Corporations Committee Considers Gender References

Rep. Daniel Zwonitzer testifies before the House Corporations, Elections & Political Subdivisions Committee, of which he is the chairman, on Jan. 26. (Andrew Graham/WyoFile)

The Joint Interim Corporations Committee met in Sundance on Nov. 20. Their unusually full hearing room was abuzz with nearly 70 people who wanted to weigh in on the draft bill called “Statutory Gender References.”

This is a rehash of HB 212, which failed in last February’s General Session despite the last-minute flurry of effort by Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, co-sponsor of the bill and chair of the committee that sent it to the house.

The summary of the bill says that it is to “amend archaic language; [and] codify rights of parties legally authorized to marry in Wyoming…” In plain English, “Statutory Gender References” (SGR) changes more than 60 Wyoming laws in one fell swoop. The bulk of these changes are in Title 14 regarding child custody.

The “archaic language” that it targets is virtually every reference to husband or wife, male or female, his or her, mother or father, man or woman, paternity, widow – anything that might specify a legal distinction between the sexes.

But it’s more than an exercise in search and replace. It alters the very definition of “parent” at its core. The net effect of its drastic re-orienting of child custody law is to change fundamentally Wyoming family law.

For this reason, some objected that SGR violates Article 3, Section 24 of Wyoming’s Constitution, “No bill, except general appropriation bills and bills for the codification and general revision of the laws, shall be passed containing more than one subject…” SGR’s sponsors generally painted it as a mere “general revision of the laws.” But when Zwonitzer said, “I do believe this is a fundamental bill,” he seemed to agree with the objectors’ point.

Certainly, there are sections which merely clarify existing laws. For instance, it amends various property and civil laws by replacing the words “husband and wife” with “spouses,” and in Title 15 it replaces “policeman” with “police officer.” But these relatively innocuous changes are the smallest part of the bill.

The bulk of it (27 out of the bill’s 43 pages) is concerned with changing either child custody laws (Title 14), marriage laws (Title 20) or birth certificates (Title 35). 

Current law defines “parent” as either the “legal guardian,” “natural parent” or “adoptive parent.” The SGR law would add a fourth definition of parent: “a person adjudged as parent...in judicial proceedings.” This creates a new category of parent and, along with it, a new power for the courts.

Natural parents are created by God when conception takes place. At that moment, a new child has a natural father and a mother. Governments recognize these relationships but don’t make them. Courts get involved only if natural parents give their parental rights to others. This is called adoption. Courts oversee it to make sure nobody is exploited. But, again, they only recognize what others have done.

In some circumstances, a court may assign that legal guardianship for the welfare of the child. But, even here, it cannot deny the reality of natural parentage. Courts have never held the authority to make or unmake natural parents. SGR would change that.

This new  category, “person adjudged as parent,” draws on language already present in Wyoming statute but falls into the error of equivocation. It uses the same term with a different meaning than before.

The current term, “adjudicated father,” is not a different kind of father. It is the natural father as determined by the evidence presented in a court of law. When we see a child, nobody asks if it has a father, only who the father is. We also know that our pool of candidates is immediately narrowed to the Y-chromosome crowd.

What is new in SGR is that adjudication is no longer about discovering the truth but denying it. Adjudicated parentage, under SGR, disregards the fact that a child already has both a natural mother and a natural father. In their place, and quite apart from adoption laws or legal guardianship protocols, the court simply declares a person (male or female) to be “a father” of the child, but not necessarily “the father.”

Yes, you read that right. Under Title 35-1-411 SGR explicitly adds the word “she,” to the section where “the person to be named as the father sign[s] an affidavit of paternity.” This deliberately creates the possibility that a woman could be named as “a father” simply by signing an affidavit.

Until now, Wyoming family law has steered a neutral path in debates over assisted reproduction. 14-2-403 (d) explicitly declines to authorize surrogacy in the state of Wyoming. But, without coming clean in its summary statement, SGR inserts paragraphs into Title 14-2-904 and 905 that would create a new legal framework for surrogacy!

