TX DPS Discriminates Against Home Schoolers, Vaccine Choice

 TX DPS Discriminates Against Home Schoolers, Vaccine Choice

By

James Scott Trimm

You wouldn't think this would happen in a conservative State like Texas, we have the best home schooling laws in the Country and we have the right to choose not to vaccinate our children.  But one State agency discriminates openly against both groups.

I have been trying for literally months to get a TX ID for my teenage daughter who has recently become a legal adult.  In order to get her ID we needed to get her lost Social Security card replaced.  That in itself took months, but was finally accomplished.

Today we went to DPS to get her ID.  Her Birth Certificate and Social Security Card were not enough.  The State has a list of other things that can be used to support the other documents. 

 Most of the items on the list are not things a teenage girl still in High School would have (no car registered in her name etc.)  The items on the list that are traditionally used to "support" the other documents for teenagers are "School records" or "immunization records". 

Of course those who exercise their right to vaccine choice in Texas do not have immunization records.  But that leaves "school records" and since home schools in Texas are legally private schools, we should be able to just bring some record of her homeschooling up to DPS and that should be accepted like any other legal school records.... right?  Wrong!  That requirement has a footnote saying "Document must be issued by an institution, entity or government agency from a US State, a US territory, the District of Columbia or a Canadian Province." 

DPS carefully and openly discriminates against Texas home schoolers!

It appears that after all of these months of effort, because we don't vaccinate and we home school, we will have to send off a voters registration for her in the mail (remember she just turned 18) and wait for it come in the mail before she can get an ID that we could have gotten today if we vaccinated or did not homeschool!  If she was not yet 18 she would not be able to get a voters registration to get a legal ID in Texas!

It is also strange that one can get a voters registration without showing ID and then use it as a "supporting document"  to get a Texas ID that then is used to vote.  While we need to have a voter ID law in Texas, that makes no sense.  Moreover we need to make it easier not harder to US citizens to get a Texas ID and not discriminate against those who practice vaccine choice and homeshool in Texas!

If you exercise vaccine choice and homeschool in Texas, good luck getting a Texas ID for your teenagers!