I Hope This Gets To The Supreme Court Quickly

On Monday, Legal Insurrection reported:

A policy that allows school staff to keep a child’s transgender status a secret does not violate a parent’s fundamental rights under the New Hampshire constitution, the state’s Supreme Court has held.

The policy was challenged by a New Hampshire mother who sued the Manchester school district after finding out from a teacher that her minor child (identified as M.C.) had asked school staff and students to be called by a name typically associated with the opposite sex.

According to the lawsuit, when the mother first asked the school to continue using her child’s given name and sex-appropriate pronouns, two teachers wrote to her saying they were willing to comply.

After the teachers stated that they were willing to comply, the mother got an email from the school principal that stated:

Good Morning [Jane Doe]. While I respect and understand your concern, we are held by the District policy as a staff. I have quoted our district policy below, which outlines the fact that we cannot disclose a student’s choice to parents if asked not to. If [M.C.] insists on being called [M.C.’s desired name] as a staff we have to respect that according to the policy or unfortunately we can be held accountable despite parents’ wishes.

The principal was reiterating district policy that, absent the child’s consent, “[s]chool personnel should not disclose information that may reveal a student’s transgender status or gender nonconforming presentation to others.” The school justified the policy as recognizing transgender students’ “rights” to privacy.

The article continues:

But that policy violated her fundamental parental rights, the mother alleged, among other claims, by encouraging school officials to affirmatively conceal her child’s “open and public” gender identity transition in school from her.

After all, if the whole school knows the child is transitioning, why shouldn’t the parent?

Notwithstanding these arguments, the trial court found the policy did not infinge a fundamental parenting right so as to warrant the application of strict scrutiny. And because the policy was rationally related to legitimate governmental interests, it was not unconstitutional, the court held, dismissing her claim.

In a 3-1 decision on appeal, the New Hampshire Supreme Court agreed.

I may take a village to raise a child, but that is a problem if the village is inhabited by villagers trying to take away parents’ rights.

A Vote For President Trump Is A Vote For Parents’ Rights

An American Vice-President doesn’t have a lot of power, but it is assumed that the President and Vice-President are in agreement over basic issues. If that is the case, it would be a good idea for all Americans to look carefully at Governor Walz and the ideas he has espoused during his time as Governor. On Wednesday, Breitbart posted an article spotlighting one policy he endorsed during his governorship.

The article reports:

Gov. Tim Walz signed a law that strips parental protections from out-of-state teenagers and children who claim to want irreversible transgender medical treatment in Minnesota.

He also signed laws that install tampon-dispensing machines in K-12 schools to broadcast the state’s claim that teenage girls can choose their legal sex, and also a law that allows pedophilia to be someday legally protected under existing state anti-discrimination laws.

President Donald Trump’s campaign is eagerly spotlighting Walz’s pro-transgender advocacy, and is describing him as “#TamponTim.”

“As a woman, I think there is no greater threat to our health than leaders who support gender-transition surgeries for young minors, who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools,” campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Tuesday. “Those are radical policies that Tim Walz supports.”

“Kamala Harris’s selection … of Tim Walz as her running mate sends a clear message to America: the Democrat Party is all in on its far-left cultural agenda,” said a statement from the American Principles Project. The project has promised to spend $18 million during the 2024 election to spotlight the Democrats’s pro-transgender priorities.

The article also notes:

“Walz has relentlessly attacked families and pushed gender insanity,” said the APP statement “He has thrown his support behind efforts to eviscerate parental rights, inject gender ideology and other far-left ideas into schools, and open up girls’ sports and private spaces to males.”

Boys in girls sports will destroy scholarship opportunities for high school girls. It will eventually end women’s sports. Where are the feminists who claim to support women? Tim Walz is bad news for women, for parents, and for families.

Do Parents Have Rights?

Under the Biden administration’s policies, there are some real questions as to what the actual rights of parents are.

On Saturday, The Daily Wire posted the following headline:

‘These Are Our Kids, They Belong To All Of Us’: Three Times The Left Trampled On Parental Authority This Past Week Alone

These are the examples cited in the article:

“There are more than 600 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation out there,” Jean-Pierre said at the GLAAD Media Awards. “A few hundred of them are anti-trans communities, and that matters because we have to call that out. And we’ve never seen this level. It’s historic in the number of pieces of legislation.”