Under this proposed framework, fatherhood can be made by judicial fiat. Not only that, but a claim to paternity can also be denied on the mere ground that two people have previously been assigned parental rights, and it makes no difference whether either of them is the natural father, or even an “adjudicated father.”

Finally, there is another curious consequence of these changes. Thirty-eight times, SGR replaces the word “father” with “parent,” and an additional 14 times, it replaces “paternity” with “parentage.” The net result of this neutering frenzy is not to keep things neuter. On the contrary, it opens the door for courts to meddle in matters of maternity where the natural maternity is not in the slightest doubt.

For 5,000 years of recorded history, motherhood has been the easiest of all relationships to establish. The blood, sweat and tears of labor are the irrevocable badge of motherhood. Witnessed by doctors, nurses and midwives there is never any question about who the mother of a child might be.

Under SGR, a bloodless piece of legal parchment would trump even the fact of a child issuing forth from a woman in labor. Any person -- male or female, single or married -- could sign a legal document that claims motherhood and strips the pregnant woman of any maternal rights to care for the child that she is bearing.

This doesn’t fill gaps in Wyoming family law, it creates them. Current laws safeguard the parent-child relationship established either by conception or by adoption. The creation of a new “adjudicated parent” category and surrogacy laws that enable the purchase of a woman’s maternal rights undermine those protections.

This fundamental overhaul of Wyoming family law is being presented as a mere update of “archaic language.” That is both disingenuous and dangerous.

Children should not be pawns in an ideological game. Laws should not be written that establish obvious falsehoods as legal truth. The government has no legitimate power to break and remake the natural bonds of mother and father.

Thankfully, when SGR finally came to a vote, Senators Agar and Nethercott, together with Representatives Blackburn, Edwards, Eyre, Furphy, Lindholm and Lone, opposed the measure. Senators Case, Pappas, Scott and Sweeny joined Representatives Byrd and Zwonitzer approving the bill.

Even though the nays prevailed last Monday by an 8-6 margin, don’t think that this is the last you will hear of it. Already at the meeting co-sponsors Zwonitzer and Connolly indicated that it would be brought up again during the budget session.

Further Reading:
WyoFile: Perspectives: the Sundance Fallout from Two Sides
Daily Signal: "GOP Congressman, Trent Franks to Resign for having discussion of surrogacy with female staffers"

Dennis Prager Visits UW Campus

Two weeks ago, I didn’t know very much about Dennis Prager. I had heard his name and had seen a couple of his videos from Prager University. But I didn’t even know that he has been a nationally syndicated columnist and radio host for 35 years.

So, I’m truly thankful that the Wyoming Tribune Eagle publicized the “Protest Dennis Prager” Facebook page (Conservative Firebrand Dennis Prager to Visit UW, Nov. 3, 2017). It gave me a reason to listen to Dennis Prager himself and compare that with how he was characterized in the newspaper.

I am also thankful to the UW chapter of Turning Point USA and their President, Jessica Leach. Given the vitriol that was aimed at their group and the physical violence experienced by both guest and host at Middlebury College, bringing Mr. Prager to Wyoming required considerable bravery on her part.

Credit should also be given to UW President Laurie Nichols. A protester wrote, “This will be another Milo situation,” invoking the vandalism, riots and costly property damage that happened at Berkley. Whether these were being threatened or merely predicted, the administration was put in a hard place. Thankfully, it did not cower. Bravo!

Nichols wrote, “I encourage our university community to consider that the principles of free speech and campus inclusiveness should not be mutually exclusive; that is, they should not conflict with, but rather reinforce each other. Inclusiveness is about widening the circle of voices, including more perspectives from different backgrounds, all free to speak, free to disagree, free to discuss and debate.”

