A couple of "family values" bills Rep. Mike Lange, R-Billings, designed to help parents make sure their children are brought up the way mom and dad want them to be brought up, have run into some puzzled opposition.

"Puzzled" because opponents don't see much of a problem in the first place.

One of the measures, House Bill 217, would direct the state to ensure a child placed in temporary care is raised in accordance with his parents' wishes about religious and educational matters. It was opposed by foster care advocates who said it would place too much pressure on caregivers and be a costly strain on the state Child and Family Services Division.

House Bill 312 would insert language into the constitution ensuring parents the right "to control and direct their (children's) education, religious training, social training and contacts, and general upbringing." It worried educators who were concerned that the language could open a large can of worms, throwing education into chaos.

It is true that putting high-minded statements about how things ought to be into a constitution can have far-reaching consequences. Anyone who has watched the state Supreme Court struggle with ramifications of Montana's 1972 constitution over the past few decades can understand the problem.

But you don't have to a scholar of constitutional law to imagine some unintended consequences of Lange's bills. For instance, vegetarians naturally wouldn't want their children to be brought up eating meat, and atheists obviously wouldn't want their children to suffer any kind of religious indoctrination. Parents into heavy metal certainly wouldn't want their kids listening to Pat Boone.

For that matter, if you were a member of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., you'd surely want you child's upbringing to include picketing at soldiers' funerals.

And why shouldn't parents have a God-like power over their children's lives? Everybody knows how wise people have to be in order to make a baby.