The Daily Signal - Pulling Back Curtain on 'Erosion of Parental Rights' in California

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

Parents are losing the right to parent in California, according to Karen England.  A bill has been introduced in California stating that if parents “do not affirm your child's gender confusion, it's put in the same category as abuse, and it is supposed to be considered when you're battling in a custody battle,” England says. According to England, head of the policy, research, and education organization the Capitol Resource Institute, there has been an “erosion of parental rights” over the past year in California in a more significant way than she has ever seen before.  England joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain the threats parents are facing in California, and to share why moms and dads across the country should be concerned by what is happening on the west coast.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a daily school podcast for Wednesday, July 26th. I'm Virginia Allen. Parents are losing the right to, well, be parents in the state of California. Lawmakers and transgender activists in California are promoting bills that will classify a parent's refusal to celebrate a child's declared gender identity as child abuse. Karen England is the head of the Capital Resource Institute and she joins the show. today to explain what is happening in California and how the state has become such a battleground for parental rights. Stay tuned for our conversation after this. Are you looking for an easy and entertaining way to keep up with the news you care about? The Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation

YouTube channels offer interviews with policy experts on the most critical issues and debates America is facing today, as well as short explainer videos that break down complex issues and documentaries that dive deep into the way its policy actually impacts people. Go ahead and subscribe to both the Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation YouTube channels today. You can search for either on your YouTube app or visit YouTube.com slash heritage foundation and YouTube.com slash daily signal. I am so pleased today to be joined by Karen England. Karen is a parental rights advocate and president of the Capital Resource Institute. Karen, thanks so much for being with us today.

Hey, thank you for having me. Well, you have been fighting for parental rights and education for a very long time. And your organization, the Capital Resource Institute, is a policy, research, and education organization, and you all work in California. And my goodness, when it comes to the loss of parental rights, California is often the first state where we see those parental rights go out the window. So what are the rights that parents have lost in the state of California? Where does the battle really stand for parental rights in California? Well, you're right. We say what happens in California doesn't stay in California, and that's true.

And so people really need to be paying attention because if you see it in California a year or two later, they're going to be trying it in your state. And we have seen the erosion of parental rights at the state level in this year in a way we've never, ever seen. This year they've actually introduced a piece of legislation that if you do not affirm your child's gender confusion, it's put in the same category as abuse. And it is supposed to be considered when you're battling in a custody battle. So you're going to have people use the gender ideology to gain access or to gain custody of their children. I mean, it's just absolutely crazy. It really started when they mandated sex ed and they took away all local control saying no school district is going to be allowed to do an opt-in.

So that's where we saw them kind of starting when they mandated some really radical curriculum. and then made sure that local school districts couldn't give parental rights back in that area. Okay, so even if a local school district says we don't want to follow California's sex ed program at the state, we have another program, maybe that's similar, but just doesn't have some of the more controversial content in it, those school districts, they're not allowed to choose a different program. Oh, no, they're not allowed to choose a different program, and they spelled out the graphic stuff in the bill. But the other thing is a local school board can't say, you know, the kids are automatically out of sex ed until the parent puts them in. They're not even allowing that. And we're seeing there's another bill, AB 1078, thank goodness, that the legislature's on vacation for a few weeks. So we have a little bit of a breather.

but it's a bill that they're now coming after the parents that are removing obscene materials. They are coming after, you know, we had a lot of school boards that flipped and became conservative in this last election. So we've had local school boards banning CRT, taking a look at the graphic materials in the schools. And so they've just amended a bill a few weeks ago to take local control away from these school boards we flipped and put it back in Gavin Newsom's hands. And so that's really frightening that the local control would be totally slipped away or stripped away when it comes to curriculum and objectionable materials in the classroom. Well, there's one school district that is really fighting to give rights back to parents in the state of California. That's the Chino Valley Unified School District. There's a debate going on right now, a recent vote that was decently controversial during a school board meeting that they have.

there. Explain what exactly the fight is there and what the battle is regarding parental rights. Well, oddly enough, in California, they're up front about saying they have told the schools, and so has the Department of Education, that if a minor wants to transition, no matter how young, kindergarten to high school, that the school can keep that information from the parents. So the minor can come to school, have a different name that the school calls them by, access different facilities, you know, go on field trips and assert the gender they believe themselves to be, not their actual gender or sex. And so that's the policy in almost every school district throughout California.

