CALIFORNIA: Teachers Forced To Lie To Parents Sue Governor

Last year, two teachers from California sued their school district for being forced to lie to parents about their children’s gender status. This week, they’ve added Governor Gavin Newsom and California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta to the lawsuit.

The two teachers both claim the policy violates their First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion.

The school district procedure that prohibits teachers from disclosing “the fact that a student identifies as a new gender, or wants to be addressed by a new name or new pronouns during the school day” is called the “Parental Exclusion Policy.”

How insane is that name! The name itself is so blatantly in violation of parental rights, how are there not more people working in the school district who are outraged?

Back in April of 2023, the two teachers who worked at Rincon Middle School in Escondido, Elizabeth Mirabelli, and Lori Ann West, filed a lawsuit that claimed this “Parental Exclusion Policy” forces educators to lie to parents by hiding the transgender status of their children from them.

U.S. district court judge Rodger T. Benitez called the policy a “trifecta of harm” back in September of 2023, whilst also granting a preliminary injunction so as to prevent the school district from enforcing the Parental Exclusion Policy on the teachers.

“It [the policy] harms the child who needs parental guidance and possibly mental health intervention to determine if the incongruence is organic or whether it is the result of bullying, peer pressure, or a fleeting impulse. It harms the parents by depriving them of the long-recognized Fourteenth Amendment right to care, guide, and make health care decisions for their children. And finally, it harms plaintiffs who are compelled to violate the parent’s rights by forcing plaintiffs to conceal information they feel is critical for the welfare of their students—violating plaintiffs’ religious beliefs.”

In an interview with The Daily Signal, Paul Jonna, the teacher’s lawyer from the Thomas More Society stated that, “The governor is the boss” and “has ultimate responsibility for setting education policy for those under his supervision.”

“Rincon Middle School and the Escondido Union School District do not operate in a vacuum,” Jonna stated, “The California Constitution provides that education is ultimately a matter of state responsibility,” he said.

Discussing the case on Fox News, Elizabeth Mirabelli said, “a policy was rolled out to all teachers that required them, when meeting and speaking with parents, to withhold critical information from parents about a child’s mental and emotional health.”

Mirabelli said she would have to refer to a “child by one set of names and pronouns in front of parents and then, during the school day, change to another name and another set of pronouns that parents weren’t aware of … So basically, I was teaching this child to live a double life.”

This case adds to a litany of additional cases popping up across America which only further solidifies a disturbing trend happening in our schools; not only are children being put in uncomfortable and verifiably wrong situations by the teaching of corrupt materials which leads them to gender confusion, but as we are now witnessing, teachers are also being put into positions which are unjust and blatantly in violation of their God-given rights.

Perspective

So often all we hear about is the bad and the wrong, but there is always more to the story!

This case not only shows us that in a State many write off for its radical leftist policies, there are two brave women working within a hostile environment (the education system) who are willing to take a public stand in defense of God-given rights both for themselves but also for parents!

At the same time, we see a whole legal team which has formed around these two teachers to not only offer support, but to advocate for those that this case could very well affect in the future.

May we take inspiration from all those engaged in this fight, learning that even in and amongst hostility, we are not alone when we choose to take a stand for what is good and right and true.

There is always more to the story when good people get involved!

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