Everyone should stand up for local control

Photo credit: Anna Samoylova on Unsplash

Tuesday will mark a troubling anniversary for Wyoming parents. It was on August 2, 2021, that the Vice Chair of LCSD1, Marguerite Herman, shut down a board meeting leaving the voices of concerned citizens unheard. Rather than ask security to usher out the solitary unruly speaker, she asked security to usher out the peaceful public.

Bewildered parents were left to wonder why the democratic process was halted based on the misbehavior of one individual. Suspicions that the abrupt adjournment was a pretense to throttle the voice of parents, were further stirred when the Biden White House secretly solicited a letter from the National School Board Association (NSBA) and pre-approved its language. The now-infamous letter called parental objections “the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism.”

Rather than publicly condemning the letter, Wyoming School Board Association Executive Director, Brian Farmer, distanced his organization from the letter and claimed to have privately expressed his objections to the NSBA. Meanwhile, he doubled down by asserting, without evidence, “We have seen instances of some of these things in Wyoming.” 

The letter has since been scrubbed from the NSBA website, and its board has apologized for the actions of its executives. But it has never asked the Department of Justice to disregard the letter and to rescind the DOJ memo that was released as a preplanned response to the letter. To this day, concerned parents remain in the crosshairs of the DOJ.

What are these parents concerned about? They are concerned about Critical Theory’s influence on Wyoming educators. They are concerned about how mask mandates threaten both the mental and physical health of their children. They are concerned about pornographic literature circulated in school libraries. They are concerned about radical gender ideologies that compromise the safety of sex-segregated spaces, and the fairness of women’s sports.

More than anything, parents are concerned that their parental authority to direct the education of their minor children is being disrespected, discounted, and denied. But parents have an ally in the State Superintendent of Public Schools. In early July, he penned a nine-page memo to the legislators of Wyoming that outlines a way forward for the children and parents of Wyoming.

Brian Schroeder

Fundamental to his vision is that schools must “be irrevocably protected by local control.” Schools should reflect the communities in which they operate. They should not be beholden to outside “stakeholders,” whether private billionaires, like Bill Gates, or public agencies, like the USDA. 

Outside “stakeholders” do not operate through properly elected and properly accountable authority structures. Instead, they leverage money and privilege to advance elitist agendas. A good example of the threat to local control is the way the Biden Administration recently leveraged the federal student lunch program to intimidate school districts into adopting its radical agenda.

The Goshen County School District very nearly fell prey to this strong-arm tactic. At its June 14 meeting, board chairman, Zachary Miller, introduced numerous updates to its discrimination policy. The claim that they were required by the USDA resulted in unanimous approval. When concerned parents learned of the dangerous resolution, they worked with well-meaning board members to expose the USDA overreach and rejected it resoundingly at the July 12 meeting.

More recently another “stakeholder,” the Wyoming Education Association, began offering “no-cost training to Wyoming educators.” Such an offering sounds like a great deal to school districts strapped for cash that, nevertheless, require teacher in-service training. But, upon closer inspection, the “Safe & Just Schools Cadre” is designed to indoctrinate teachers with Critical Theory. The raised and clenched fist in its logo makes that clear.

“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” That’s the lesson of the Trojan Horse. It still applies today. Parents across Wyoming should educate themselves on the content of every single teacher in-service that is brought to their school. They should give special scrutiny to those that are offered for free. Just as the USDA reminded us that there is no free school lunch. So, the WEA demonstrates that free indoctrination sessions can be extremely costly.

Brian Schroeder understands this. He is actively looking for ways to resist a thousand behind-the-scenes ways that would strip parents of local control. He needs your help. He needs parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles to run for school boards across the state. Don’t think that you need to be a parent to run. Bill Gates is not a parent to any Wyoming children, but he has an outsized, outsider voice in Wyoming education.

Beginning August 8, you can file to run in your local school board election. Now is the time to identify well-informed citizens who will stand for local control—even when it means declining free money. Encourage them to run. Run yourself. Don’t think someone else will do it. Local control is up to everyone.

