The state of North Dakota needs to fight the Obama administration’s executive letter on bathroom/locker room access.
On Friday May 13, the Obama administration announced that every public school system in the country will receive a letter (The U.S. Department of Justice and Education Release a Joint Guidance to Help Schools Ensure the Civil Rights of Transgender Students), mandating that transgender students be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity (as opposed to their birth certificate) or the school districts will lose Federal funds under Title IX.
In a press release Friday, Penny Nance, CEO and President of Concerned Women for America, stated, “The Obama Administration once again overstepped legal boundaries by redefining the scope and reach of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and slapping the heavy hand of government on local schools. Whether or not people who identify as transgender are indeed a protected class will get worked out in the courts. Meanwhile, schools all over this nation, which have rightly worked on a case-by-case basis to accommodate kids struggling with gender dysphoria, may be forced to violate the privacy of other students and perhaps even create trauma for the very kids Obama pretends to protect.
“Local school districts with the input of parents and health professionals should be setting school policy on such a sensitive and controversial issue, not Washington.
“Finally, the left always uses children to accomplish its goals of social reengineering. The adults closest to these children should decide what’s best for all the children in the school. Safety and kindness should be the guiding principles, not threats from the bullies in Washington.”
As Matt Barber points out, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg acknowledges, writing in the Washington Post, “Separate places to disrobe, sleep, perform personal bodily functions are permitted, in some situations required, by regard for individual privacy.” Moreover, Congress has, without fail, rejected efforts to include “gender identity” or “sexual orientation” in federal law. It is abundantly clear that the lawmakers who drafted and passed Titles VII and IX never dreamed that “sex” might include a man laboring under the delusion that he’s a woman.
“School districts that dare defy the administration’s directive could face lawsuits and lose millions of dollars in federal funding. There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.”
Guess what? At the time of this writing, Gov. Jack Dalrymple, and Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem have been silent about this outrageous and incredibly dangerous order! Superintendent of Public Instruction, Kirsten Baesler has said her department is in the process of discussing the guidance with the North Dakota Assistant Attorney General. North Dakota officials need to be active and join officials from eight other states – West Virginia, Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Maine and North Carolina – to begin to push back and sign on the brief asking a federal appeals court to re-hear a case in which it sided with a Virginia transgender student seeking to use the boys’ bathroom.
North Dakotans needs to send a clear message to our state leaders that President Obama’s “guidance letter” is an overreach from the executive branch. The state of North Dakota has the right to set guidelines themselves without Federal overreach. North Dakota schools should refuse the mandate that endangers our children.
Take Action!
1. Contact the following state leaders and tell them to stand up for the children of North Dakota and not to follow this outrageous directive that puts our children in danger. Ask them to join officials from eight other states – West Virginia, Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Main and North Carolina – to begin to push back and sign on the brief asking a federal appeals court to re-hear a case in which it sided with a Virginia transgender student seeking to use the boys’ bathroom. Write, call and/or e-mail today.
Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem
701 328-2210
ndag@nd.gov
600 E. Boulevard Avenue, Dept.125
Bismarck, ND 58505
State Superintendent of Schools Kirsten Baesler
Department of Public Instruction
701 328-2260
kbaesler@nd.gov
600 E. Boulevard Avenue
Bismarck, ND 58505
Gov. Jack Dalrymple
701- 328-2200
governor.nd.gov/contact-us
600 E. Boulevard Avenue
Bismarck, ND 58505-0100
2. Contact both your local school superintendent and school board members. Show up at the next regularly scheduled school board meeting and speak in opposition to the Obama directive.
3. Please forward this e-alert to friends and family and ask them to contact Gov. Dalrymple and State Superintendent of Schools, Kirsten Baesler, concerning this issue.
Please Pray:
- “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24)
- As one of CWA’s recent articles, Christ Restoring a Male/Female Identity in a Sexually Confused World, concluded with, “Aligning ourselves with God’s plan for man and woman is the solution side of the problem. Let us pray deeply for the ability to live into our male and female identity with more fullness, that we might offer a restorative picture for all of the world.“
- Pray for the leaders listed above by name. May they have the courage to do what’s right before God and on behalf of our children.
As a former public school teacher, I can say for sure that there are not enough adults in a school building to supervise the bathrooms and locker rooms. No one will be able to fully protect children. We must ACT and PRAY.
To be silent is to be complicit.