Perhaps the response is “historic” because it seems like the Left is attempting to convince the world that child mutilation is good and changing “genders” is real for the first time in history en masse.

Regardless, Jean-Pierre continued, “I’ve met a lot of parents of trans kids in the past couple of months who have told me these devastating stories, whether they’re in Texas or Oklahoma or wherever they are, saying how they now have to seriously consider leaving their state to protect their child. That’s something that we have to call out and continue to be very clear about. These are kids. These are our kids. They belong to all of us.“ (emphasis added)

If these kids belong to all of us, how come no one ever offered to pay for my kids’ braces?

The article continues with two more examples:

Friday afternoon, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona tweeted, “Teachers know what is best for their kids because they are with them every day. We must trust teachers.” (emphasis added)

And finally:

But let’s check in on one teacher, a member of the public servant class that serves as the supposed voice of wisdom as praised by Cardona. Jenna Barbee, a fifth-grade teacher in Florida’s Hernando County School District, had some thoughts on when parental rights start and end this week.

Florida has a parental rights law that now bans education on gender identity and sexual orientation unless it is related to the curriculum. Barbee recently decided to show a film featuring LGBTQ themes. Parents obviously took umbrage with that — arguing it’s not Barbee’s job to teach that sort of stuff.

“What she’s missing and what these parents are missing is that they’re not in the school system,” Barbee said in response. “These conversations, these doors that she’s talking about, telling me that I’m stripping her rights as a parent — those rights are gone when your child is in the public school system because there are students talking about these things.”

Well, no parental rights end just because their children step into a public school.

Please take your children out of public school–right now it’s not a good place!

Fighting The Rights Of Parents

On Wednesday, Townhall reported the following:

Every single Democrat in the Virginia House of Representatives voted against a bill this week that would make it illegal for teachers in the state to conceal a student’s transgender “gender identity” from their parents.

Under Virginia House Bill 2432, also known as “Sage’s Law,” teachers would be required to inform parents if a student requests to move forward with “social transitions” at school, such as going by preferred pronouns and a chosen name. The legislation would also require the school to obtain at least one parent’s permission before implementing anything concerning the child’s “gender incongruence” at school, including counseling, Fox News reported. In addition, the bill clarifies that “child abuse” does not include “misgendering.” The bill passed on Tuesday with one Republican and all 47 Democrats voting against it.

As I have previously stated–gender dysphoria is a mental disease. It should be treated–not encouraged. Parents need to know if their child is suffering from a mental disease. The school has no right to keep that information from them.

The bill now moves on to the Virginia Senate.

What Parents’ Rights?

On Sunday, Just the News posted an article about a law Governor Newsom of California signed on Thursday.

The article reports:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Thursday allowing California to take “temporary emergency jurisdiction” over a child that traveled to the state for transgender drugs or operations, stripping parents of their authority over their kids.

“States across the country are passing laws to demonize the transgender community, especially transgender youth and their parents,” Newsom wrote to the California State Senate upon signing the bill, adding that “82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves, and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth. This is unacceptable – we must fight for our youth and their parents.”

The law has been a major source of controversy. Parental rights groups around the country raised the alarm about then-bill SB 107, arguing it violates the Constitution by wrongly claiming jurisdiction over families from other states.

This is totally insane. The statistics the Governor cites regarding suicide are related to the mental problems these children are having–thinking they are trans and wanted to surgically altar their bodies is part of mental illness. Children who believe they are trans should be strongly encouraged to hold off on any permanent body changes until they are over 25. Science tells us that their brains are not developed enough to make that decision before the age of 25.

The article concludes:

“SB 107 makes California akin to the Pied Piper, enticing minor children nationwide to leave their families and run away in pursuit of harmful drugs and sterilizing surgeries, all of which cause irreversible harm to the minds, bodies, and family relationships of America’s precious children,” the letter said. “According to the American College of Pediatricians, 80 to 95 percent of children who experience gender confusion will ultimately embrace their biological sex if they are not encouraged to pursue gender identity treatments. Children experiencing gender confusion need the love, support, and guidance of their parents.”

