Christian Parents and some weird legislation
Del. Elizabeth Guzman at the Virginia Capitol in Richmond, Va
Will Christian parents face criminal charges for resisting the LGBTQ revolution when it comes to their own children? Should the state “protect” LGBTQ children and teenagers from their own parents? Has our society lost its mind?
The mainstream media often castigate conservatives for raising alarms about the culture and its dangers. Thus, it tells us something when even The Washington Post reported on this story. It’s a very big story and one that demands the attention of all Christians and all parents.
In an interview with local television news, a Virginia legislator said that she would reintroduce a bill she had first proposed two years ago. She described the bill as an effort to protect LGBTQ children from “abuse” by their parents. But, as the news interview made plain, her definition of abuse includes pushback from parents who do not facilitate “necessary” care for their LGBTQ children. You do not need much of imagination to understand what the LGBTQ revolutionaries mean by necessary medical care. The proposed bill also defines criminal abuse by parents as the infliction of any “physical or mental injury on the basis of the child’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”
When the news report claimed that the legislator, Delegate Elizabeth Guzman of Prince William County, intended parents to “face abuse charges for not affirming their LGBTQ child,” she claimed to have been misrepresented. Subsequently, she said that she had no current plans to refile the bill. That directly contradicts what she told the reporter, and the local news station, WJLA, posted the reporter’s interview with Guzman as proof.
Reporter Nick Minock summarized the point of the bill with this chilling summary: “Her bill would expand the state’s definition of child abuse and neglect to include parents who do not affirm their child’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Del. Guzman has denied that argument, but a look at the text of her 2020 bill shows that she is indeed seeking to use the logic and legal argumentation of LGBTQ activists in order to bulldoze parental authority and parental rights. When her bill uses the language of “life-threatening condition” and “mental injury” as the basis of criminal charges against parents, keep in mind that the LGBTQ activist community, along with many in professions such as social work, use that very language to accuse anyone who resists the sexual and gender revolution of abuse and harm.
One of the most crucial moments in the interview came when Minock posed this question to Guzman: “What could be the penalties if the investigation concludes that a parent is not affirming of their LGBTQ child? What could the consequences be?”
If you intend to force a total redefinition of gender and marriage and sexuality and morality, you are going to have to bulldoze over parents.
Guzman replied: “Well, first we have to complete an investigation,” she said. “It could be a felony, it could be a misdemeanor, but we know a CPS (Child Protective Services) could harm your employment, could harm their education, because nowadays many people do a CPS database search before offering employment.”
Did you catch that? If Big Brother can’t find a way to charge conservative parents with a felony, at the very least the government and its partners in the professions will see to it that you never work again. Note clearly the threat of using even a CPS investigation to ruin parents.
We did see this coming. By God’s design, the family is the most basic unit of civilization, and parents are responsible for the care and instruction of their offspring. It comes as no surprise that LGBTQ activists see parents (and the natural family) as monumental obstacles in their way. If you intend to force a total redefinition of gender and marriage and sexuality and morality, you are going to have to bulldoze over parents.
The logic of the bulldozing is perfectly clear: You don’t play by the rules of the transgender revolutionaries? Fine, see how long you have a job. You dare to exercise your God-given responsibilities and authority as parents? Fine, see how long you have custody of your own children.
The legal revolution that started with radical law professors has now made its way into the courts, the legislatures, and the mass media. Forms of critical theory and ideologies that deny biological reality now shape the culture and drive the revolution. Forms of Marxist thought now rule in many professions, including social work. The goal is the total reshaping of society, and if that is going to happen, parents will have to be sidelined, intimidated, investigated, and worse.
How do you accomplish that? Just ask Del. Guzman. She now says she does not intend to reintroduce her bill, reversing herself as scores of Democratic colleagues scurried to distance themselves from the bill ... for now.
The LGBTQ activists will be back, of course, perhaps with cleaned up language intended to disguise the threat to parents. They never give up, and see no reason why they should have to. This legislation is simply wicked, and don’t for a minute think this is about just one bill in just one state. If you are a Christian parent, know this: They want your children, and if necessary they intend to deal with you as they see fit, handcuffs and all.
R. Albert Mohler Jr.