Wyoming can be proud of the way our students and administration handled themselves. The handful of protesters at the event were respectful and caused no property damage. The event was filled to capacity by an attentive and appreciative audience. The Q & A following Prager’s speech was thoughtful and measured.

Prager began his speech by talking about the rhetoric from the Protest Dennis Prager Facebook page, which called him “a racist, homophobic, xenophobic, red-baiting, anti-academic, climate-denying, rape apologist,” and a comment which called him an “anti-Semite.” The life-long, practicing orthodox Jew pointed to his published books on the Torah and Jewish concerns and asked if it's reasonable to accuse a man of hating himself. The irony that a Jew should be accused of anti-Semitism during Holocaust Education Week is over the top.

Not only did Prager call out the slander, he addressed the bigger problem saying, “[We have] a crisis in America. The crisis is the creation of lies about decent people. And it needs to be acknowledged for what it is – lies about decent people.” Differing with others is not the problem, he said. “But there is a very big difference between differing with people and throwing the worst possible labels onto a human being who doesn’t deserve it.”

He went on, “Aside from smearing decent people, which is in itself a terrible thing, what [these people] are doing is they are completely undermining the fight against real racism, real white supremacy, real misogyny, real xenophobia.”

“When the real Nazis and anti-Semites and racists and misogynists and white supremacists show up, there will be no vocabulary left.” By using such terms as weaponized labels, stripped of their meaning, it strips us all of the ability to fight against real evil.

After an extended discussion of these points, Prager got to the main theme of his talk, “Why Socialism Makes People Selfish.” His answer to this question begins with a simple observation: “The only thing that has ever raised large numbers of people from abject poverty is capitalism.”

Nothing else in the history of humanity has had such widespread positive impact on people. This fact can be established by pages of statistics, historical data, and sociological theories. But the simplest way to see it is to remember that immigrants from all over the world seek to enter America because of her freedom.

Capitalism, after all, is not some economic theory devised by eggheads and taught in universities. Capitalism is simply a name for what happens when people are free. It is not imposed from top down. It is the form that freedom takes in the marketplace.

If you are interested in lifting the greatest possible number of people out of abject poverty, you will be interested in free markets. But socialism is interested in something else. Socialism is interested in equality. For socialists, inequality of any kind is a problem to be solved.

Here’s the problem: The freedom to be different is the very freedom that makes inequalities – differences. The only way to solve the problem of inequality is to take away the freedom to be different. Similarly, capitalism is full of inequalities because capitalism is full of freedoms.

Prager said, “inequality only bothers people who are bothered by inequality.” Of course, that’s redundant. But it is profoundly true. The mere fact that someone may have more than I have need not bother me in the least. I can choose to covet, but I don’t have to, and it serves no good purpose.

Socialism’s obsession with equality cannot help but lead to covetousness. Karl Marx was not ignorant of this. He counted on it. The Marxist state depends on people set against each other, and fostering covetousness does this better than anything.

The God of the Bible, on the other hand, explicitly teaches us not to be covetous. He teaches people to be content with what they have and to live at peace with all people. It is precisely for this reason that the communist state was at perpetual war with Christianity. How can you foment class warfare when people are content with what they have?

This theological observation creates observable results in free nations. Citing statistics from a Johns Hopkins study of charity (Forbes (Dec. 26, 2008), Prager pointed out that “Americans give more to charity per capita than any other people in the world.” Conversely, “Among developed nations, those with higher taxes and bigger social safety nets tend to have lower rates of giving.”

This is a fascinating fact, which deserves an explanation. Prager answers that America was founded on a basic hierarchy of needs: “I have to first take care of me, then my family, then my community, then my whole society… Socialism kills all four. The state will take care of me. The state will take care of my family. The state will take care of my community. The state will take care of my society.”

According to this explanation, socialism doesn’t make people selfish because of its failures. It does so because it is effective. Whether or not socialists intend to make people selfish, socialism as a system does just that. It is extremely effective at doing what it sets out to do.

