As This School District Sets New Transgender Guidelines, Parents Fight for Transparency

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Parents in a Washington suburb say their school board has cut them out of the process of implementing new guidelines for accommodating transgender students.

The school board in Fairfax County, an affluent suburb in Northern Virginia, has scrapped a public forum on the gender identity policy and scheduled a work session in which parents aren’t allowed to participate. It isn’t clear when or if parents will have an opportunity to weigh in.

The Fairfax County School Board “released regulations with no parental input—nothing from the taxpayers—so I’m really upset,” said Bethany Kozma, a mother who is calling for greater transparency from her elected officials. “It’s a free-for-all.”

Pat Hynes, the school board chairman, gave members a copy of the gender identity and sexual orientation regulations on July 1, the Friday before the Fourth of July weekend. According to emails obtained by The Daily Signal, Hynes received the regulations from the school district’s division counsel.

The school district has not posted the guidelines online, nor formally notified parents.

However, a group called Fairfax County Public Schools Pride, which describes itself as “an allied and LGBT community” for employees of the school system, made the regulations public on its website and said “these are now in force.”

“The finalized version of the regulations about treating trans and gender nonconforming students with dignity and fairness were released July 1,” the FCPS Pride website says. “We have been told that these are now in force, although the [school board] will decide how it wants to review them (whether by email or in a work session).”

The Daily Signal obtained a copy of the new gender identity and sexual orientation guidelines from Elizabeth Schultz, one of three school board members who oppose them.

The regulations allow transgender students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms they say correspond to their gender identity, and to participate in school-sponsored sports, clubs, and other activities in accordance with their gender identity.

The rules also instruct teachers and staff to call students by their preferred name and pronoun. They offer any transgender or gender nonconforming student the option of convening a “support team” consisting of the student’s parents, classroom teachers, administrators, school counselors, school psychologists, school social workers, or other appropriate staff.

Schultz, whose children attend county schools, is not just critical of the regulations but of the process nine of her fellow school board members are employing to implement them.

“Parents, students, and employees have yet to see plans or be publicly heard regarding, at a minimum, the implications of opening access in student and employee restrooms, locker rooms, and showers in school and administrative facilities,” Schultz told The Daily Signal.

Fairfax County parents’ unhappiness with how their elected school board has implemented a gender identity and sexual orientation policy in the district’s 196 schools and centers is something of a cautionary tale for school districts across the nation grappling with the same issues. At schools in Minnesota, Illinois, and Washington state, similar debates are playing out.

When Hynes, the board chairman, emailed the regulations to the board July 1, she requested a “forum” be held July 14 to discuss how the board should proceed. Schultz said the board scheduled the forum, which is typically open to the public, in a classroom with limited space, although the board typically holds such meetings in an auditorium and streams them online.

Three days before the forum—and after parents widely circulated emails calling on others to attend to voice their opposition to the regulations—Hynes withdrew her request for a forum in an email to the board, Schultz said.

Instead, Hynes proposed to hold a work session July 21, which, according to Schultz, provides no opportunity for parents or others to participate or comment.

“The development and status of these crucial regulations has generated intense public interest but little public engagement,” Schultz told The Daily Signal, adding:

Notably, work sessions of the board involve no public participation or engagement, so a work session does not resolve the issue of public engagement on the imminent and practical implementation of the regulations. It is unfortunate that once again, there appears to be a less-than-transparent process as the board conducts business in such a way that the very public we are elected to serve feels authentically informed and educated.

The Daily Signal sought comment from Hynes by email, but she did not reply before publication of this article. In an interview last week with Fairfax County Times, the board chairman appeared to understand why some board members and parents called for transparency.

“There are people in the community, particularly parents, who have questions about what it might mean for their children,” Hynes said of implementing the policy, adding, “[We] have an obligation to answer those questions so that parents have the information they need to understand what’s going on in their kids’ schools.”

Robert Rigby, president of the FCPS Pride employee group and a teacher at West Potomac High School in Alexandria, told Fox 5 DC (WTTG-TV) in an interview that he expects the new guidelines to have a “tremendous impact” on making Fairfax County schools “more welcoming to all kids, especially trans kids.”

Some parents, however, are more concerned about how the new regulations will affect nontransgender students.

