Continuing where we left off on my
last blog posting, a controversial gender identity policy may lead to the
ousting of several school board members in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Judicial Watch, a conservative
non-partisan watch group, says there’s evidence the policy was implemented
before it was voted on and before parents knew about it.
While school board elections
generally don’t drive voters to the polls, it did this time around.
Last May, school board members voted
to include transgender lessons as part of its nondiscrimination policy … against
the will of many parents in the district.
Judicial Watch found out the school
district began implementing the policy changes before voting on it earlier this
year. The decision was supposedly based
on accommodating transgender students. “Oh,
it’s clear even in the records we’ve gotten so far that they were off and
running that this was an objective of theirs, that they were acting on and
attempting to line up before any vote was ever taken. They were going to push this through no matter
what,” says Chris Farrell, with Judicial Watch, to CBN News.
Pilar Jones, a concerned parent,
said, “They’re cramming an agenda, their own agenda, down parents’ throats. We have no voice; we have a voice and they don’t
want to listen to us. They’ve ignored
us. So the time has come to change that.”
In April, Judicial Watch asked the
school board to provide documentation on the controversial gender identity
policy under the Freedom of Information Act.
“One of the school board members who wanted to abstain from voting
objected because there wasn’t enough data, wasn’t enough information,” Farrell
explained. “It hadn’t been debated very
much. This seems to be something that
was directed and propelled out of the Obama Administration’s federal Department
of Education.”
The school board delayed turning
over the documents and filed a lawsuit against Judicial Watch to prevent their
release until after the election (November 3, 2015). “They went into court and sued Judicial Watch
because they know there is a smoking gun in those documents and they don’t want
parents to know any of that information until after the election,” said Andrea
Lafferty, with Traditional Values Coalition.
Parents opposed to the policy say
school board officials refused to hear their concerns. “It has no place in the school system. We have 17 failing schools throughout this
county and this is what they’re concerned with?” asked Lauren Appell, another
concerned parent. “I have girls and I am
deeply concerned with the fact that they [school board members] want to share
bathrooms with transgender kids. That
puts my children at risk and I’m not going to allow that.”
Fairfax County is the largest school
district in Virginia and the tenth largest in the country. Many say what happens here may have a domino
effect in school districts across the country.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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