But socialism does not set out to lift the maximum number of people out of poverty. That’s simply not its goal. Its goal is equality, achieved at the price of freedom. In order to accomplish this, it sets out to teach selfishness. At this it is very good.

Prager gave a challenging and invigorating talk. There is much here to ponder and still more to research. President Nichols’ words are worth hearing again: “Inclusiveness is about widening the circle of voices, including more perspectives from different backgrounds, all free to speak, free to disagree, free to discuss and debate.”

I am thankful to have heard Prager’s speech. It was recorded and placed on YouTube. I would encourage you to hear it for yourself.

Third Annual WPN Conference

Gender and Sexuality

November 14, 2017

10:00am Navigating the LGBT Issue with Grace and Truth Based on his book, "Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor, Glenn shows how these do not make up a monolithic community but persons with different characteristics and needs. This informative and sensitive presentation breaks down the letters of the LGBT acronym helping us to love with grace and truth. PowerPoint slides.

1:30pm Marriage as Gospel from Genesis to Revelation Sometimes we become so wrapped up in the cultural jargon of our day that we can lose sight of the forest for the trees. Glenn takes us through the over-arching Biblical narrative beginning with the marriage of Adam and Eve and culminating with the marriage feast of the Lamb. PowerPoint Slides.

3:30pm Manhood as Social Construct In this provocatively titled presentation, Glenn explains how manhood is developed differently than womanhood. From this perspective, he explains the challenges we face today in passing along genuine masculinity to the next generation. PowerPoint slides.

PRESENTER:

Glenn T. Stanton is the director of Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family. He debates and lectures extensively on the issues of gender, sexuality, marriage and parenting at universities and churches around the world.

Stanton also served the George W. Bush administration for many years as a consultant on increasing fatherhood involvement in the Head Start program.

Stanton is the author of eight books on marriage and families and a regular columnist for various blogs. His latest book, “Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor: Being Friends in Grace and Truth,” explores how Christians should interact with gay or lesbian neighbors in a Christ-honoring way. He is also the co-writer of “Irreplaceable” a film seen in theatres nationwide, and the co-author and creator of “The Family Project,” a 12-session small group DVD curriculum produced by Focus on the Family.

Stanton earned bachelor’s degree in philosophy, communication arts and religion and a master’s degree in philosophy, history and religion from the University of West Florida.

Science, Religion and the HHS Mission Statement

The US Department of Health and Human Services recently described its mission as “serving and protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception.” A statement like this should draw cheers from every quarter.

It should not be controversial for an agency created to protect “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to include all human life in its mission goals. Sadly, what shouldn’t be controversial, is.

The HHS has since revised its Mission Statement to omit the phrase “beginning at conception.” We can no longer know whether it is concerned with all Americans, or only some of them.

I don’t know what forces conspired to purge this language from the HHS Mission Statement. But I do know that some critics thought that protecting human life from the moment of conception violated “the separation of church and state.” That accusation needs to be answered.

First, a point of fact. The phrase “separation of church and state” is not found in the Constitution. Not even the idea is found in the Constitution. The Constitution was designed to allow the church, and church members to have full-throated participation in the government without having to deny their faith as the cost of doing business.

The non-establishment clause, the free exercise clause, and explicit prohibitions against a religious test for public office are all designed to let people of faith into the government, not to keep them out.

Building on this point of fact, we must make a second point. It is a highly dangerous practice to use labels in place of sound reasoning. If we allow viewpoints to be excluded from the public square just because they are “religious,” without actually considering whether they are true, we will all become idiots.

Imagine living in a society where those in power could overturn the plain truth simply by calling it “religious.” In fact, you don’t have to imagine it. We are dangerously close to this already.

Progressive ideology is in the process of dismantling and marginalizing any number of the most basic facts of human well-being, facts which were universally understood only a few years ago. If this dangerous trend is not stopped, none of us can guess which truths will be overturned next.