“When transgenders and gays and lesbians get up there and say, ‘I was bullied,’ that’s wrong,” Kozma, a Fairfax mother of three who also opposes similar policies at the national level, said. “They should not be bullied.”

Kozma said she doesn’t fear transgender students, but rather, people who might abuse policies that allow people of the opposite biological sex into her daughter’s restrooms and locker rooms.

“My child’s safety and security and privacy is also at stake here,” she said.

Rigby addressed some of those concerns in his television interview, saying, “Some friends of mine with daughters have expressed concern about what about the yahoos, what about the troublemakers, what about the bad actors, and what we find is that no one ever has pretended to be trans to have access.”

The issue arose in May 2015, when the Fairfax County School Board voted to add gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes under the school system’s nondiscrimination policy.

At that point, the school board made no decisions regarding accommodations to carry out the policy, such as allowing students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity instead of their biological sex. It did agree to review the resulting regulations.

Instead, the board hired an outside consultant to “assist in developing appropriate regulations that protect the rights of all students,” Tamara Derenack Kaufax, then board chairman, wrote last year in a public statement.

As a consultant, Schultz said, the school board picked Jeffrey M. Poirier, until January a principal researcher at American Institutes for Research, a Washington nonprofit that bills itself as a behavioral and social science research and evaluation organization.

Poirier’s work there included “supportive services for LGBTQ youth and families,” according to his résumé. LGBTQ stands for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.”

Schultz scolded fellow board members for going “straight to someone whose entire mission it is to get these practices deeply embedded” in schools. She said she doesn’t plan to back down in her attempt to better inform parents of what she considers shady school board practices.

A former board member, Elizabeth Torpey Bradsher, appeared to agree, writing in a scolding letter to The Connection Newspapers published July 12:

The board has hit a sensitive nerve with their constituents and parents on this issue and now prefers to shy away from additional media controversy and discussion. In fact many parents are unaware the transgender policy is being brought forth again at a school board forum on July 14, which proves excellent planning on the board’s part.

The month of July is a wonderful time for controversial issues, the timing takes advantage that a large majority of parents and residents are gone on vacation; therefore it is easier to pass motions and generate policies. After such, the board will go into recess and all controversies will seem to be forgotten due to a lack of media attention. Thus there is little vocal objection from the public or notice.

The forum Bradsher mentions is the one that was canceled.

Up until a few weeks ago, Kozma said, she was one of those parents who were unaware of the transgender policy debate playing out in her own backyard. In part, however, she faults herself.

“This whole thing has taught me that I have to stay engaged on things that I didn’t think were important,” Kozma said. “If I’m going to be a good mom, I need to be engaged and informed about what’s going on in all aspects.” (For more from the author of “As This School District Sets New Transgender Guidelines, Parents Fight for Transparency” please click HERE)

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PA Senate Committee Approves Bill Banning Abortion After 20 Weeks

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A Pennsylvania Senate judiciary committee passed a bill Tuesday that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation.

The bill passed the committee in a 9-5 vote, reports Philadelphia magazine. All Republicans on the committee voted for it, while all the Democrats voted against it. The bill already passed the House with a 132-65 vote.

HB 1948 would ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, unless the woman’s life is in danger or the doctor believes that major bodily harm will come to the woman if an abortion is not performed.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf stated that he would veto the bill should it reach his desk.

“This legislation would be a step backwards for women and for Pennsylvania,” Wolf said. “I urge the Senate to reject this bill. If this legislation reaches my desk, I will veto it. This is a bad bill for Pennsylvania and we cannot afford to allow it to go forward.”

The bill also restricts abortions performed on married women. A married women can only receive an abortion if she can provide a written statement proving her husband is aware of the procedure. If a married woman proves that her husband is not the father of the child, or she cannot find her husband or she has been a victim of sexual assault, then she can get an abortion.

The bill also bans dismemberment abortions, in which the doctor pulls the unborn baby limb from limb out of the womb using a forceps or scissors.

“In a dismemberment abortion, fully-formed babies are brutally torn apart limb from limb,” Maria Gallagher, legislative director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, told LifeSiteNews.

