The Texas Legislature is in session, as of last week. So I’m
busy putting together a list of bills to follow. There’s a lot left to do,
although I do have a few items so far under the categories of the legislative
priorities we developed at the state convention last June.
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| Texas State Capitol |
Usually we follow, and do citizen lobbying for, bills we
want to have pass. Most of the time we don’t spend a lot of time on things we’re
against. We’ve had Republican leadership, so that means a Democrat agenda doesn’t
make a lot of headway.
This year we have a better speaker—which means we have
reason to hope more conservative legislation will get on the calendar for a
vote. But the minority party is slightly larger than last session. So there’s
reason to be cautious.
As I’ve been going through the bills that have been filed, I
thought it might be instructive to go over a few things we don’t want to see
happen. Like I said, I don’t think these things have much of a chance. But
maybe you should be aware of what some legislators think would be “progress”
for Texas.
The state Senate has a bill, SB 150, attempting to codify in Texas law a
right to abortion. Meanwhile a joint resolution, SJR 3, was filed attempting to guarantee the right to life of unborn children (to the
extent authorized under federal constitutional law). That’s the kind of
contrast we have between the two parties. Irreconcilable differences.
There’s a bill in the House, HB 513, attempting to set up a pilot program for distributing “long-acting reversible contraceptives”
in public schools. I consulted Wikipedia to know what such contraceptives entailed:
“Long-acting reversible contraceptives are methods of birth control that
provide effective contraception for an extended period without requiring user
action. They include injections, intrauterine devices and subdermal
contraceptive implants.” So, either hormones by injection or subdermal implant,
or a device requiring minor surgery—provided by a school. Why should a school
be involved in this medical business in the first place? The bill says,
the pilot program may not distribute or provide for the
distribution of a long-acting reversible contraceptive to a student who is
under 18 years of age unless the school district obtains consent from the
parent of or person standing in parental relation to the student.
Which is better than no parental approval for minors. Who is a “person standing in parental relation to the student”? It’s a legal term that would disqualify a parent whose custody rights have been
discontinued. But it does not necessarily mean that both parents in divorce or separation must
be informed.
In the category of Religious Freedom come several things
related to privacy versus the LGBT agenda, which uses coercion. In the name of
preventing housing discrimination, HB 188, forces landlords or facilities
operators to allow transgenders or opposite sex individuals, disregarding the
privacy rights of other individuals. It makes sexual orientation and gender
identity or expression protected in the same way as race, color, religion, sex,
familial status, or national origin.
HB 244, and also HB 254 (they look the same to me), creates a
criminal offense for discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender
identity or expression in hiring practices by public, private, or religious
entities. Again, this law adds “sexual orientation and gender identity or
expression” to the list of protections from discrimination, which are race,
color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin. The additional harm
of this legislation is that it allows prosecution for perceived discrimination or perceived possibility of future discrimination—actions that haven’t happened.
A defendant is forced to defend themselves based on some person’s guess that
they might be about to do something perceived as discrimination. Think Minority Report—prosecution before the
crime.
Another one, HB 517, labels it “unprofessional conduct” for health providers to notice, recognize,
or treat according to biological sex definitions that, regardless of actual
science, run counter to the current LGBT agenda.
Here’s the definition of “gender identity or expression”:
A person’s having or being perceived as having a
gender-related identity, appearance, expression, or behavior, whether or not
that identity, appearance, expression, or behavior is different from that
commonly associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.
So, healthcare professionals, who presumably studied a lot
of biological science to qualify for their professions, must disregard actual
biology and notice—and then go along with—a person’s self-perception. There’s a
huge science-denial problem there.
Also, people aren’t assigned
sex a birth. Every cell in the baby’s body shows the individual’s sex with the
presence or absence of a Y chromosome, from conception onward. There are some rare
exceptions, with individuals who have a chromosomal anomaly, something extra, such
as vestigial organs of the opposite sex; almost all these cases are clearly one
sex or the other, so doctors, looking at the obvious evidence, “assign” the sex
based on the physical evidence. Doctors making random decisions, or assigning
incorrectly in these rare cases, isn’t a thing. And such cases certainly give
no support to the transgender movement’s claims against reality.
Who are the healthcare providers to be prosecuted and disciplined
for recognizing reality as opposed to a person’s anti-reality perceptions?
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A licensed behavior analyst
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A licensed chemical dependency counselor
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A licensed professional counselor
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A licensed marriage and family therapist
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A licensed nurse
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A licensed physician
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A licensed psychologist
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A licensed sex offender treatment provider
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A licensed social worker
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A special officer for offenders with mental
impairments
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Another person licensed by the state to provide
professional therapy or counseling services
Specifically, the proponents of this law are lashing out
against any treatment—whether desired by the patient or not—that could dissuade
the patient from the sexual “transition” or sexual orientation that defies
their biology.
This bill pertains specifically to the treatment of
children, who, according to data, are highly likely to overcome gender
dysphoria by adulthood if left untreated. But anyone who might know the
research, be aware of the high likelihood of changes in the belief of people
with gender dysphoria, the higher incidence of depression and suicide risk
following transition, the high probability of regret and desire to de-transition
(as in this story)—must not share that data, mention it,
whisper under breath, hint at in professional or private settings. And not just
mental health counselors, but also nurses and social workers. The law’s
coercive intrusion appears totalitarian.
When we say our freedoms are at risk whenever the
legislature is in session, this is evidence. So far we still have a majority in
the state. But we’ve only had that since about the turn of the century. Prior
to that Texas was a Democrat stronghold going back to its founding. We don’t
know if the “redness” we have now is just temporary.
Here in Harris County, we’ve been half-and-half for quite a
while, but mostly able to get more conservative voters out than the opposition.
But the last two county-wide elections, we’ve lost. And now we have an
inexperienced 27-year-old in her first job out of college as the county’s top
executive, and a new county clerk who wants to spend a couple billion dollars
to throw out the tried and true free and fair election practices, prevent
precinct chairs—and thereby anyone from a party the clerk doesn’t want to hire—from
running polling places, and return to the rampant fraud of the paper ballots
that used to work so well for lovers of voter fraud.
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| at the Texas State Capitol |
We have a lot of recovery to do in the county. And a lot of
vigilance to do in the state.
Other bills to prevent include registering prisoners to
vote, voter registration at the polling place, eliminating photo ID for voting.
Plus there are minimum wage laws (outlawing entry-level pay), elimination of
capital punishment, and preventing assistance to immigration officers. In other
words, there’s a lot of mischief that could be done, if we don’t pay attention.
Prevention is better than repair. And there’s already plenty
to repair, if we want freedom, prosperity, and civilization.
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