Help Not Harm, Legislator Drops the Boom! – American Family Association of Indiana
Note: We are roughly at the halfway point in the Indiana General Assembly. Step one for a bill, committee hearings, ends today in the Senate. (It ended yesterday in the House.) Any bills that did not get a committee hearing and vote are “dead.” Next week “live” bills will switch chambers and go through the same three steps – a hearing and vote; floor amendments; then a final vote. Bill numbers do not change. Next week, (not these I discuss here today) if I mention a House bill, you will call your Senator and your Representative in the House for a Senate bill.
The Help Not Harm Bill
Senate Bill 480 is up for a hearing this morning in the Senate Health and Provider Services Committee. This bill would prohibit doctors and surgeons from prescribing dangerous puberty-blocking drugs or performing sexual mutilation surgeries on minor children.
The left and the media will flip out over this bill, but there are all sorts of things we do not allow minors to do or decide, even when there is a constitutional right like the 2ndAmendment available to them, but only as adults. Experimental life-altering drugs and surgeries because of mental confusion is something that could do harm and have lasting negative consequences. Stating that a child should not do this until after puberty as an adult when they are better able to make such a major decision is a reasonable public policy.
Several states have passed laws like this. Indiana should too. In fact, Florida is one of those states. The Agency for Health Care Administration recently said of these procedures that they are: “Not consistent with widely accepted professional medical standards and are experimental and investigational with the potential for harmful long-term effects.”
You can call your Senator in support of SB 480 at 317-232-9400.
You can find your Senator here: https://iga.in.gov/legislative/find-legislators/
The Buck Stops Here
Last week there was a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Senate Bill 12. This bill seeks to protect children from sexually explicit materials in schools and libraries.
The bill was amended to limit it to schools. While that’s not what I would want, one could say that in a public library, children are often there with their parents, and they are there by choice. A child must be in a school by law, and their parent is not with them. They are a captive audience if there are things minor children should not have to read or see.
The bill also added a required process for complaints in schools about such books. Schools must respond to those complaints. There would be a public record of such concerns.
SB 12 is still a good bill that needs to pass. Parents did a good job testifying about some of the filth in students’ books. However, things got interesting at one point when one Senator decided to drop the hammer on the defenders of filth.
The teachers’ unions used to feign support for parental rights by saying they support parental rights but just don’t like a bill about it. Those days are gone. They are now full-on woke.
Senator Jim Buck had enough of this folly. After one ISTA representative testified, Jim went straight for the jugular. He asked, “May I ask you . . . What part of pornography do you find educational?”
Boom! There it was. The lobbyist complained, “that is not a fair question.” Jim wouldn’t let her off that easy and repeated the question. She had no credible answer.
It was a great reality check in a building where common sense is not that common.
Crazy versus Normal
On Monday I testified in support of HB 1608 which passed the House Education Committee 9-4 on a party-line vote. This bill prohibits a school from discussing gender identity or any other human sexuality issue with young children in Kindergarten through 3rd grade. (Such issues should be between a 5- or 6-year-old and his parents.)
The leftists were out in force (mostly college students from my observation) shouting down speakers, chanting, screaming, and making constant noise outside the House chamber and inside it too (some were removed by police). That’s “tolerance” for you in 2023.
As I sat there waiting to testify, as numerous trans activists spoke, I read my phone to keep my sanity. However, my head popped up when I heard a liberal “pastor” complain about “2,000-year-old scriptures.”
Did you catch that? A pastor of a church was dismissing the Bible. It’s like a mechanic saying, “who needs the Chilton’s manual for a car?” His theology was all about his view of postmodern love. It did not involve any contextual teachings (love and truth always go together) that God put in his word and accurately preserved by His sovereignty over centuries for our good. That’s how crazy it gets in the Statehouse sometimes.
When I left the building, I had some LGBT activists follow me across the parking lot chanting “we say gay.” (It just made me want to laugh, but it also confirms that there is an agenda to reach little children with corrupting adult sexual concepts that an innocent 7-year-old should not have to confront.)
Good Investments, Not Political Agendas
There is a bill that came out of the House Ways & Means Committee yesterday that I hope passes both chambers, even though it was significantly curtailed by the author.
House Bill 1008 in its original form would require those in state government, such as the State Treasurer, to invest state funds based on financial items, like fund safety, income, and capital growth—not on political agendas that could destroy Indiana companies, particularly fossil fuel companies. Such politically based investing in “woke” corporate funds is commonly known ESG – Environment, Social, and Governance.
According to a recent survey by the Center for Excellence in Polling, 73% of likely voters in Indiana oppose investing taxpayer money in banks and investment funds that make business decisions based on their political agenda. Most Republicans (78%), Democrats (71%), and Independents (70%) are strongly opposed to ESG, though you may not see that reflected in most news stories about this legislation.
In Their Own Words:
“Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.” – Dwight Eisenhower