UW’s Inclusion Council should be more inclusive.

Photo credit: Caleb Holden on Unsplash

Wyoming’s first-ever female Senator came home from D.C. with something to say. When Cynthia Lummis addressed the families, friends, and faculty of the University of Wyoming’s class of 2022, it wasn’t with mindless bromides. She brought three important points.

First, she quoted her friend and fellow Cowboy, Haley Micheli Davis, who observed: “It’s hard work to teach children to work hard.” Under this heading, Lummis exhorted today’s graduates and tomorrow’s parents to take their vocation seriously. Parenting requires that we put down the phone and be present to others. This not only blesses them; it blesses us. “By giving your attention to others, with intention,” Lummis said, “you give yourself a gift.”

The second point came from, Jody Levine, a woman named Outstanding University of Wyoming Alumna in 2018. “If you think you are the smartest person in the room,” she said, “you are in the wrong room.” 

Lummis observed: “[A]t no time since the 16th century has the world been in as disruptive, transformative times as you are now entering.” The Industrial Age is over, she said. “To excel in this Information Age, you will need to constantly learn, constantly grow, constantly challenge yourself.”

The “transformations and disruptions” of our era are challenging the very freedoms that make learning and growing possible. Lummis warned, “There are those in government who believe not that the Creator endowed us with inalienable rights …but that government created those rights, and that government should redefine those rights—including our rights to freedom of speech, religion, property, assembly, and to keep and bear arms.”

First in her list of examples, she said, “Even fundamental scientific truths, such as the existence of two sexes, male and female, are subject to challenge these days.” After a brief interruption, she completed her list: “I personally question how, under our Constitution, we could forbid in-person worship services during a time of pandemic, while labeling liquor stores essential, and keeping them open. And how the creation of a government disinformation board is not an affront to free speech.”

Senator Cynthia Lummis

It’s not every speaker who can lead her audience spontaneously to prove her point. But Lummis did. No sooner had she asserted that “the existence of two sexes, male and female, are subject to challenge these days,” some in the audience challenged her statement. Quod erat demonstrandum.

It is no secret that some—even on the UW campus—go so far as to challenge the existence of two sexes. What is fascinating about this incident is that UW’s taxpayer-supported Inclusion Council immediately denounced Senator Lummis’ words as having a “harmful impact,” and being “marginalizing.” 

To date, the University’s Zoology & Physiology Department has not weighed in on the controversy. Scientists are, of course, aware that the intersex phenomenon happens in the animal kingdom as it happens in human biology. But they are inclusive enough to acknowledge the existence of such animals without denying the fundamental fact that there remain two sexes. Perhaps the Inclusion Council would benefit from attending some of the department’s classes to learn how this is done.

Does UW’s Inclusion Council recognize that its own press release marginalizes a large portion of the student body and countless alumni, like Lummis? One would hope that advocates for diversity would aggressively defend a diverse array of perspectives. They should consider the ENTIRE university community before issuing a public statement that marginalizes those who agree with Wyoming’s first female senator.

This incident would be comical if it were not such a serious affront to basic human rights. Just exactly as Lummis warned, “There are those in government who believe not that the Creator endowed us with inalienable rights …but that government created those rights, and that government should redefine those rights—including our rights to freedom of speech...”

The Inclusion Council, which is a governmental entity, introduced the topic of free speech with these ominous words: “While, as a public institution, we respect the rights of free expression…” Note the qualification. It does not categorically and unreservedly respect the right of free expression but only “as a public institution.” 

If UW’s Inclusion Council were not frustrated by its status as a government entity, it might use its power to throttle Lummis and all who agree with her. Considering the climate of censorship on Twitter and Facebook, such a muted endorsement of free expression is more than concerning. It brings a special urgency to Lummis’ third, and final point. 