Newsom, though, signed the legislation, which passed along party lines and will take effect at the beginning of the year.

“With the signing of this bill, California will ensure these kids and their families can seek and obtain the medical and mental health care they need,” Newsom said.

This is not the medical and mental health care they need! First of all, children who believe they are trans need to be taken off of social media where it is ‘cool’ to be trans. Then, objective mental health professionals need to spend time with them helping them sort out the reasons they are feeling this way. At one point, a therapist who was dealing with a young boy who wanted to be a girl learned that the boy had a younger sister who was handicapped and the boy simply wanted his parents to pay as much attention to him as they did to his sister. It would have been a horrible mistake to encourage that child to undergo medical procedures that would forever alter his life.

How To End The Tyranny Of The Woke In Our Schools

Since the U.S. Department of Education was created, academic scores in America have gone down. Somehow our children and grandchildren are not learning reading, writing, and arithmetic any more. It’s more important to have them use the right pronoun than for them to know what a pronoun is. On Sunday, The Western Journal posted an article that might give us a clue to solving this problem. The article tells the story of a woke Illinois middle school teacher talking in a video about lying to parents about their children.

The article reports:

In her self-congratulatory video, the smug leftist went on and on about how she purposefully excludes parents from being informed when students claim to be “transgender.”

Constantly grinning from ear to ear, the teacher told her social media audience, “I respect their name and their pronouns, and I use them in class, but because their parents don’t know — I even say this to the students — I say, ‘I’m gonna have to use your legal name and pronouns when addressing your parents, okay?’ And this usually, again, strengthens the bond, the trust bond between me and the kid.”

Before we go on, note that last bit about “strengthening the bond” between her and the kids. This is evidence that she is purposefully driving a wedge between parents and kids and attempting to eliminate parental influence in education.

The article includes a possible solution to teachers that are doing this in the classroom:

At the end of her video, though, this woke teacher did say something that just might give sane people some hope.

The teacher glumly noted that one of her leaders said, “Hey, there might be a law that comes down that says eventually you could get sued for doing that.”

And on a note that might make the parents of her students cheer with delight, the teacher concluded saying that if such a law is ever passed, “Well, that will be the day that I exit teaching.”

The sooner the better, I’d say.

Still, this is the perfect path toward eliminating this garbage. Sue them. Sue them. And sue them again until this dangerous behavior by woke teachers ends, and teachers like this one begin to “exit teaching.”

Once precedents are set that affirm teachers have no right to eliminate parents from education, the better it will be for the nation’s children who will finally be able to get back to learning instead of being subjected to left-wing indoctrination.

This teacher did reveal the rot infesting our public schools. But she also helped us see a way toward surgically removing it.

Parents need to reclaim their rights as parents.

A Long Overdue Idea

There have been rumblings about what goes on in Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Florida for years. I had a friend tell me once that when she took her children there, she took pictures of what they were wearing and specifically of their shoes because she feared kidnapping. That seems a little extreme, but she was genuinely concerned.

On Saturday, PJ Media posted an article about changes that may be coming to Disney in Florida.

The article reports:

On Friday, my PJ Media colleague Rick Moran wrote that DeSantis and other GOP legislators in the Sunshine State have mused about repealing the legislation that gave Disney its own governmental authority over the Walt Disney Word property over 50 years ago.

I predicted that this could be a nuclear option for DeSantis last month when I wrote, “If Disney did criticize Florida too harshly, the state could play hardball and threaten to revoke the legislation that created the company’s special quasi-governmental designation, the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which allows the company to operate with less interference from the state and county governments.”

Many of you have wondered what exactly that means, but first, let me give you a little background into Disney’s special governing authority, which is called the Reedy Creek Improvement District.

I’ve written tons about Disney history here at PJ Media and in my book Neon Crosses (which you really should buy). In Neon Crosses, I explained the concept behind the creation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District.