So we have a school board that was taken over by the conservatives this last fall and they put a policy in place that we helped write that says, hey, if you're going to transition a kid, you need to tell the parents within three days. If they're coming to school and they're asserting a different gender than what they were born, you need to let the parents know they need to be brought into the conversation and that you can't keep secrets anymore. And that became so controversial, the state superintendent of education flew down to testify against it. But it's a courageous board and they're doing what they said they would do when they were running for office and they're putting parents first. Karen, why is this controversial? Well, I'd have to get in their minds,

but again, things have gotten so crazy. They would accuse us of outing the kids, to which our responses, they're already out. They're out at school. And so I don't know. Again, they think parents are bad, and we're seeing this with the legislation too, and some of this stuff Gavin Newsom has been doing. They really operate from the position that any time a parent says know about anything, that that's bad and the child should be able to do whatever they want. And so they really think these progressives are coming in and saving the kids from the parents. But they're woefully confused. The parents are not going to give up their rights that easily. We are seeing such a fight unfold.

Well, I want to talk a minute about something that you just referenced a moment ago, and that's the state of California's PTA. is backing this bill that the bill, if passed, would enshrine into California law that failing to affirm a child's self-identified gender would be considered as something like child abuse. Now, if the California state legislature passes this bill, what does that mean for parents? Well, it's frightening for parents because keep in mind a few years ago, we passed a bill that gives California jurisdiction the minute a parent flees from another state with their child,

they cross the border into California and it was all over the LGBTQ issue. They become, they get to go under the jurisdiction of California courts. And while that will be litigated right now, that's the way the law stands. And so this is going to be frightening. You are going to have to affirm your child

and their gender confusion or possibly lose custody, lose visitation. There's another bill where, and the PTA, who's supposed to be standing for parents, they are the co-author of that bill. And so people need to wake up that the PTA has been hijacked by progressives as well. One last piece, well, not last, because there's a lot, but there's another bill that allows, it's 665, allows a minor to emancipate themselves is at six, I mean at 12 in sixth grade. And basically any school counselor, intern, assistant, the list goes on and all on. They've been broadening it. All you have to do is say, I don't feel

safe at home. And they literally will take you from school to a group home that's approved by the state and the parents won't even be notified. So if these bills become law in California and let's say a 10-year-old girl says to her mom, you know, I feel like I'm a boy. And that mom says, okay, well, you might feel like that, but you're a girl. That could be considered, quote, unquote, child abuse and the mom could lose custody of her child. Absolutely. And that's the code, that's where they're putting that family code. They're putting it in custody disputes. So they're saying we are going to favor this. And on our, our Instagram account, we have the woman that brought this forward actually in her own words saying that it's abusive and that her fourth grader that you must assert they know what they're doing you must you must affirm their perceived gender and it's harmful if you don't and that's where they're operating from and so this is going to this is going to be very very serious moving forward is this already happening in california that parents

are facing custody battles over the gender identity craze? Oh, absolutely. And we've had, there's a father who's the woman, they were getting a divorce, and she came from Texas and is now under the jurisdiction of California, and her husband did not want them transitioning the minor. There's the Abigail Martinez, which some people are familiar with. And we featured her story here on The Daily Signal, yeah. Yeah, so Abigail, her child was taken from her.

and while she was gone, her child committed suicide. This is, and let me say this, because people think this is just California. I physically now live in Tennessee, and we have a Tennessee school district who is transitioning kids and refusing to tell the parents in a red county, in a red state. Parents need to know that the education establishment is doing this by going in and changing these things at the local level. So you're not safe if you're in a red state. state. You need to ensure that your school district is not doing this.

