The Daily Signal - Founder of Congressional Family Caucus Shares Importance of Marriage, Children

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

"Faith and family is what's made our country not only great but good," Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., tells The Daily Signal. Miller, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, is the founder of the Congressional Family Caucus. Miller joins this episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the importance of marriage, family, and recognizing the biological differences between males and females. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is The Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, September 12th. I'm Elizabeth Mitchell, and I was able to sit down with Representative Mary Miller of Illinois at the State Freedom Caucus Summit in Dallas to discuss her work on the Congressional Family Caucus, as well as her bill, the Defining Male and Female Act. Stay tuned for my special conversation with Representative Mary Miller after this. Pro-life, pro-women conservative and feminist were problematic women. The radical left has no box for strong independent women who believe in traditional values and love America. So you might say,

we're problematic to the left narrative of what a woman should be. Here on problematic women, we sort through the news to find the stories you care about. Join Problematic Women on the Daily Signals, YouTube and Rumble live every Wednesday or listen on your favorite podcast app. I'm Elizabeth Mitchell and I'm in Dallas, Texas with Representative Mary Miller at the State Freedom Caucus Summit. Your defining male and female act would define sex based on biology rather than ideology. Why did you introduce this bill? Well, it's crazy that we're here as a society, but we've lost all sense of reality.

And we need to define male and female so that legislation cannot go forward that mixes up sexual identity. And I think I looked up, I think there's 72 identity. now that are listed on the internet, but sex is, it's binary, it's objective, and, you know, that's what we're doing. We're making, making that point. Schools in many states across the country allow children to choose what facilities they use based on gender identity. Would the defining male and female act put an end to that? It should put an end to that, but, you know, the Biden administration and Harris have been pushing, using as education secretary, Cordona to put out guidelines. So, you know, it's going to have to be battled out, but at least

if we can pass this, people instead of pointing to the deadlines, I mean, not to the deadline, to the guidelines as an excuse, they can point to the bill passing, defining what male and female is as biological, objective, and binary. What parts of the bill do you expect would face the most opposition, either from fellow Republicans or from Democrats? Absolutely from Democrats. I expect 100 percent support from Republicans. I think there'll be a lot of Democrats that want to support it, but we'll feel like they're unable to because they're under the thumb of their leadership and whoever they're co-opted by, but I think it'll be very partisan. So this bill would protect women and girls' spaces in light of the Biden administration's Title IX rewrite. The Supreme Court currently has a

temporary injunction on the rewrite, but could you describe the effect on girls' sports, faces, and safety if the rewrite of Title IX takes effect? Well, it's a radical rewrite of Title IX, and it's just going to open up a world with no ending on sexual identity. It's going to cause there to be coerced speech, which I can see employees of the school being fired for misgendering someone, students will be disciplined. We're going to have that problem. It's going to be the end of girls athletics. And it'll just create chaos because our girls and women will not be safe in their private spaces. A bill in your home state of Illinois would deem it child abuse for a parent to deny abortion services or transgender medical interventions to their children. What are some threats

to parental rights in Illinois specifically? And what do you see as the path to restore the integrity of the parent-child relationship in your home state? So Illinois is basically a red state and elections have consequences. I don't know what to say. We've got to get the Republicans out to vote. We've got to get people registered to vote. We've got to get the gun owners out. But this is wildly unpopular among Americans and among the people that live in Illinois. We support parental rights. Parents know what's best for their children. And these are big issues for our kids. Is protecting them in their safe spaces, giving them equal opportunities in athletics and sports, and the transgender agenda. And I don't know what to say. I know people want us to fix it,

but elections have consequences. And I was in Louisiana recently, and I take hope for Illinois, because they went from blue to purple to red, and we have the votes in Illinois if people just come out and vote. You started the Family Caucus in the House. Could you tell us about why you did that and what you hope to accomplish? Sure. Well, when I was first encouraged to run, I kind of recoiled because I never looked, I never looked to be in politics in this way, to be actually the elected official. And someone encouraged me.

