What starts in California, doesn’t stay in California. We’ve been saying that for years. And late last week, liberal California Governor Gavin Newsom did his best—again—to ensure that saying is true.
Newsom, who seems to be making a pitch to run for president in 2024, this past summer and even as recently as last week, signed into law bills that assist him in promoting the state as “a sanctuary state” for abortion.[1]
But Newsom apparently has no intention of stopping with abortion. Late Thursday evening, this Democrat governor who survived a recall last year, signed a bill that empowers California courts to remove out-of-state children from their parent’s custody if those children come to California because they can’t get sterilizing transgender drugs and mutilating surgeries in their home states or because their parents object to these experimental treatments for gender dysphoria.
Our friends at California Family Council worked hard to stop the bill in the legislature and to pressure Newsom into vetoing—to no avail. Jonathan Keller, president of the Council, says, the new law “endangers every young person in the nation who experiences gender dysphoria” and that “[b]y signing this extreme bill, Gavin Newsom is telling all parents across the country that he knows what’s best for their children.”[2]
The California legislature’s non-partisan Legislative Counsel’s Digest spells out some alarming specifics of the law, stating, for instance, “The bill would authorize a court to take temporary jurisdiction because a child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care” and “[t]he bill would additionally prohibit a court from considering the taking or retention of a child from a person who has legal custody of the child, if the taking or retention was for obtaining gender-affirming health care or mental health care.”
Our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom offer some insights as well, noting the law “violates parental rights protected by the U.S. Constitution by giving
California courts the ability to strip parents who reside in another state of their parental rights if their child travels to California to obtain gender transition procedures—including harmful puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible surgeries. It also denies parents the right to have access to their child’s medical information.”
Alliance Defending Freedom also warns parents, that “[a]long with violating the Constitution and federal law, this bill would lead to significant harm to families throughout the country. For example: An unfit parent about to lose custody could travel to California with the child, give the child puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, and in doing so win custody under [this law], even if the home-state court has already entered judgment on the case.
Consider for instance, that under this law, parents whose child visits a relative in California could lose custody of their child forever if the relative persuades the child to identify as a different gender during the visit. Parents of children who never travel to California could be denied medical information about their child if the child obtains puberty blockers from a doctor in California via telemedicine.[3]
This egregious law contains much more that endangers children and robs parents of their rights. Of course, it’s begging for a lawsuit; and I’m sure more than one will be filed in the days ahead.
However, for us in Wisconsin this should be yet another very clear example of the truth that elections have consequences. A law like this doesn’t happen anywhere unless there are elected state legislators willing to author it and vote for it as well as a governor willing to sign it.
It’s not as if the bill had no opposition. It did. Lots of it from powerful testimonies in the public hearings to national and state organizations coalescing in efforts to stop the bill from ever reaching the governor and then putting pressure on Newsom not to sign it. But these elected officials audaciously did exactly what they wanted to do and not only pandered to the LGBTQ+ activists but more importantly put children in real danger and trounced horrifically on parental rights.
This California situation be an incredible motivator for Christians to vote in the upcoming election and to vote in a way that truly honors God because what happens in California really doesn’t stay in California.
This is Julaine Appling for Wisconsin Family Council reminding you the prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
[1]https://www.kusi.com/california-sanctuary-state-for-abortion/
[2] https://www.californiafamily.org/2022/09/gov-newsom-signs-bill-to-strip-children-from-parents-to-medically-transgender-them/
[3] https://drive.google.com/file/d/11ecOZPMx3uOyqASMmm0y8REJeJP5gVWu/view
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