Citing best-selling author, Eric Metaxas, she reminded us: “We are, ourselves, in this moment, the keepers of the flame of liberty.” When government entities, like UW’s Inclusion Council, fail to protect human rights, it becomes the duty of everyone. Lummis said, “The Constitution’s charter of self-governance requires the civic engagement of all who call themselves ‘Americans.’” Q.E.D.

Pandora’s Box and the Innocence of Minors

Pandora's Box, Sebastian Becker

Before there was “Crosby, Stills, and Nash,” Stephen Stills and Neil Young spent two years in a band called “Buffalo Springfield,” which released three albums and one smash hit. Exactly 55 years ago, “For What It’s Worth” was on its way to a No. 7 peak on Billboard’s hot 100 list.

“There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.” This iconic song became the anthem of Vietnam war-protests. But when it was first performed on Thanksgiving Day, 1966, Kent State was four years in the future. Stills was talking about the Sunset Strip Riots.

Pandora’s Box, a nightclub that catered to teenage partiers, was about to be bulldozed. On November 12, 1966, teens staged a sit-in that turned violent. Stills witnessed it on his way to a gig, and the song was born. Later, he mused, “Riot is a ridiculous name, it was a funeral for Pandora’s Box. But it looked like a revolution.”

That, I think, is why the song is so famous. It captured a feeling in the air. While revolutionary events are in process, few contemporaries notice. Stills did, and his words beckon us to do the same.

Buffalo Springfield

There is, indeed, something happening today. Pandora’s Box has been opened and has unleashed war upon us. In the fog of that war, it is difficult to know exactly “what it is.” But our moment screams for everybody to “look what’s going down.” If we don’t, we will fall under the same harsh judgment that we pronounce on others. 

Consider past cultures that failed to understand their own times and to stand against massive evils that we now see with 20/20 hindsight. How could the denizens of France not predict that a Reign of Terror would result from murdering priests and kings? Why didn’t more Russians stand against the murderous Bolsheviks who were gaining power? That mistake cost 100 million lives over the next 70 years. What devilry gripped the cultured, Bach-loving Germans? They allowed a madman to turn their industry and efficiency into a murder machine.

While Stills thought the Sunset Strip Riots were hardly riots at all, he couldn’t shake the sense that “something’s happening here.” They were more than another salvo in the Sexual Revolution. They crossed a new and significant line. On that night, the Sexual Revolution enveloped minor children.

The sit-in remained a peaceful protest until the stroke of 10 o’clock. At that time, the LAPD was tasked with enforcing the city’s curfew on minors. The people of Los Angeles had passed an ordinance to protect the innocence of children younger than 18. Push came to shove, and the Sunset Strip Riots were born.

The opening salvos of the Sexual Revolution were attacks on marriage. Its philosophical leaders, going back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Percy Shelley (1792-1822), were intent on destroying the sacred bond between husband and wife. Divorce, fornication, and adultery were means toward that end. 

But as the Revolution advanced, the crosshairs shifted to the children. “Free Love” was never the ultimate goal. It has always been a means toward an end. The goal is the breakdown of the family. Once the marriage vow is obliterated, the battle must shift to the natural bond between parent and child. While that remains, family bonds still have precedence.

Maybe Stills knew this consciously—maybe, only subconsciously. But children were the focus of his haunting refrain, “I think it’s time we stop, children. What’s that sound? Everybody, look what's going down.” Whether Stills intended this, or not, Carl S. Trueman painstakingly documents the sexualization of children in his new book, “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.”

This book is a must-read for parents and policy makers who are interested in the health and well-being of children. It helps to explain how the innocence of children came under attack through the militantly atheist philosophy of people like Shelly. It, further, documents how Sigmund Freud deliberately sexualized every aspect of childhood development—from breast-feeding to potty-training.

It is precisely at this point that school boards and library associations come into the picture. Statutes protecting minor children obligate state actors to respect parental rights. But these statutes hinder the agenda to dissolve the natural family and replace it with the state. 

