Mistletoeing the Line on Amnesty?
While the President is busy playing Santa to millions of people illegally coming to the United States, Americans want to know how many little helpers his agenda will have. With less than a month to go before Republicans gavel in a new majority, time – and options – are running short. Every conservative wants to counter the White House’s lawless amnesty order, but not every Republican agrees how. Yesterday, House leaders put all the options on the table, including a plan to put spending bills on two tracks: one for the majority of appropriations bills that the House already slogged through for the remainder of the 2015 fiscal year (an omnibus) and a separate, short-term continuing resolution (a CR) for the funds dealing with immigration. The thinking is that most federal agencies would have the money they need to finish out the year – while giving the new majority a chance to revoke the authority on immigration that the President never had. But not everyone wants to wait until early next year to dethrone King Obama.
While the President is busy playing Santa to millions of people illegally coming to the United States, Americans want to know how many little helpers his agenda will have. With less than a month to go before Republicans gavel in a new majority, time – and options – are running short. Every conservative wants to counter the White House’s lawless amnesty order, but not every Republican agrees how.
Yesterday, House leaders put all the options on the table, including a plan to put spending bills on two tracks: one for the majority of appropriations bills that the House already slogged through for the remainder of the 2015 fiscal year (an omnibus) and a separate, short-term continuing resolution (a CR) for the funds dealing with immigration. The thinking is that most federal agencies would have the money they need to finish out the year – while giving the new majority a chance to revoke the authority on immigration that the President never had. But not everyone wants to wait until early next year to dethrone King Obama.
Senators like Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and David Vitter (R-La.) want to seize the moment and block whatever money it can now. “The House should send the Senate a government funding bill which ensures no funds can be spent for this unlawful purpose,” Sessions said – a sentiment echoed by House allies Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), and others. “If outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Senate Democrats vote to surrender their own institution to an imperial dictate and block the measure, then the House should send a short-term funding measure so the new GOP majority can be sworn in and pass a funding bill with the needed language.”
Sen. Cruz chimed in with a reminder that Congress should use the power of the purse to rein in an out-of-control Executive. Eleven Democrats have already said they have concerns about the President’s power grab. “House Republicans should provide Senate Democrats the opportunity to show voters whether or not they have heard the message the voters sent in the 2014 elections.”
Of course, the President’s greatest weapon has always been the GOP’s insecurity. Republican leadership is so worried about being defined by Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that it doesn’t want to risk a government shutdown. A week from tomorrow, the government’s funding runs out. But rather than use that deadline as leverage in the amnesty debate, GOP leaders want to punt the issue into next year. Why? Because they’re concerned that the GOP will take the fall for the Democrats’ refusal to deal with the President’s lawless policy. But here’s the irony: they were blamed for last year’s partial shutdown, and voters responded by handing them the keys to both chambers!
It’s time for the House to forget what might happen and consider what did happen in November. Republicans just got a mandate from American voters to hold the President accountable – and now is the time to take action. As the editors at Investors Business Daily pointed out, “President Obama made the Constitution a welcome mat for illegal immigrants to wipe their feet on.” And if the House and Senate aren’t careful, they’ll be next.
The Maine Issue over School Bathrooms
In Maine classrooms, learning about genders won’t be the problem – but ignoring them will be. Thanks to the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, anatomy is becoming an irrelevant subject in local schools now that gender confusion reigns supreme. For the first time ever, a state high court has sided with a cross-dressing boy in a school bathroom dispute.
As a fifth-grader, “Nicole” Maines started using the girls bathroom, despite being born a male. That changed when the grandfather of another student complained, saying it made his granddaughter feel uncomfortable. To accommodate “Nicole,” school officials offered to let him use the staff restroom – a solution the family found offensive. When the school wouldn’t budge, the Maines sued – and yesterday, won.
According to the court, administrators “can’t refuse to allow access by transgender students to school restrooms that are consistent with their gender identity” and ordered the school to pay the family $75,000 in damages. (Which, in reality, would be much better spent on counseling for the underlying issues motivating this behavior). “Nicole,” now 17, celebrated the ruling. “We just want to move on,” said his dad Wayne Maines. “We just want to be normal.”
But that’s exactly the problem. This isn’t normal – but it is becoming common. Schools across the country seem to be dealing with an onslaught of “gender identity” madness, which the Obama administration has not just tolerated – but encouraged. Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Education fanned the flames with a new memo demanding that “transgenders” be allowed to attend single-sex classes, setting an eerie precedent that promotes gender confusion.
In Minnesota, parents have been dumbfounded by the push to neuter sports teams and let boys play on girls’ teams and vice versa. Tomorrow, one state athletic council will decide whether to give both genders a free pass to shower with and compete against both sexes. Even the ads see through this outrage, as headlines scream, “A male wants to shower beside your 14-year-old daughter. Are YOU okay with that?”
Fortunately, thousands of moms and dads said “no way!” and flooded email accounts and phone lines with angry complaints. As one critic spelled out, “it encourages children to reject their bodies and discourages children from accepting their bodies… It actually sows gender confusion among children through the power of suggestion.”
Like us, they understand that schools aren’t the place for social experimentation. But unfortunately, too many parents have their heads stuck in the sand and not in the school’s office, where they can keep up to date on what their kids are being indoctrinated with. The transgender agenda is physically, mentally, and spiritually devastating. And the greatest weapon we have to fight it is awareness. The Left is trying to bulldoze sexual norms and your family’s values. Don’t let them. Get involved in your child’s school – before it’s too late!
District of Columbia or District of Confusion?
If you think Congress is dysfunctional, you should see the city it’s located in! In the District of Columbia, the local council may be to the Left of the President, if that’s possible. Just yesterday, members took a major swipe at religious liberty by unanimously changing the city’s Human Rights Act. Under the new language, council members stripped protections for educational institutions that, because of their religious beliefs, may not endorse homosexuality. For example, if an LGBT club wanted to meet at a Christian school or university in D.C., this new measure would order the campuses to accommodate them, even if it means violating their own faith teachings.
In other words, the same city that houses the Bill of Rights protecting these liberties is strong-arming colleges and schools into ignoring them! For an encore act, the District also banned counseling for children who want to overcome same-sex attractions. In an extreme move, the city barred licensed mental health care providers from offering their help to kids and their parents who want it!
As our own Peter Sprigg pointed out, it’s “an outrageous assault upon the freedom of speech of therapists, the freedom of religion of clients who seek help in living lives consistent with their faith, and the privacy of the therapist-client relationship.” What’s more, he goes on, there’s “no scientific research demonstrating that sexual orientation change efforts cause harm to minors-none. States and jurisdictions should respect the privacy of the therapist-client relationship, not impose restrictions that prevent young people from getting the help that some so desperately want.”
But since when has the D.C. Council cared about the well-being of minors? Just look at the District’s progress toward legal marijuana – something scientifically proven to harm kids – to see how much they really care about their residents’ health.
Fortunately for D.C., the Council’s word isn’t the last one. Congress, which has jurisdiction over the District, has 30 legislative days to intervene to block these two bills and ongoing efforts surrounding D.C.‘s pot initiative. Contact your representative and tell them to give Washington the oversight it so desperately needs!
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
