This week's edition of The 3, highlighting three stories of relevance to the Christian communities, includes a federal court victory for laws in two states that prevent minors from receiving treatments and surgeries that claim to help them change their "gender." Plus, the transgender agenda is alive and well in California after the governor signed multiple bills. Also, the federal agency responsible for protecting employees has sued two companies who did not allow religious exemptions for employees who declined to receive COVID shots on the basis of conscience.
"Medical mutilation" bills allowed to take effect in KY, TN
Some incorrectly call it "gender-affirming care," another example of using vocabulary to misrepresent an agenda. This type of so-called "care" involves treatments and surgeries that promise a change of gender - a biological answer to a psychological issue. I have even become aware of the phrase, "medical mutilation."
And, the states of Kentucky and Tennessee have passed laws that would prevent performing these treatments and procedures on minors. According to the Alliance Defending Freedom website, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit issued a "decision Thursday in L.W. v. Skrmetti to uphold Tennessee and Kentucky state laws that protect children from harmful and unnecessary medical procedures..."
ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch stated in response: "Tennessee and Kentucky are right to protect minors from harmful, irreversible, and experimental medical procedures that can permanently alter children’s bodies without any proven long-term benefit." He added, "...the court concluded, ‘no one disputes that these treatments carry risks or that the evidence supporting their use is far from conclusive.’"Bursch continued:
“Activist groups and professionals with large financial interests continue to push harmful puberty-blockers, potentially sterilizing cross-sex hormones, and irreversible genital-mutilation surgeries on children too young to understand the long-term implications for their lives. The 6th Circuit rightly agreed that Tennessee and Kentucky are free to implement laws that protect vulnerable children and give them time to flourish..."
This court victory comes just a few weeks after the 11th Circuit allowed Alabama's Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, or VCAP law to take effect while the court action progresses, likely to resume next spring. ADF is assisting Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall in its defense of the law.
California parents face onslaught of transgender-supportive bills
Last week, it was announced that California Governor Gavin Newsom had inexplicably vetoed a pro-transgender bill that would, according to an article at The Washington Stand, "require family courts to consider parental stances on 'gender affirmation' in custody disputes." The article says:
When Newsom vetoed the bill late Friday night, however, he didn’t condemn the legislation as radical. Instead, he applauded “the passion and values” behind the bill, and merely faulted the bill as an “attempt to dictate — in prescriptive terms that single out one characteristic — legal standards for the judicial branch to apply.”
But, as the article notes, "in the days after he vetoed AB 957, Newsom signed a raft of other bills advancing transgender ideology at the expense of parental rights." It states that the governor...
...signed nine other bills aimed at “supporting LGBTQ+ Californians.” The governor said signing those bills into law “will help protect vulnerable youth, promote acceptance, and create more supportive environments in our schools and communities.”
Those bills “promote acceptance” by mandating adherence to the ideology that a child’s “gender identity” overrides his or her biological sex. One measure would train teachers to profile parents, watching out for non-“affirming” guardians who allegedly pose a danger to their own children.
The article says:
These new laws do not directly target parental rights, but they do further entrench the transgender ideology behind Newsom’s worst assaults on the right of moms and dads to make health decisions for their own children.
Under the measures that Newsom signed into law, California teachers will learn to profile non-“affirming” parents, launch an ideological transformation of schools that likely will demonize such parents as instruments of “bullying and harassment,” ban such parents from raising kids in the foster system, and prevent such parents from pressuring their school boards to remove sexually explicit books from school libraries.
Under Title VII, the agency contends, according to Liberty Counsel, "in these cases, that the companies could have exempted their employees without suffering any 'undue hardship.'” The Christian law organization notes that:...the agency sued two companies under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act claiming that they violated federal law by refusing to accommodate the sincerely held religious beliefs of employees and not letting them opt out of their shot mandates.
The lawsuits involve Arkansas-based Hank’s Furniture, a retail home furniture store with locations across four states, and Cleveland-based health care provider United Health Services, Inc., (United). Each company denied one of their employees a religious exemption and later fired them for not complying with the company’s shot mandate.
The timing of the agency’s lawsuits follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent 9-0 decision in Groff v. Dejoy made last June. The High Court overturned a previous precedent that allowed businesses to easily claim “undue hardship” on the business and deny religious accommodations, but employers must now demonstrate the burden of “substantial increased costs” that granting an accommodation would have on their business.
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