Parents Beware!
By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD
I’ve often opined that it is not necessarily the national government that is the greatest threat to our freedom, Christian or otherwise. All one has to do is to review the activities of our local boards and commissions to see that oft-times it is our local and state authorities who provide the greatest threats. We have seen, for example, how the partisan attorneys general in several states, notably California, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, have used their state offices to investigate legitimate faith-based organizations.
And on the local level there are countless disputes over such things as zoning for churches and other religious facilities, prayer in city-owned elderly housing complexes, and discrimination against religious entities in the use and rental of municipal facilities.
But perhaps nothing cuts to the center of our fundamental rights more than actions that affect children and interfere with parents’ God-given rights to raise their children within the tenets of their own beliefs. Nothing any local housing board or zoning commission can do is worse than what local and state lawmakers can do to little children. And much of the problem lies in our public schools.
Now don’t get me wrong — there are many wonderful public schools and public school teachers out there who are literally doing God’s work educating a generation of knowledgeable, ethical, and responsible young men and women. Unfortunately what comes across my desk — but does not often make it into the headlines — are stories about local school boards’ attempts to mold the students in their care into something other than the children their parents would like to raise.
Maybe it’s the result of taking prayer out of school, or perhaps the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies, or a result of the decline in the American family and the rise in single-parent households. Consider also the rapid pace of today’s busy lifestyle which forces, or — more accurately — encourages exhausted parents to leave to state employees the teaching of fundamental truths, religious or otherwise, to their children; to which too many public officials eagerly pick up the challenge.
But while many complaints can, and have, involved more narrow local issues, such as not allowing kids to say grace before their government meals, the wearing of clothing with a religious message (usually pro-life), or the introduction of non-progressive topics in the school curriculum, nothing has raised the hackles of concerned parents as school policies centering around the issue of transgenderism.
In the last year of the Obama administration, a joint effort by the Departments of Justice and Education, warned local school districts that failing to accommodate transgendered students, especially in the areas of restroom and locker-room usage, could expose them to civil and perhaps criminal penalties, as well as a reduction in federal school aid. That lit a fuse that set in motion a series of falling dominions that is pitting progressive local officials against parents with — children being caught in the middle.
First it was co-ed locker facilities. And when young girls and their parents objected, the girls were told to “get used to it” because the confused boys among you had the right to feel comfortable at school and your demand for privacy had to give way to their “rights.”
Then it was allowing boys to compete in girls athletics which resulted in girls being denied scholarship opportunities because the stronger, faster boys, turned faux girls, were winning all the trophies (see last week’s column).
But the most insidious effort now making the rounds is the attempt to condition your children to the “awesome beauty” of alternate lifestyles and the encouragement for children to look inside themselves to determine if they themselves might possibly be in a body that does not correspond to their sexual identity. And, it goes without mention, this is often intended to stay in the school and the parents are to be kept in the dark.
A couple of recent stories illustrate the problem.
A Wisconsin lawsuit against the Madison School District on behalf of a group of parents alleges:
“This action seeks to vindicate parents’ fundamental and constitutional right to direct the upbringing of their children. The Madison Metropolitan School District has violated this important right by adopting a policy designed to circumvent parental involvement in a pivotal decision affecting their children’s health and future. The policy enables children, of any age, to socially transition to a different gender identity at school without parental notice or consent, requires all teachers to enable this transition, and then prohibits teachers from communicating with parents about this potentially life-altering choice without the child’s consent.
“Even more, the Madison School District directs its teachers and staff to deceive parents by reverting to the child’s birth name and corresponding pronouns whenever the child’s parents are nearby. These policies violate Plaintiffs’ rights as parents.”
The policy, says the parents, “sets forth the Madison School District’s official position on the nature of sex and gender. In a section entitled Gender 101, the Policy explains the district’s view that each person has a ‘gender identity’ distinct from his or her biological sex, which ‘can be the same as or different from their sex assigned at birth.’ According to the Policy, a person’s gender identity can be ‘male, female, a blend of both or neither’ and is determined entirely by ‘a person’s internal sense of self’.”
Attached to the complaint is an affidavit by Dr. Stephen B. Levine, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, who says, “For a child to live radically different identities at home and at school, and to conceal what he or she perceives to be his or her true identity from parents, is psychologically unhealthy in itself, and could readily lead to additional psychological problems. Extended secrecy and a ‘double life’ concealed from the parents is rarely the path to psychological health.
“For this reason at least, schools should not support deceit of parents. . . . Most children are both legally and developmentally incapable of giving informed consent to such a life-altering intervention. And parents, of course, cannot give informed consent if the fact of their child’s wish to assume a transgender identity is concealed from them.”
In Brooklyn, N.Y., the parents of three and four year olds attending PS58 Carroll School were at least notified that a new curriculum will teach — indoctrinate may be a better word — students that they can pick their own gender. The program was introduced, according to the school, to reduce incidents of racism and is based on the 13 Principles of the Movement for Black Lives.
Teacher Rosy Clark wrote to parents, “I am lucky enough to work at this wonderful school where we strive to help our students understand the complex world around them and think critically about how they can participate in improving it. One of the ways I do that in my classroom is by exploring the 13 Principles of the Movement for Black Lives.”
The sixth principle of Movement for Black Lives is “Transgender Affirming,” which, Clark wrote, means: “Everybody has the right to choose their own gender by listening to their own heart and mind. Everyone gets to choose if they are a boy or a girl or both or neither or something else, and no one gets to choose for them.”
That’s happening to three and four year olds! I’ll try to let you know when that lawsuit is filed.
In the meantime, remember these are just two examples of what is happening out there. I can almost guarantee that something similar is happening at a school near you. So, pay attention, watch what is happening at your local school, and become an involved parent or you might, unbeknownst, end up raising a boy named Sue.
(You can reach Mike at: Deacon
Mike@q.com.)