More States Groom Anti-Grooming Bills
After Florida's successful passage last month of the Parental Rights in Education law banning classroom instruction and discussions of sexual issues in K-3 public school classrooms, more states are readying bills of their own.
Despite the outcry from the pro-gender identity indoctrination crowd, including false depictions of what's in the law (it does not include the word "gay" for example), states are listening to parents and forging ahead with similar legislation.
States considering such bills include Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee. According to The Western Journal, Texas Governor Greg Abbott pledges to "make legislation similar to Florida's law a top priority during the state's next legislative session."
Louisiana's proposal takes the Florida law a step further. Introduced by state Rep. Dodie Horton (R-Haughton), H.B. 837 reads in part:
- No teacher, school employee, or other presenter shall cover the topics of sexual orientation or gender identity in any classroom discussion or instruction in kindergarten through grade eight.
- No teacher, school employee, or other presenter shall discuss his own sexual orientation or gender identity with students in kindergarten through grade twelve.
Predictably under attack by the left, Rep. Horton told KSLA Channel 12 News that her bill "has nothing to do with restricting the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. There's no need for any child to ever know the private life of their educator," she explained. "It's not prejudiced [toward] one group or another; it just doesn't discuss it at all."
Opponents whine that Florida's law and the many similar bills under consideration in other states constitute "an overt form of structural transphobia and homophobia," that fails to provide "a safe and supportive environment for transgender, nonbinary, queer, gay, and lesbian youths and teachers to thrive." Supporters wonder how these issues could become problematic if they are not discussed in the elementary grades, but rightfully kept private between children and their parents, which is exactly what the left does not want.
Outing Planned Parenthood
Amid all the hoopla and lawsuits already being filed in opposition to Florida's commonsense parental rights law lurks the influence of Planned Parenthood (PP). Evidently vigilant for new revenue stream opportunities, the abortion giant has become a provider of transgender hormone therapy.
The December 2021 issue of Education Reporter referenced Planned Parenthood's business model which, as noted by Texas parent activist Missie Carra, has been revised "to include the very lucrative gender modification therapies and treatments." Carra speculated whether this change might "potentially explain the assertive push for LGBTQ acceptance and inclusion in public schools."
Carra's instincts appear to have been correct. LifeNews.com reported on April 8 that conservative talk show host Liz Wheeler "exposed Planned Parenthood as the group behind the false attacks" on Florida's parental rights law. Wheeler traced the origin of the "Don't Say Gay" label to a March 2020 PP blog post that appeared on the organization's website, using "the 'Don't Say Gay' phrase to attack a similar Missouri parental rights bill."
The blog post read:
- During the 2020 legislative session, Missouri introduced a 'Don't Say Gay Bill' (House Bill 1565 and Senate Bill 786) that takes this a step further. It requires schools to notify the parents before a teacher can mention someone's gender and/or sexual identity, and to notify them before they can talk about different genders, identities, and sexual orientation.
Wheeler says that, as far as she can tell, "Planned Parenthood is the group that created and popularized the misleading talking point.
"It's a brilliant marketing tactic used by the left to try to trick Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, into opposing this bill... It wasn't a coincidence or a phrase coined by CNN. It wasn't something that someone happened to say and it caught fire on Twitter. No, it was a deliberate effort by an organization who really really needed this bill not to become law in order to protect their own profits."
Wheeler quotes PP as boasting that it is "the largest provider of [comprehensive] sex education... reaching 1.2 million people each year, including students in elementary, middle, and high schools." She adds that PP wants "to train young people to engage in promiscuous sex to feed their abortion pipeline.
"But the other, newer part of this," Wheeler continues, "the very insidious part, is that Planned Parenthood has become over the past couple of years one of the largest distributors of transgender hormone therapy for young people." She describes that PP promotes "gender affirming hormone therapy" on all of its regional web pages, including the prescription of hormones on a patient's first visit. They also offer to provide "surgical support letters for gender affirmation surgery."
PP's sources of revenue
Wheeler says all this explains why PP coined the "Don't Say Gay" phrase. "Planned Parenthood profits from teaching children comprehensive sex education in schools, and then, if it leads to promiscuous sex and a young woman needs an abortion, they profit from that. If they teach radical gender theory under the guise of sex education and it leads to the child developing a mental illness and saying, 'oh, I'm transgender and I want hormones,' Planned Parenthood profits from that too."
Viewed through this lens, the pro-child, pro-parent Florida law and others like it pose an existential threat to a growing part of PP's business.
Wheeler concludes: "You now see this phrase, 'Don't Say Gay,' in a whole new light. You see this phrase as an agenda. You see this phrase as blood money, as part of the grooming process.
It's fascinating to uncover these money trails and the hidden agendas behind the catch phrases."
Incidentally, Planned Parenthood also rakes in nearly $620 million from U.S taxpayers each year.
Want to be notified of new Education Reporter content?
Your information will NOT be sold or shared and will ONLY be used to notify you of new content.
Click Here
Return to Home Page