If the Supreme Court has consistently supported parental rights, then why a constitutional amendment?
The winds of change are blowing in the Supreme Court. Today, it is likely that a majority on the Supreme Court would not favor parental rights – not because they don’t believe in them, but because these rights are not explicitly protected in the text of the United States Constitution. In Troxel v. Granville (2000), the last major parental rights case heard by the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia, a supporter of parental rights, voted to deny parental rights the status of an enforceable constitutional right. Why? Like others, Scalia cited a mounting belief that no right can be protected by the federal courts unless explicitly stated in the Constitution.