“In the state that’s leading the way for dramatic, life-preserving surgeries for the smallest lives, we’re going to end the inhumane practice of dismemberment abortions, which tears a living human being to pieces. We can do better than that, and Pennsylvania’s women and girls deserve better,” Representative Kathy Rapp,the bill’s sponsor, said in a video message. (For more from the author of “PA Senate Committee Approves Bill Banning Abortion After 20 Weeks” please click HERE)

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Bush Gives Heartfelt Speech at Service for Dallas Officers

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Former President and native Texan George W. Bush gave a somber speech Tuesday at an interfaith ceremony honoring the five Dallas officers murdered last week.

Discussing the recent discord the country is facing, Bush started off by acknowledging how hopeless things can seem, especially in the face of such a horrible tragedy.

“At times, it seems like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together,” he said. “Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates too quickly into dehumanization.”

However, his speech wasn’t all grim. The former president used the reminder of his time to remind the audience on what it is that truly unites us — American values.

“We have never been held together by blood or background,” he said. “We are bound by things of the spirit, by shared commitments to common ideals. At our best, we practice empathy, imagining ourselves in the lives and circumstances of others.”

His speech was a message of respect and honor for those who wear a badge, and a reminder of the things that make this country great.

“Your loved ones’ time with you was too short. They did not get a chance to properly say goodbye, but they went where duty called,” Bush said. “They defended us, even to the end.”

President Obama’s tone, however, was a bit different. He used his time to discuss race relations, lecturing the attendees, admitting that bias still remains. But he assured Americans that we are “not as divided as we may seem.” (For more from the author of “Bush Gives Heartfelt Speech at Service for Dallas Officers” please click HERE)

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Since When Does Planned Parenthood Have a Constitutional Right to Taxpayer Funds?

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Once again, we have Republican dominance of a state’s political branches of government rendered moot by the council of revision aka the federal court system.

Utah, like many GOP-controlled states, moved to cut off taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood after their associates were caught on video discussing the trafficking of fetuses. The liberals in the legal profession have successfully placed temporary injunctions on many of these acts. After the district judge withdrew a stay on Utah Governor Gary Herbert’s action, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals today reversed that decision and blocked the common sense action on the part of the state of Utah.

Writing for the three judge panel (consisting of Reagan, Clinton, and Obama appointees) in Planned Parenthood v. Herbert, Judge Mary Briscoe determined that Planned Parenthood was likely to succeed on the merits because “a reasonable finder of fact is more likely than not to find that Herbert issued the directive to punish PPAU for the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights it has identified in this litigation.”

While one judge disagreed with another constitutional point, they all agreed that the governor violated … you guessed it … the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The Equal Protection Clause was merely designed to reiterate the basic life, liberty and property negative rights that applied to everyone else and ensure that they were granted to freed slaves. As I note in Chapter 4 of Stolen Sovereignty, Rep. James F. Wilson, R-Iowa, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee back in the 1860s who helped draft the 14th Amendment, spoke emphatically that it was “establishing no new right, declaring no new principle.” “It is not the object of this bill to establish new rights, but to protect and enforce those which belong to every citizen,” declared Wilson in 1866.

Yet, we have now moved onto a post-constitutional judicial oligarchy that believes the 14th Amendment not only creates a right to an abortion, but a positive right for a private organization under criminal investigation for trafficking baby parts to secure taxpayer funding.

What is further ironic is that we have a legal profession that now agrees that not giving a criminal enterprise taxpayer funding is tantamount to blocking their First Amendment rights, but taking negative action (imprisonment or fines) against private business owners who don’t service gay weddings or transgenderism is the highest order of mankind. Oh, and let’s not forget that the pesky document from 1776 declares that fundamental rights come from natural law and nature’s God, of which the sexual identity movement repudiates.

We have reached a point in time when the judiciary has voided out the elected branches of government even to the point when it must keep taxpayer funding flowing to criminal enterprises that engage in immoral behavior that is well within the historical powers of a state to regulate. We have a judiciary that green lights liberal state officials to infringe upon inalienable negative rights of property, conscience, and self-defense, but impedes conservative state officials from regulating positive privileges.