“Before Walt died, the legal team discovered a somewhat obscure Florida law that allowed for the creation of special improvement districts with a different form of governance than a traditional municipality. Bob Foster convinced Walt that petitioning the state legislature to allow Disney to govern its own property under that law was the way to go. An improvement district would grant the company exemptions from local building codes and would allow Disney to create its own first response and telecommunications services.”

Creating the Reedy Creek Improvement District allowed Disney to develop state-of-the-art communications systems that no one else had ever tried, implement innovative environmental control measures, and build unique buildings all without local government interference.

With recent attacks by Disney executives on the Florida law that reaffirms parents’ rights and prevents exposing young children to sexual issues beyond their understanding, Disney has put its special status in jeopardy.

The article notes:

Another thing Disney could lose is immense tax breaks that could cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars, although DeSantis has hinted that he’s inclined to leave those alone.

“DeSantis said Friday those tax benefits likely aren’t at any risk of going away, however, claiming those tax breaks are ones “that any business would be eligible for” and there are “no special tax breaks that are Disney-specific that we would contemplate’ taking away,” Durkee writes.

Disney still sees opposing the Parental Rights in Education law as a matter of “right and wrong,” as former CEO Bob Iger called it.

…But, as National Review‘s Jim Geraghty points out, “This is a law, again, that forbids teaching sexual topics such as “gender identity” to children between the ages of four and nine. For all their blathering, not a single Disney executive has attempted to explain what precisely is so ‘harmful’ and ‘immoral” about that.”

DeSantis and Florida’s Republicans are certain about the right and wrong of protecting the state’s children from sexualization in schools against parents’ permission. They’re willing to do everything they can to combat Disney’s wokeness, and they have some powerful tools they can use if they need to. But will it come down to those nuclear options?

Some recent comments by Disney executives in charge of Disney entertainment might cause parents to rethink any support they might have had for Disney and its products.

What Are We Doing To Our Children?

On Friday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about a twelve-year-old girl in Florida who tried to commit suicide twice. Suicide among teenagers is a problem that has been exacerbated by the coronavirus lockdowns, but the problems that drove this child to try to take her life had nothing to do with the coronavirus or the lockdowns.

The article reports:

The parents of a 12-year-old Florida girl who tried to hang herself twice at her school after ‘months of secret meetings about her gender identity’ are slamming the district staff who allegedly went behind their backs and ‘created a double life’ for their daughter.

Wendell Perez, and his wife Maria Perez, allege the staff at at Paterson Elementary School – where their daughter was enrolled – violated their parental rights by failing to inform them of the alleged gender identity crisis and developing a plan to help her address it without their consent. 

‘We’re talking about the staff from school this information and developing a plan of several sessions with my daughter, for months, talking about issues that are related and that the parents need to be involved,’ Wendell Perez told DailyMail.com on Thursday. ‘They basically created a double life for my daughter.’

…The complaint alleges that school counselor Destiney Washington held secret weekly meetings with Wendell Perez’s daughter about her alleged ‘gender identity crisis’ but neglected to alert her parents. It also claims school leaders encouraged other students and staff to refer to the young girl as a boy and even gave her a new name. 

It remains unclear why the 12-year-old was seeing the counselor or how the gender identity meetings come of fruition. 

The article concludes:

There is currently active legislation in the state of Florida, addressing concerns similar to that of the Perez family.

House Bill 1557, also known as the Parental Rights in Education bill, would require school boards to notify parents about specific information regarding a child’s emotional, physical and mental well-being. It would also limit classroom conversation on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Critics, calling it the Don’t Say Gay bill, claim it also encourages parents to sue schools or teachers that engage in discussions about these topics with students. 

‘We call it the ‘don’t say gay’ bill because it will essentially erase conversations in our classrooms about LGBTQ students, families, and history,’ State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith told the TV station.

‘Many LGBTQ people don’t have supportive homes. They don’t have supportive parents. Oftentimes their teachers and their school environment is the only form of support they have and we cannot take that away.’

Boyles is reportedly a proponent of the bill, which is currently in the House Judiciary Committee.

There is a trend in some of our schools now to try to usurp the rights of parents. Parents have the right to raise their children–to know what is happening in sensitive areas such as gender confusion. The teachers and administrators involved in this need to be charged with child abuse and never allowed to work with children again.

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