March 28, 2015

As the public is only just waking up to the dramatic and militant drive to redefine the meaning of male and female, more states are faced with protecting the physical privacy and safety of children. Minnesota, Kentucky, Missouri, Nevada, Texas, and Florida are addressing the same concerns. Other states, like Hawaii, are contending with the extreme sexuality training in the school curriculum. If you followed Minnesota’s 2014 Bullying Bill battle, you’re familiar with books like the offensive It’s Perfectly Normal that are showing up in schools just about everywhere.

In Ontario, Canada a parent writes about the dangerous and misleading information in their school curricula:

We teach our kids to respect every individual’s dignity and be nice to others. School can teach the same thing, but trying to mislead young and innocent kids is not acceptable…The new curriculum [sic] teach children about homosexuality and same sex in Grade 3. If you disagree with this policy, the government brands you as homophobic. In Grade 6, you will be taught how to masturbate and in Grade 7, you will learn all about oral and anal sex…The values of self-control, morals and marriage are not considered in this program and the emotional consequences of loveless sex, with no commitment, are not addressed…The new curriculum has a strong undertone of sex as a purely recreational activity whose purpose is pleasure, apart from love or marriage. In fact, the words love and marriage never appear once on the sex-education section of the curriculum.

In many places, CPLAction’s work is being picked up and used by others. We are increasingly a “go to” organization for research and help in organizing. Your actions here are having an impact nationwide! We are all part of something very large and very deep. We will not allow our children, no matter what their personal gender issues are, to be used as pawns by people with extreme social agendas.

FAQs

Where is HF 1546 right now, the Student Physical Privacy Act?HF 1546 has not been given a hearing in the Minnesota House Education Committee, (Rep. Sondra Erickson (R-Princeton), Chair). While the deadline for passing out of a committee was March 20th, there are numerous ways Speaker Kurt Daudt (R-Princeton) can get a floor vote. As of today, 28 House Members have signed on as authors. We especially thank Rep. Tim Miller as Chief Author of the bill. He and others have worked tirelessly to move this through the process.

What about the Senate version, SF 1543?On Thursday, March 19th, the Senate author of SF 1543, Sen. Dave Brown (R-Becker), made a motion that his bill be withdrawn from the Senate Education Committee, where it is stalled, and brought to the floor of the Senate for a vote. His motion failed. The roll call vote is here. While all Republicans voted to bring the bill forward for a vote, with the exception of Sen. Lyle Koenen (D-Clara City), all Democrats voted to leave the Student Physical Privacy Act bottled up in committee.

Senator Sean Nienow (R-Cambridge) also introduced SF 1543 as an amendment to another bill in the Senate Education Committee. That, too, was defeated. A big thank you to Senators Brown and Nienow.

What are they saying?

Rep. Paul Marquart (D-Dilworth), in a recent interview, said that the legislature has no business overseeing the Minnesota State High School League’s action to force local schools to have boys who think they are girls compete as girls and be treated as girls. He compared the Student Physical Privacy Act to the legislature deciding the length of basketball games. He went on to say, “I haven’t heard from any of my local districts on this issue and I won’t support this bill,”

CPLAction has a petition online. If you are from Rep. Marquart’s district (04B), print off the petition and get signatures in your area. Send them back to us to the address listed on the petition. And make a call or email him. Pay him a visit over Easter break. He needs to hear from you!

Senator Gary Dahms (R-Redwood Falls), on the other hand, was quick to point out the difference between the length of basketball games and children’s physical safety. “I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails,” he said. He made it clear that the public has registered great opposition to the mixing of boys and girls in bathrooms, showers and locker rooms. Are the voters in Moorhead and Detroit Lakes, Rep. Marquart’s district, so much more supportive of the MSHSL decision than voters in Sen. Dahm’s Redwood Falls and New Ulm district? We doubt it.

Rep. Tim Miller pointed out, “There’s a bit of hypocrisy, because last year we passed a bullying law, which basically said to schools, even though you currently have bullying policies, we believe there’s a state interest in putting control and order in our schools’ policies. And now, this year, suddenly it’s hands off the schools.” Sen. Dibble was Chief Author of the 2014 Bullying Bill.

Senator Dibble (D-Minneapolis) stated that SF 1543 defines who boys and girls are “without any scientific evidence.” It is astonishing that a state Senator would ignore DNA and anatomy as scientific.

Senator Dibble also does great harm and injustice to young people when he declares, as he did in the interview, that supporters of this legislation consider transgender students to be “less worthy and they are something negative.” The Senator needs to stop sowing false thoughts of being hated and feared into the hearts of already troubled, precious children. Nothing in SF 1543 disrespects any student. Quite the opposite. All children matter! Every one of them. No one benefits from being dishonest with children by telling them that boys who think they are girls are “real” girls and that everyone should be forced to treat them in every way as if they are girls. Legislators who support and are fighting for HF 1546 and SF 1543 are the ones who have demonstrated character and compassion by bravely stepping forward to protect all children.

What’s next? This issue is not going away. It can still make its way through the House with proper leadership. We continue to ask you to urge your legislators to sign on as authors, if they have not already, so that they may become part of the solution.

The current authors are listed below. They deserve our thanks:

Miller; Lucero; Lohmer; Scott; Whelan; Dean,M.;Drazkowski; Backer;
Heintzeman; Newberger; Rarick; Hancock; Runbeck; Daniels; Pugh;
Green; Gruenhagen; Fabian; Uglem; Barrett; Lueck; Dettmer; Nash;
Vogel; O’Neill; Peppin; Smith; McDonald

The legislature is on Easter break until April 7th. Take time with your loved ones.