Those who tell you that the arguments over objectionable books and curricula are about “free speech,” or about “access to information,” are either deceived, or deceiving. The fact remains that statutory age restrictions on sexual consent (statutory rape) and access to sexual content (e.g. Restricted films) are legal recognition of parental rights. Violation of these laws violate parental rights. Nobody has the right to interfere in the sacred relationship between parents and their own children.

Will we, as a lawful society, respect parents who guard the innocence of minors? Will we help them maintain their sole authority to educate their own children in family formation and emotional health?

Or, will we undermine parental rights and give ever more power to teachers’ unions and library associations to indoctrinate our children in the philosophical thought-stream that brought us the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks, and the Hitler Youth? 

According to legend, Pandora’s Box contains war. The nightclub that circumvented parental rights and brought the sexual revolution to minor children could not have been more appropriately named.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, January 14, 2022, the Cowboy State Daily, January 13, 2022, and the American Thinker. 

Families are a force of nature.

Photo credit: Jessica Rockowitz on Unsplash

A human family is the most basic unit of human society. Its bonds of love are a force of nature. No human being since Adam and Eve ever came into existence without exactly one father and one mother. At the very moment of conception, the bond of love between a husband and a wife creates two similar—and yet distinct—bonds of love between the father and the child, and between the mother and the child.

These velvet chains of love make individuals responsible to care for one another. When they prevail, all three people thrive in tangible ways. The husband and wife receive economic, social, and health benefits. The child receives an entire set of specific and unique benefits from his or her father. And that same child receives another set of specific and unique benefits from his or her mother. Thus, a family is the most effective welfare program in the universe.

Bonds of love are not interchangeable. Human families are not Tinkertoys that can be disassembled and rearranged without harming the persons in them. Bonds of love, once formed, cannot be broken without damaging people. That is why husbands and wives make life-long promises before governments and God. That is why every child has the right to the love of both natural parents.

These bonds make the family pre-political. Families exist before the city (polis) exists; and, cities are built by families. A city is neither a mere collection of buildings nor a commune of individuals. It is a community of families. That is the most basic of all political truths. It is the one thing that Democrats, Republicans, and every other party can agree on.

Just governments recognize and protect family rights. They treat marriage contracts at least as seriously as they treat business contracts. Just governments protect the natural rights that every child has to the love of both parents. Governments cannot create families. But they are obligated to support them.

Totalitarians of every stripe deny that governments are for families. Evil governments always set about to dissolve the bonds of family and control individuals directly. They intentionally interfere in families and set themselves up as a better big brother. Universally, totalitarians fail to recognize that the dissolution of family bonds is destructive to the state.

When family structure is broken, not only are the individual persons harmed, but neighborhoods devolve into ghettos and nations fail. Governments that protect family rights simultaneously help individuals to thrive and preserve the state. 

That is why it is the direct responsibility of governments to encourage family bonds, protect them from destructive forces, and shield them from outside interference. And that is why citizens have an absolute right to this kind of government. 

We should insist that our government takes marriage vows seriously. We should insist that our elected officials enact policies designed to keep parents with their own children. We should be outraged when politicians run roughshod over parental rights and insert themselves between children and their parents.

Instinctively families across America are pushing back. They are showing up at school board meetings to object to the teaching of junk science and divisive social theories. They are showing up at libraries to assert their first amendment rights to protect children from inappropriate sexualization. They are taking schools and employers to court against meddling in family medical decisions.

While families are acting on instinct, totalitarians know what is at stake. Former governor, Terry McAuliffe, spoke for them all, “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions. I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” He could not have drawn the battle lines more clearly.

Every school board, every library, every government official from the governor to the local health nurse should stand with families. Those who don’t are standing against a force of nature and the very foundation of society.

Wyoming families also know something else about forces of nature: They should be respected. It is unwise and extremely dangerous to get between a she-bear and her cubs. She does not care if the interloper has good intentions or bad. She only knows that he should not be there. Her reaction is instinctive and furious.