As I noted last week, this is part of a growing trend from the lower courts tossing out every last regulation of abortion facilities and mandating funding for Planned Parenthood. It’s time conservatives realize that we are not just one election away from winning back the courts. The courts are irremediably broken. Even if we succeed in appointing judges who will never expand upon existing breaches in the Constitution, a task that is dubious at best, there is enough existing post-constitutional precedent embedded just in the bastardization of the 14th Amendment alone to void out every policy initiative we could possibly hope to achieve from a Republican president and GOP-controlled states. That existing “precedent” is respected by most GOP appointees, except for the few in the mold of Clarence Thomas. We will never win the judiciary game a half century into this post-constitutional Gomorrah.

It’s time to ignore the courts and the first step to delegitimizing their ill-gotten power is for Congress to use its existing constitutional authority, pursuant to Article III Section 2, to regulate the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. They must protect the states in their ability to pass common sense immigration enforcement laws, abortion regulations, define marriage, protect religious liberty and protect the franchise from fraudulent voting.

The lower courts are even worse than the Supreme Court, yet they are created by Congress and can easily be swatted down. The notion that one federal district judge could rule over a state or even a congressional statute fully in the spirit of our Constitution, history, and traditions is absurd, given the fact that Congress can abolish those courts altogether. As for the Supreme Court, Congress can prevent all but a few spheres of original jurisdiction granted to it by Article III from becoming precedent through narrowing their power of adjudication.

Let’s not forgot the timeless admonition of Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address:

[t]he candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.

In this spectacularly hyped election season that will determine control of the presidency, Congress and state governments, let’s remember that if we fail to alter the perception of the court’s power, the outcome of every major political and social question of our time will be placed in the hands of that eminent tribunal. Their ill-gotten power as the council of revision, in conjunction with their anti-constitutional ethos used to make those decisions, will ensure that we no longer have individual, state or national sovereignty to be governed by the consent of the governed. (For more from the author of “Since When Does Planned Parenthood Have a Constitutional Right to Taxpayer Funds?” please click HERE)

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Man Who Wants to Marry Computer Files Suit Against Kim Davis

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A federal lawsuit was filed earlier this month against Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis for denying a man a license to marry his laptop computer.

Mark “Chris” Sevier of Vanderbilt Law School has a history of being litigious, despite the suspension of his law license in 2011.

Sevier previously filed similar suits in Texas and in Florida. He has told reporters that he is trying to prove that marriage between a same-sex couple has the same legitimacy as a human marrying an inanimate object. (Read more from “Man Who Wants to Marry Computer Files Suit Against Kim Davis” HERE)

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Fox News Roger Ailes Allegedly Sexually Assaulted Multiple Women

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It appears Fox News chief Roger Ailes has a problem reaching Bill proportions – meaning Bill Clinton or Bill Cosby.

Following the filing of a lawsuit by former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson about a series of unwanted sexual propositions from her boss, her attorney says other women are coming out of the woodwork with similar stories dating back to the 1960s . . .

The new accounts from New York Mag include the following:

Kellie Boyle, 54, former Republican National Committee field adviser: “This was back in 1989. I was 29 and living in New Jersey. My husband worked at CNBC and he said, ‘Roger Ailes is coming in to be interviewed, would you like to meet him?’ I said yes! I’d worked in political communications for the Republican National Committee; so Roger Ailes was like a God. I’d read his book, ‘You Are the Message,’ and I used it for a lot of training I did for candidates. I introduced myself in the green room and he was very charming and said, ‘Would you like to visit my office downtown sometime?’ A week or two later I went in and mentioned to him I was going down to D.C. the following week to sign a major contract with the National Republican Congressional Committee. He said, ‘I’m going to be in D.C. too. Would you like to have dinner before you go in?’ So we had a nice dinner at a restaurant in Union Station. There was nothing untoward about it at all. He had a driver and a car, and after dinner he said, ‘Can I take you to your friend’s?’ So we get in the car and that’s when he said, ‘You know if you want to play with the big boys, you have to lay with the big boys.’ I was so taken aback. I said, ‘Gosh I didn’t know that. How would that work?’ I was trying to kill time because I didn’t know if he was going to attack me. I was just talking until I could get out of the car. He said, ‘That’s the way it works,’ and he started naming other women he’s had. He said that’s how all these men in media and politics work – everyone’s got their friend. I said, ‘Would I have to be friends with anybody else?’ And he said, ‘Well you might have to give a blowjob every once in a while.’ I told him I was going to have to think about this. He said, ‘No, if you don’t do it now, you know that means you won’t.’ The next morning I show up to get my assignment and was told the guy I was supposed to be meeting with was unavailable. Back in New Jersey I got a call from Roger Ailes. He said, ‘How’d your meeting go?’ I said, ‘Actually he wasn’t available and I’m hoping to hear back from him.’ He said, ‘Ah, well, I’m sure you will. Have you changed your mind yet?’ I said, ‘I’ll have to pass, Roger. I’m married and really committed to my husband. No offense.’ He said, ‘Well, we’ll be in touch.’ And that was that. A couple weeks later, I called a friend who was very high up in the RNC and I asked him what happened. He said, ‘Word went out you weren’t to be hired.’