Now, that's interesting because I was going to ask you specifically in relation to California, do parents need to be considering moving out of California in order to protect their kids? But this isn't just a California problem. Well, yes, but California, I will say they're not as tolerant of stripping parental rights in these other states. But we had a state senator that said, as soon as he's done, he's getting out. And that is the feeling. There is such a serious attack on parental rights. And one of the bills that literally you were asking kind of, and we talked about Abigail Martinez, there's a bill that just got amended while they were on vacation where it's asking teachers and school counselors to profile

Christian parents, any parent that doesn't support the gender transition of their child. And the ramifications of something like that is just going to be a lot more Abigail Martinez story. when they're, like in China, profiling and snitching on the parents who actually want to wait until the child through puberty to make any of these decisions. So you're telling me that there's a lawmaker in California that's pushing for the profiling of parents simply because they're Christian and because they're Christian, they likely don't adhere to the gender ideology. Correct. It doesn't say Christian, but anyone that doesn't to the gender ideology, which is an attachment. on Christians. Yeah. So, yeah, if you don't, they want, they're training teachers how to identify that and where

to report that. Are there any voices in the California state legislature who are really speaking up in defense of parental rights? Well, we do have some. The Republicans or conservatives are in a super minority. And so it's really rough, but the minority leader, James Gallagher, is good. We've got an assemblyman that tried to introduce a bill on the gender. So we do have some.

We need more. I will tell you, there's a grassroots movement. The different mom and dad's groups are so encouraging, and many of them showed up in Chino Valley, drove hours to be there. But they are saying, not anymore, not with my kids. And so they are standing up. And I think the grassroots standing up is giving some backbone to our elected officials. Now, what should the response be for parents?

specifically parents who live in California or maybe other very progressive far-left states who are considering similar policies, what should their response be with this information? How do they move forward in protecting their kids? Well, I think we're recommending the coalition that put this policy together that was passed in Chino Valley. We are working with other school boards in California. And I'm encouraging people in other states to proactively, go in and put this policy in place so that if you're in a red state, you take the policy and you make sure at the local level, because it may not pass at the state level, you can pass it at the local

level and say, hey, if your child is transitioning, we're going to let the parents know. Because right now, most of these states are silent on that issue. So schools are just kind of making it up as they go, and that's what they're choosing to do because that's what the establishment is telling them. So you need to go in and proactively put a policy in place at the local school district level that says we are going to notify parents if a child is going through this. Karen, would you just share a little bit about the work that you all do at the Capital Resource Institute? Well, yes, we have been around for 37 years this last June. And we are a pro-family public policy organization. We have really started to work more on the ground with grassroots.

in parental rights and education. Our latest project is putting together a website so that we are tracking by school district, the obscene and pornographic books that are in a school. So we're adding to that every day so you can go to take back the classroom.com. And right now we've got six states up there, but we'll be adding more every week.

And you can look at your school district, see what books are in there, and figure out a way if it's something you want to challenge the book and have it removed from the school. There's a lot of pornographic, obscene, vulgar content that our kids are being exposed to, and it's up to us to stop it and to protect the hearts and minds of our kids. That book initiative is so critical. Karen, thank you for the work that you're doing. Thank you for joining us today. Karen, England of the Capital Resource Institute. Be sure to check them out. And we just thank you for being a resource for parents. Absolutely. Thank you. And have a great afternoon.

And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on The Daily Spill podcast. If you've never had the chance, be sure to take out our evening show. It's right here in the same podcast feed where we bring you the top news of the day, the headlines that you don't want to miss. Also make sure to subscribe to the Daily Sicle wherever you get your podcast. Help us reach more listeners by taking just a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. Thanks again for being with us today.

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