Politicians from every party should take note. Parents don’t care whether you have good intentions, or bad. They don’t care whether you are a Republican, a Democrat—or a Whig. Those who insert themselves between parents and children, are messing with a force of nature.

It took years for America’s parents to notice people and institutions encroaching upon the relationship between parents and their children. But now that the threat has been spotted, it can never be un-seen. A force of nature has been unleashed. Disrespect it at your peril.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, November 19, 2021. 

The marriage penalty unjustly penalizes children

Photo by Foto Pettine on Unsplash.com

Wyoming’s senatorial delegation has joined 31 other senators in sending a letter delivered to Senate Majority Leader, Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman, Wyden (D-OR). It protested inequitable tax hikes designed to punish married people. 

The marriage penalty is buried in the $3.5 trillion budget bill that was recently rammed through the House and is now the subject of feverish backroom negotiations with senators Manchin (D-VA) and Sinema (D-AZ). 

“As you know,” the letter details, “current marriage penalties occur when a household’s overall tax bill increases due to a couple marrying and filing taxes jointly. A number of other federal programs, such as Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Section 8 housing assistance, also create marriage penalties by eliminating or reducing benefits for couples who marry.”

Astoundingly, these marriage penalties are already written into current law. That’s bad enough. What is worse, the current budget that was rolled out under the so-called American Families Plan “takes an existing marriage penalty in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and makes it significantly worse.” 

How much worse? The new plan could increase the marriage penalty by 72 percent. In 2019, a couple with a combined income of $42,000 and two children would save $1,578 per year by divorcing and filing taxes separately. Under the new plan, that same couple’s marriage penalty would rise to $2,713. For this family, earning only $300 per week above the federal poverty level, over $52 per week is taken by federal income tax.

Is this what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez means by “Tax the Rich?” This is more than an inequity. It is a crime against children. When couples with children decide against marriage, the children suffer in concrete ways. 

A masked servant adjusts
the congresswoman's new dress.

In 1990, the United Nations published the work of its Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Preamble states, “Convinced that the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community . . .  the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.”

Based on this foundation, Article 7 simply states, “The child shall [have] the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.” All children have this right because all children have this need. 

According to ThemBeforeUs.com, an international movement for the rights of the child, “Children are wired for daily, ongoing connectivity with their mother and father and they are most likely to receive it when their parents are married.  Marriage offers the most stability in a child’s home and the best chance that both parents will be permanently involved in their lives.”

Katy Faust, Founder of Them Before Us

Sarah McClanahan and Isabel Sawhill published research titled, “Marriage and Child Wellbeing Revisited.” They concluded that children who experience parental breakup are affected in their “cognitive and social emotional development in ways that constrain their life chances.”

This is why the International Convention on the Rights of the Child pressed state actors to shape every policy—from direct marriage laws, to divorce laws, to tax policy—toward the singular purpose of encouraging the biological parents of every child to create a stable and loving home for that child through marriage.

This is why 33 senators wrote, “We believe marriage is a vital social good. It is misguided and unfair for the government to build bigger barriers for couples to marry.” Rather, they admonished, “Federal policy should be designed to foster strong marriages, which are the foundation of strong families and strong communities.”

Marriage is the greatest social program ever devised. For the entirety of human history, societies that successfully upheld the institution of marriage, prospered; and those that did not collapsed. For too long, we have seen debates about marriage and sexuality that focused on the desires of adults. Children were not allowed to have a say. It is time that we reversed this trend.

Wyoming should be proud that our senatorial delegation is both unified and far-sighted to speak boldly in support of marriage. In doing so, senators Barrasso and Lummis are standing for the rights of children everywhere. 

As the 2022 legislative season approaches, let us hope that our state senators and representatives will follow suit. Whether discussing budgets, schools, taxation or social welfare, the rights and needs of children, not the desires of adults, should drive every law and policy. It is time to put children’s rights above adult desires.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle and the Cowboy State Daily, October 8, 2021.