Marsha Callahan, 73, former model: “This was either ’68 or ’67. At the time he was producing ‘The Mike Douglas Show,’ and I had a call from my modeling agency about the show. I got a call directly from Roger asking me to come down and to make sure I wore a garter belt and stockings. This was right after pantyhose came into use, and I said, ‘Why would you want me to do that instead of pantyhose?’ He said, ‘If your legs look good in a garter belt, I’ll know you have great legs.’ So I go into his office and right away he says, ‘Sit on the sofa and lift your skirt up.’ I had to do these different poses. And then, I recall very clearly, he said he’d put me on the show but I needed to go to bed with him. I was a really shy girl, but I was a little cheeky so I said, ‘Oh yeah, you and who else?’ And he said, ‘Only me and a few of my select friends.’ I said, ‘Well, if you think I have star quality and you can make money off my looks, I don’t think it’d matter if I went to bed with you or not.’ And he said, ‘Oh, pretty girls like you are a dime a dozen.’ The interview ended quickly. I was called in to do the show and I remember passing Roger in the hallway. He pretended not to know who I was.”

(Read more from “Fox News Roger Ailes Allegedly Sexually Assaulted Multiple Women” HERE)

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Why Young Adults Both Want and Fear Marriage

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When we interviewed Carly, 31, in the summer of 2010, she had been in an on-again, off-again cohabiting relationship with the father of her child for about 12 years. Never married, she called marriage a “piece of paper.”

One year later, however, she had broken up with her longtime boyfriend and was engaged to a different man.

Why did she accept his marriage proposal?

Contradicting what she said a year before, Carly (not her real name) told us: “Everybody says, ‘Oh, it’s just a piece of paper.’ But that piece of paper is … more binding than just really being together.”

She explained that her experience in a long-term cohabiting relationship had taught her that marriage was indeed different.

As we learned in our interviews with over 100 young adults in a mostly white working-class town in Ohio, most young people are neither adamantly opposed to marriage nor completely supportive: They are conflicted about marriage. They hope to get and stay married, providing for their own children the family stability that many of them did not have growing up.

One national study found that in 2001-2002, more than 80 percent of young adults said that marriage was important in their life plan. But many are also uncertain about how to achieve that aspiration and unsure about whether marriage retains the meaning they believe it should have.

Many of them witnessed the separation or divorce of their parents as children, or barely knew their dad or mom. Others saw their parents stay in marriages marked by abuse, drinking, drugs, or misery. Others admired their parents’ marriage but were shaken by the divorces of relatives or friends, or by hearsay about high divorce rates.

The legacy of the divorce culture is trauma and a crisis of trust. A study conducted in the mid-2000s found that of 122 working–and middle-class young people in cohabiting relationships, more than two-thirds expressed concerns about divorce that were related to their views about marriage. Many respondents said that they were reluctant to marry because they wanted to “do it right,” by which they meant marrying only once.

That legacy of divorce is reinforced by the cultural deregulation of sex and dating. As divorce-weary young people form their own romantic relationships, they hear from the culture that “sex is sex, regardless of who it’s with,” love should be “effortless,” and “you got one life to live, and you got to live it the way you want to live it.”

Those messages undermine their pursuit of a trusting and resilient lifelong relationship.

As a result, many young Americans are left on the outside looking in, admiring marriage but paralyzed with anxiety about becoming another divorce statistic or worried that their boyfriend or girlfriend is not trustworthy. Thus, more Americans are delaying marriage longer, and more (though still the minority) are forgoing marriage altogether.

