The Patriot Post® · Parents Versus the 'Transgender' State

The Founding Fathers recognized the dangers inherent in government authorities using their power to abuse citizens and therefore sought to prevent and limit this probability via the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The First Amendment specifically protects every American citizen’s right to freely express themselves and live according to their beliefs.

We are now living in an era when those protections are being threatened more than ever. In their efforts to promote the rights of individuals to engage in behaviors that were once widely viewed and condemned by the cultural majority as immoral and repugnant, “social justice” activists citing “tolerance” and appealing to the First Amendment were successful in securing greater governmental protections for these fringe groups.

But having established greater governmental protections, along with a growing cultural acceptance, ironically, these same leftist “social justice” activists have now ditched tolerance and are actively working to erode those First Amendment protections they originally appealed to. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion have now become roadblocks to their new morality agenda.

Few examples display the reality of this agenda more clearly than the actions by several states to pass laws designed to force acceptance of the new morality. Those who have suffered most under this new “inclusive” agenda include florists, cake bakers, and wedding photographers. But it has not been limited to the states. On the federal level, one of the biggest examples of First Amendment encroachment has been ObamaCare and its contraception mandate.

Now with the rise of the “transgender” movement and its celebration by leftist activists in pop culture, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is aiming to force all Americans into embracing the new “morality.” Following her state’s lead, one of Pelosi’s biggest priorities is the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and “gender identity” as official protected classifications under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. By doing so, both parents and the medical community would lose their First Amendment rights to object to their child’s or patient’s gender dysphoria-motivated desires. They would be forced to abide by these deluded desires or risk losing their children or medical license.

As Emilie Kao writes in The Daily Signal, “The Equality Act would expedite this trend by giving the transgender movement a powerful legal weapon to drive medical consensus that could undermine the rights of parents. As more parents wrestle with finding the most loving and helpful solutions for their children struggling with gender dysphoria, the government must support them — not undermine them. Parents must remain central to the decision-making process when it comes to the medical care of children suffering from gender dysphoria.”