“Pro-family” groups affiliated with Focus on the Family are working to move state legislatures to the right with bills that grant “conscience rights” to medical workers, restrict students’ speech, define humans as male and female, promote Turning Point USA in high schools, and make life harder for LGBTQ people.
Focus partners with organizations it founded decades ago, including the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which writes legislation and then defends it in court, and with Family Policy Alliance, its partner in 40 states, to promote its version of “family values.”
A Tennessee bill that could have charged women who get an abortion with homicide died in a subcommittee as the bill’s supporters sang “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and chanted “Christ is King!” reported the Nashville Tennessean. But other bills are moving forward. Here’s a look at some of them.
“Conscience rights” for medical workers. “Pro-family” groups are promoting laws in eight states that would give doctors, nurses, hospitals and insurance companies the right to refuse to provide or pay for care that violates their religious or moral beliefs.
The bill could restrict patients’ ability to access a variety of services, from “contraception and fertility services to medical marijuana and childhood vaccines,” if medical personnel object to these procedures, reported Stateline.
The Family Foundation, Focus’ partner in Kentucky, says the bill will “protect foundational conscience rights” while helping the state “retain doctors, nurses and other medical professionals who might otherwise leave Kentucky in search of states with conscience protections.”
Conservative Christian groups also are promoting medical conscience bills in Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia, Stateline reported.
Student speech. Different states are taking different approaches to address alleged favoritism for liberal viewpoints.
In Florida, a proposed law “would impose new requirements for students and community members engaging in political activity on campus,” said an editorial by two college professors in the Tallahassee Democrat.
“In theory, the bills would level the playing field for partisan activism,” they wrote. “But in practice, they would create barriers to the free exercise of speech and assembly” because they “advocate that the right to express Christian religious beliefs should legally supersede the civil rights of others.”
In Wyoming, backers of a bill designed to protect K-12 student rights to “expression of political, ideological or religious viewpoints” say it could help students who are “penalized for taking a pro-life stance on a paper,” reported Wyoming Public Media.
The bill, which is supported by ADF and the state’s far-right Freedom Caucus, would allow people to sue schools that discriminate against students’ religious or ideological expression. State institutions have traditionally been exempt from such liability claims.
States partner with Turning Point USA in schools. This month Arkansas and Indiana joined Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Montana and Nebraska in announcing partnerships to increase the number of TPUSA’s Club America chapters in public schools, reported The New York Times.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott promised last year to help TPUSA open chapters in every high school in the state. TPUSA had 1,200 school chapters nationwide before founder Charlie Kirk was killed last fall but now reports 3,200 chapters, said The Times.
Kirk’s widow Erika, who now leads TPUSA, appeared with Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to celebrate the state’s move. Kirk said the partnership would prevent the persecution of Christians and prevent the disenfranchisement of voters, “especially a young white male man.”
TPUSA says Club America groups promote “freedom-loving American values” and “empower bold student leaders to promote free thinking, engage in grassroots activism, and bring their beliefs to life — both on and off campus.”
Club America’s “Flag the Classroom” program is “dedicated to placing an American flag in every classroom across the nation.”
Washington millionaire tax “immoral” and not “biblical.” Washington legislators are waiting on their governor to sign a new tax on millionaires that the Focus-aligned Family Policy Institute of Washington says is unbiblical.
The law “violates biblical principles of justice, property rights, charity and civil authority, and also conflicts with the state constitution and voter intent,” said Brian Noble, FPIW’s president, who worked two decades as an Assemblies of God pastor.
The lobbying group FPIW Action calls the bill “immoral” because it is based on “a misplaced faith in large government to solve problems.”
Transgender Americans face more laws. Family Policy Alliance promoted legislation passed in dozens of states that barred transgender minors from receiving transition medical care or playing on athletic teams. Now, transgender adults face hundreds of new bills across the country.
As BNG reported, a new Kansas law requires the driver’s licenses of transgender people to match their sex at birth and restricts them to using public restrooms corresponding to their assigned gender.
In Oklahoma, 18 new bills restricting trans adults join 13 bills from the previous session. State Rep. Kevin West is the primary backer of seven of the 31 bills, reported The Greenville News. West is a member of Regency Park Baptist Church in Moore.