In other words, the declining marriage rate is not so much a reflection that marriage is no longer desired, but that, in a culture of distrust and divorce, it is fragile.

The bad news is that young Americans have less confidence in marriage than their grandparents did and are carrying profound wounds. The good news is that, as one adult child of divorce said of his peers from fragmented families, “They lived it and they want a change.”

As another adult child of divorce told us, “I think my home life as a kid made me more driven to be like, ‘I’m not gonna have a broken home.’”

Many young people are afraid of marriage, but that does not mean they are giving up on it. If anything, they possess a hard-earned understanding about the suffering wrought by family fragmentation. They want a better life for their own children, and they deserve the support of everyone from cultural leaders to policymakers to business leaders as they seek that better way. (For more from the author of “Why Young Adults Both Want and Fear Marriage” please click HERE)

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I’m a Mom. Here’s What I’m Doing to Fight Obama’s Transgender Agenda.

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Because I’m passionate about our country, I dedicated years of my life to government service. Later, that same passion led me to focus on raising my three young children to become the finest citizens they can be, becoming a stay-at-home mom.

Nevertheless, I have jumped back into the world of politics and policy far earlier than I expected to because President Barack Obama’s school bathroom mandate is endangering the safety, security, and privacy of my children and yours.

I cannot remain silent.

Like many Americans, I was shocked to learn the Obama administration had sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to our nation’s schools threatening them with loss of federal funds unless they adopt radical new gender identity policies. The letter twists Title IX—a law banning sex discrimination in education—and opens the door to a myriad of real dangers to women and girls Title IX was meant to help.

To put it simply, a boy claiming gender confusion must now be allowed in the same shower, bathroom, or locker room with my daughter under the president’s transgender policies. When I learned that predators could abuse these new policies to hurt children in school lockers, shelters, pool showers, or other vulnerable public places like remote bathrooms in national parks, I realized I had to do something.

I instinctively knew that I needed to speak up to protect those who cannot speak for themselves: our children. As I learned more about the issue, I realized that I also needed to speak up for victims of sexual assault who would be re-traumatized by having biological males undress in front of them, women who may now feel themselves powerless to do anything about it, due to legal concerns and fear of being labeled a bigot.

Not wanting to see any policy that would lead to more victims of sexual violence and trauma, I started calling my federal, state, and local representatives to see where they stood on the issue and to urge them to fight against Obama’s edict. I even met with my daughter’s vice principal to express concern.

But what I found dismayed me. People were being bullied into silence by the threats from the federal government and LGBT activists. And I was saddened by how few people in the general public really knew what was really going on today in our nation’s schools.

Through conversations with friends and family, the “United We Stand” campaign was born. Our simple effort to educate parents exploded into a national campaign to tell the White House and Obama “No.”

Our message was that this radical agenda of subjective “gender fluidity” and unrestricted shower and bathroom access actually endangers all.

The “United We Stand” campaign coincides with other efforts to combat Obama’s lawless reinterpretation of Title IX. North Carolina and several other states, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have fought back with lawsuits against the administration’s overreach. Groups advocating boycotting Target, which announced in April that “transgender team members and guests … [may] use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity,” continue to affect the retailer’s bottom line. Church activists are seeking to help ensure our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion aren’t being curtailed so churches would be, for example, free to make their own bathroom policies inside their houses of worship and child care centers. Parents, concerned citizens, and other defenders of freedom are banding together to ensure the safety, security, and privacy of our children.

Because the national edict was approved by the White House, it can be stopped by the White House, so I knew that our outcry had to start there. My plan of response is simple. On Tuesday, July 12 at 1:00 p.m. EST, I and legions of others will inundate the White House comment line to respectfully say “NO” to Obama’s bathroom policies. And we will do so in numbers that will certainly get the White House’s attention.

But we will not stop there.

We will actively engage state and local government lawmakers and officials to inform and persuade them that they shouldn’t give in to the Obama administration’s threats to withhold educational funding from our children. The safety of bathrooms and other intimate facilities must be protected from predators seeking any vulnerability to commit heinous criminal acts.

Let me be clear: It is not transgender persons who I am concerned about hurting my children. Instead, I’m concerned about those who will abuse these new policies.

