Dear Neighbor,
On a strict, party-line vote, House Democrats early this morning approved a bill which makes Minnesota a gender-affirming care for youth sanctuary state.
Democrats who voted in favor of this bill (H.F. 146) may describe this as “affirming” kids, but this bill is not about saving lives. This bill, if it were to become law, would destroy them.
When you’re a parent, it goes without saying you love your children. A lot of us even say that we would “do anything” for our kids, a statement that comes with a rather large grain of salt. If my kid comes to me and says, “Dad, I want to eat cookies all day,” or “Dad, I want to go jump off a 10-story building like Superman,” I’m not going to give him that, even though he’s asking for it.
Saying I would do anything for my child doesn’t mean I’m going to just follow their whims, wherever they may lead. Instead, I’m going to do what I know to be in their best interest, that I’m going to love them by affirming when they’re right and intervening when they’re wrong. That really is the parental mission, where we have a responsibility, an honor and a duty to be the discerning agents children are incapable of being.
There isn’t a single one of us who had the first clue about what we were, who we are, what our values are, or how to navigate the world when we were 10 years old. I personally have a son who soon will be that age. He’s smart, has a lot of ideas and is blessed with many other good characteristics, but I’m not taking his advice on anything and am not looking to him to figure out life’s big questions. He’s looking to me to figure out life’s big questions – and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
That’s not to say that we don’t learn things from our children, or that we shouldn’t listen or affirm positive, healthy things. Of course, we should. However, that doesn’t mean agreeing with something that’s wrong or affirming something that’s false, and it certainly doesn’t mean taking action based upon that falsehood to physically, psychologically, and spiritually harm them.
That is what this bill allows, and it doesn’t just allow you to do it as a parent. It allows any adult to do it, regardless of how the parent feels, which is a stunning – and I would like to think, unprecedented – move for Minnesota. We already had a Democrat bill earlier this week that said to the other states in the union, your laws don’t apply here. Your laws basically don’t exist. We are reneging on the full faith and credit clause in the U.S. Constitution.
Now we have another proposal that does the exact same thing, only worse in terms of its execution. In this bill, Democrats are saying that if you’re a parent in another state, we’re going to cancel your rights. If your kid is transported to our state, it’s basically like they’ve been taken to another country. Your rights don’t exist here in our jurisdiction, and we are not going to recognize your status as that child’s parent.
That’s what this bill says and, as inconceivable as it may be, it gets even worse: Not only does this bill cancel the parental rights of every parent – every citizen of the United States who has kids that doesn’t live in the state of Minnesota – it does so for the purpose of poisoning and mutilating them in the name of a lie.
If you are a person who cares about parental stewardship, cherishes the integrity of the relationship between parent and child, and honors a child’s right to remain unpoisoned, unmutilated, uncarved up, uncrippled and unsterilized, then this bill is going to properly outrage you.
And, if people are outraged, by God, that’s a good sign there’s still some humanity left in our society, with some sanity, decency, actual love and care for children and respect for families that still exists. Because the horrors that are going to occur as a result of this bill – the mockery that is going to be made of people’s lives as a result of this bill – is lifelong.
Again, this bill is not saving lives. This bill is about destroying them and I vehemently oppose it.
Sincerely,
Walter