Many years ago, I agreed with Ronald Reagan’s famous quote – “The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.”
Reagan was right for his time. But what we see now can no longer be considered simply misguided policy; it is much more sinister and much more damaging.
Consider what our California legislature is doing. Last year there were hundreds of bills promoting, protecting, and legalizing abortion up to the moment of birth. This year, transgender promotion is the hot topic with gender-affirming care having the highest number of bills filed. On the topic of gender-affirming care, 780 different bills have been filed, according to a search on the Legislative Information website.
Let us consider this scenario:
Your 11-year-old granddaughter’s school teaches a module on “identity” during which the students are told, “If you feel uncomfortable in your body, it means you are transgender.” She goes home and looks up transgender on Tik Tok or other social media and is inundated with encouragement to become a boy.
Her father, your son, is divorced from her mother. So, the teacher, who is prevented from talking to the parents about this, refers the girl to a gender-affirming doctor for counseling.
AB 665 has been passed and gives the now 12-year-old the right to decide for herself to receive mental health services. The doctor diagnoses your granddaughter as having gender dysphoria, and she is put on hormone therapy.
A couple of years later the child who has been heavily influenced by social media decides to have gender-affirming surgery. By this time, your son has noticed the physical changes taking place in his daughter. His ex-wife has as well and talks to a psychiatrist who tells her that the suicide rate is high among gender dysphoric children and that it would be better to have a transgender son than a dead daughter.
Your granddaughter is distressed about her parents’ disapproval, so a teacher helps her find a shelter. Thanks to AB 665 the child can make the decision without her parents’ permission. To get her daughter back, the mother accepts the doctor’s recommendation and agrees to “gender-affirming care.”
Your son finds out and sues for custody. But AB 957 has also passed and the gender-affirming parent, the ex-wife, is granted custody. Your granddaughter has her perfectly healthy breasts removed, will be on hormones for the rest of her life, will endure many medical complications, and will likely be unable to have children even if she attempts to reverse the effects of the hormone therapy.
That is evil and is happening to our children. Both bills mentioned have passed California’s Assembly and are in the State Senate. Everything in that example is happening to children across this country. Add that to the constitutional amendment that passed last session that legalized abortion up to the moment of birth, and you have the evil of child sacrifice.
A quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famous pastor martyred in Nazi Germany, is worth contemplation: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless.”
Arlene Wohlgemuth is the vice-president for legislation at the East Valley Republican Women Patriots. Wohlgemuth was a 5-term Texas state representative and is a 6-year resident of Indio.