Some might consider me just a mom, but it’s a title I wear with pride: I believe it’s the most important job I will ever have. But that title also gives me a certain credibility when it comes to protecting children, because I know the dreams and fears that only parents can have for their kids.

As parents, we have the privilege and duty to educate and protect our children so that they can lead our nation on to further greatness when it’s their turn to do so. Until that time, I will boldly stand up to ensure the safety, security, and privacy of my children and yours so that together we all can stand united, safe, and free. (For more from the author of “I’m a Mom. Here’s What I’m Doing to Fight Obama’s Transgender Agenda.” please click HERE)

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Liberals Rip George Takei for Not Liking His Star Trek Character Being Made Gay

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In a moment of supreme irony, progressives on social media are sharply criticizing former Star Trek actor George Takei for disapproving of the decision to make the character “Sulu” gay in the upcoming Star Trek movie.

Takei played “Hikaru Sulu” in the original Star Trek television series. He came out as gay in 2005 and has since been a very high-profile advocate for gay rights, with a very active presence on social media.

In tribute to both Takei and the progressive politics of series creator Gene Roddenberry, the creators of Star Trek Beyond revealed that the rebooted Star Trek’s version of Sulu is a gay man raising a young daughter with his husband.

Takei, though, surprised many by revealing he disapproves of the move. He said it was disrespectful to Roddenberry to suddenly reveal “Sulu” as gay when the show’s creator always viewed him as a straight man.

“I’m delighted that there’s a gay character,” Takei told The Hollywood Reporter. “Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate.”

“Sulu” never had a romantic interest in the original Star Trek, but he did have a daughter named “Demora” who first appeared in the movie Star Trek: Generations. Takei told The Hollywood Reporter that “Demora” was born from a fling with “a very athletic, powerful and stunningly gorgeous woman.”

Takei said he learned of Sulu’s planned outing last year, and urged filmmakers to make a new character gay instead.

“I said, ‘This movie is going to be coming out on the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, the 50th anniversary of paying tribute to Gene Roddenberry, the man whose vision it was carried us through half a century,’” Takei said. “Honor him and create a new character, I urged them. [Director Justin Lin] left me feeling that that was going to happen.”

Takei’s sentiments have appalled many of his fellow progressives, who bashed him for not being fully on-board the progress train. Said one representative tweet:

I’m so mad @GeorgeTakei. How dare you wish to take away what little positive movement we have in LGBTQ representation! You, of all people.

(For more from the author of “Liberals Rip George Takei for Not Liking His Star Trek Character Being Made Gay” please click HERE)

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Billionaire Child Sex Offender Epstein Co-Founded Clinton Foundation per Alan Dershowitz Letter

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Attorneys for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein touted his close friendship with Bill Clinton and even claimed the billionaire helped start Clinton’s controversial family foundation in a 2007 letter aimed at boosting his image during plea negotiations, FoxNews.com has learned.

The 23-page letter, written by high-powered lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Gerald Lefcourt, was apparently part of an ultimately successful bid to negotiate a plea deal before Epstein could be tried for using underage girls in a sex ring based in Palm Beach, Fla., and his private island estate on the 72-acre Virgin Islands home dubbed “Orgy Island.” Epstein spent 13 months in prison and home detention after agreeing to a plea deal in which he admitted to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.

“Mr. Epstein was part of the original group that conceived the Clinton Global Initiative, which is described as a project ‘bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” read the July 2007 letter to the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida. “Focuses of this initiative include poverty, climate change, global health, and religious and ethnic conflicts.”

The hedge fund magnate’s true role in creating the foundation could not be confirmed. Whether Epstein was an actual founder of the foundation or exaggerated his role in a phony effort to appear altruistic is not clear.

Epstein is not cited in official paperwork filed by the Clinton Global Initiative as a founder or director. Neither The Clinton Foundation nor Dershowitz responded to FoxNews.com’s inquiry as to the extent of Epstein’s involvement. FoxNews.com first reported that flight logs show the former president flew on Epstein’s private plane dozens of times. But Clinton has publicly credited longtime assistant Doug Band, now counselor and director of the foundation, as conceiving of the idea. (Read more from “Billionaire Sex Offender Epstein Once Claimed He Co-Founded Clinton Foundation” HERE)

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