to infringe upon parental rights and have the state replace the parents. Which is not new in history, right guys? That’s actually– that was that was the communist plan, that was the Nazi plan. If government can take over the parents role, little, by little, by little, government replaces the family.

David:

Well, this is why several states are looking at passing parental rights amendments. We never thought we would need that in America. It was a given that parents are in charge of their kids.

Two of the cases that I love to quote – one is Pierce vs. Society of Sisters and the other is Meyer vs. Nebraska Supreme Court cases. And the courts essentially said it’s the fundamental right of the parents to direct the education and upbringing of the children. End of story. That’s it. That’s what parents get to do. But not now. So, we’re having look at passing parental rights amendments.

This is a big fight that’s going on now with the vaccinations. There’s a whole bunch of people that do not like their kids participating in vaccinations for several reasons. One is that so many vaccinations now contain parts of aborted fetuses. So, just as a matter of conscience, “I don’t want that in my kid.”

That”s The Government Getting Involved

David:

And then there’s so many bad things happening from the newer vaccinations. We think we have to have a vaccination for everything now. If somebody gets sick, we’ve got to create a vaccination. And that’s just not accurate. That’s the government getting involved and it”s having bad consequences.

Tim:

But, right, if parents want to have vaccinations, God bless them.

David:

Sure.

Rick:

Yeah.

David:

Sure.

Tim:

But this is where it should be the choice. It’s not about whether or not we should pro or not vaccinate. No, that’s not what we’re talking about.

Rick:

It’s about the parent’s right to choose.

Tim:

It’s really about the parents being able to be the parents of their children–

Rick:

Yeah.

Tim:

–and being able to make decisions. But this is where the conscience issue used to be something that drove America. Where the reason that Quakers were required to fight in wars, or Jewish men, or Muslim men, who wanted to wear their beards because that was their sect of their faith and their religion.

And there have been so many things, we can go down the list, where we’ve always protected the conscience of people if it wasn’t just for convenience sake. If they said, “No, this is what my faith says. This is the reason I’m compelled and convicted that I need to do this.”

Don”t Make The Exception Into The Rule

Tim:

Well, there’s a lot of homeschool families who are very convicted that this is what I need to do. And then the fact that the government would come and say, “We don’t care what your convictions are. We don’t care what your faith is. We’re going to tell you what you do and how you do it.” That’s a pretty scary and dangerous place to be.

David:

And the way that they do this– Chuck pointed out, alright, we had one family, one parent family, really did some wrong things with the kids, the two kids died. Right. You punish the parents that did that – you don’t punish every parent in the state and put them under state control. You don’t pass laws to make the exception into the rule.

So, what you do is you prosecute those parents that let the kids die. That’s wrong. It should never have happened. But you don’t assume that every other parent is going to do that, therefore we the state have to get involved in doing this. Â

So, it struck me, I like the word that Chuck used, he said, “It’s amazing how much Iowa is becoming New York-like in their thinking.” Because you think of Iowa as a rural state and I thought, “Well, welcome to Texas.” Because Texas we lost 19 seats in the last election, we”re considered to be a very red state, we’re now only eight seats away from losing the House of Representatives. And this is in Texas. This has been a big red state. You look at Oklahoma which is even more red than Texas was. And in the last election they got pounded.

So, it’s amazing how that this New York like thinking, as Chuck called it, is coming into states that had been longtime red. And the statist kind of mentality, that the state knows best what to do with you, your kids.

It”s Coming To You If It Hasn”t Arrived

David:

In Oklahoma, so many of the legislators that got defeated, it was because the legislative establishment ganged up on them and said, “You don’t represent the views of us as educators. You represent the views of parents. We can’t have that.” And it really was over educational issues of who’s in charge of education.

So, it is a big thing that”s coming to a state near you of it’s not arrived. But we just need to understand that God, and the Constitution, and federal law up to this point, has given the rights to parents – not to the state – and we need to keep it that way.

Rick:

Yet it all comes back down to that fundamental question – Who decides? Right? We’re not arguing whether a particular vaccine, or a particular form of education, or whatever, is good or bad. We’re arguing who gets to make the decision for that particular child. And in the case of children, it should be parents making that decision. No question about it.

So, great interview today with Chuck Hurley. Thank him for coming on and being part of the program today. Thank you for listening.