They said, Mary, you represent the family, and the family's the foundation of our culture. And it's true. Faith and family is what's made our country not only great but good. And we need to restore that. A stable home life causes kids to be secure. and safe and successful. And we need to do what we can to make it to entice young people to want to get married and to and to have children. You know, I've heard that there isn't one state in our country that has replacement level birth rate. I know overall the birth rate in our country is like 1.8. And this is a

disaster looming for our country. So I want to herald the privilege and the importance of family for our country. That's the purpose of it. What are some other key issues for those concerned about protecting the family going into the 2024 election? Well, parental rights, the transgender issue, I think it should be illegal to start transgendering a child, giving them hormones or surgery, if they're a minor, and definitely we don't need to be using tax dollars to do this. Life is a big issue. You know, in Illinois, they're going around parents and wanting to allow girls to have abortions through the ninth month without parental consent.

They are using tax dollars to pay for it. We've become a destination state for abortion. I think also having an economy that's thriving that allows people to be able to want to get married and to be able to buy a home and have children. And if they want for one of the parents to be able to care for the child, incentivizing tax policy to incentivize people to want to have children and make it easier for them. Are there any other bills that you plan to introduce in the future to protect the family, parental rights, the life issue, that kind of thing that we've been talking about? Well, I've introduced all kinds of bills. One thing that's kind of that's important to me, you know, President Trump was the most pro-life president we've ever had. The battle is now at the state level, but it's also at an individual level.

And, you know, the left's always saying trust the women. Well, they don't want to trust the women with information. And I have a bill, and I really want this to go nationwide, is to force informed consent, especially with minors. They should, the abortion provider should, number one, be forced to notify the parents and give them so much time, you know, to make a decision. Number two, they have to inform the woman or in some cases the girl. of the procedure, the risks, and to require an ultrasound.

It's interesting because I've heard 80 to 90 percent of girls and women change their mind when they have that ultrasound. The left does not trust the women. That's why they don't want to have it. So that's one thing. But also, I'm carrying a bill in the House, and Senator Lee has it in the Senate called the Screen Act, but we have got to protect our children's minds and souls

from pornography on the Internet. And this is going to require tech providers to make porn users identify that they're over 18. But we definitely need to do something about protecting our children's minds. Shortly after the last night of the DNC, a pro-life pregnancy center in Chicago was attacked and causing thousands of dollars of damage, what can be done to protect these pregnancy centers and to hold those accountable who are vandalizing them and damaging their mission? Yeah, well, this is part of a weaponized government and two systems of government or two systems of justice.

You know, I think elections have consequences, and we have, I'm going to call them a wicked attorney general. And from the top, they've been going after anybody that stands for life and for the pro-life centers. and it's especially bad in blue states. But we do need people like you that are accurately reporting and getting information out to people because people don't even know that this has been happening

to our pro-life pregnancy centers. Have you seen a lot of support among fellow House Republicans for the family caucus, and do you expect it to grow over the next few years? There is a lot of support, and I do expect it to grow. and I want to encourage people to be courageous to stand up for faith and family. Because I want to say it again, it's what's made our country not only great but good. And we're not going to, we're not going to survive long as a country if we don't provide safe and secure home lives for our children.

Absolutely. And what's at stake if males are allowed to compete in female sports and use female spaces? Well, I mean, I've met athletes that have severe either brain damage or physical damage from playing in an athletic competition with a male. I mean, let's face it, they have more bone mass, muscle mass, lung capacity. It's the end of girls' athletics. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today. You're welcome. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the Daily Signal podcast, where I sat down with Representative Mary Miller of Illinois. Please tune in later today to our Top News edition where we break down the headlines

of the day. Also, be sure to subscribe to The Daily Signal wherever you get your podcasts and help us reach more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. We enjoy reading your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful day. And please tune back in with us at 5 p.m. for top news. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Bluey and Katrina Trinko. Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gottstein, Tyler O'Neill, and Elizabeth Mitchell.

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