Let me emphasize that phrase, “none of us.” The previous paragraph was not intended to be partisan. It doesn’t matter which side of the aisle is attacking the truth. When the truth falls, both sides are hurt in unpredictable ways.

So, a third point is this: basic biology is not a distinctly religious belief. It is common knowledge which does not require any divine revelation or ecclesiastical authority to prop it up.

Believers take a lot of unjust criticism for being unscientific and gullible on points of basic knowledge. In cases where believers make moral judgments in agreement with non-believers, based on the very best modern embryology, it should call for dancing in the streets, rather than more unjust criticism.

Having made these three general points, let’s look at basic embryology to see if the HHS statement was sound.

I was recently privileged to hear Dr. Maureen Condic, associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine. On a Saturday in September she laid out for us the amazing details of the first moments of human life.

The most fundamental fact of modern biology is that your body is continually replicating cells both to grow new tissue and to replace dying cells. From the day you were born, you have been growing and thriving through this process. Even though your cells are continually changing, you still remain you.

As we trace you back in time, we know that entire organs both come into being and mature at different points in your history. All of this is directed by the genetic code found in every one of your cells.

The science of embryology has traced this continual development all the way back to a single-cell organism called the zygote. What is most amazing about a zygote is that it is entirely self-contained and self-directed.

Just as your current body grows, matures, and repairs damage on its own – so long as you have a safe environment and adequate nutrients – so also a zygote. From the moment you came into being as a zygote, you had absolutely everything you needed to grow, mature, and repair yourself – so long as you had a source of nutrition and a safe environment.

Put another way, your mother’s body didn’t add anything to your being. All the womb does is to provide a safe environment and adequate nutrition. Otherwise, the developing embryo is completely self-sufficient.

In fact, while the womb is the usual place for the development of the child, there have been several amazing cases where a child was nurtured to full term in ectopic pregnancies. In Ogden, in 1999, a bouncing baby named Sage Dalton was delivered by C-section after developing fully to term outside her mother’s womb. There have even been four documented cases of children being brought to full term in their mothers’ livers!

Given that from the zygote stage onward, we are fully independent and self-directed organisms, let’s have a close look at the moment when the zygote comes into being.

One critic of the HHS Mission Statement claimed that “no new life is formed [when the zygote comes into being since] “the egg and the sperm were already alive.” This argument was published recently in the Las Angeles Times by Dr. Richard Paulson.

But everyone has already known since the days of Louis Pasteur that all life arises from life. Nobody would ever claim that a new life could possibly arise from non-living material. The question is this: when does a new life come into being?

The simple scientific answer to this question can be answered by comparing both the makeup and the function of the cells that come together, with the zygote that results from their coming together.

The makeup of the living sperm cell is purely the genetic material of the father. The function of the sperm cell is to move toward an egg (oocyte) and fertilize it. Once it has reached its goal, the sperm cell ceases to be. It dissolves altogether so that it no longer has its original makeup and it can no longer do what it was designed to do.

The egg, likewise, is made up totally of the genetic material of the mother. Its function is to receive fertilization from a sperm cell. Once this happens, not only does its genetic makeup change by the addition of the sperm cell’s material, but it no longer functions as an egg.

Immediately, the new cell secretes chemicals which prevent any further fertilization. It no longer acts like an egg at all. That’s why embryologists don’t call it a “fertilized egg.” There is no such thing. It is a human zygote, a new single-celled human being who will grow to maturity if fed and sheltered.

None of this is special revelation from heaven. We can see it with a microscope. Standard textbooks on embryology don’t establish “religion,” just common knowledge. Those that use the “religion” label to set aside plain truth are simultaneously attacking religion and science.

Someone at Health and Human Services wanted their Mission Statement to reflect the truth. Let’s hope that someday it will.