CA Supreme Court to Decide if Refusing to Use Preferred Pronouns Could = Jail Time

Last week, the California Supreme Court agreed to decide the constitutionality of a state law threatening healthcare workers with fines and jail time for misgendering transgender-identified nursing home patients. 

Former Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 219 back in 2017. At the time, California Family Council strongly opposed the bill and we testified it clearly violated free speech rights. Last July, the State Court of Appeal agreed and struck down the pronoun provision of the law as illegal. The state’s highest court will now make the final decision.

Attorney David Llewellyn, Jr. filed the lawsuit against SB 219 on behalf of a group called Taking Offense, a month after the law went into effect in 2018 and the case has been winding through the state court system ever since. Specifically the law “prohibits staff members of long-term care facilities from willfully and repeatedly referring to a facility resident by other than the resident’s preferred name or pronoun when clearly informed of the name and pronoun.”

Read more here.

HHS Secretary Becerra Refuses to Protect Religious Liberty

Health and Human Services Secretary and former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra recently dismissed a lawsuit against the University of Vermont Medical Center which forced a nurse to help perform an abortion against her will. The Catholic nurse provided her documented objections to the hospital well before the procedure and informed her bosses that she could not assist in the abortion due to moral and religious convictions.

The nurse’s right to refuse to participate is protected by the First Amendment and a federal law called the Church Amendments, which was passed unanimously by Congress in response to Roe v. Wade. However, she was denied her rights and went through with the procedure, fearing termination. Becerra’s rejection of the lawsuit makes him complicit in forcing an individual to participate in the murder of an innocent life in the womb. He also allowed the hospital to break the law and keep policies in place that explicitly require workers to take part in procedures regardless of moral objections. Failing to uphold the human right to freely practice one’s religion is an abhorrent injustice, especially when it involves something as egregious and contentious as abortion. 

 More details here.

Disappointment in LA as Students’ Season Ends Due to Vaccination Status

Last week, Crenshaw High School’s football season abruptly ended as a Los Angeles Unified School District mandate went into effect. The mandate requires that all students wanting to play sports must receive the COVID-19 vaccination.

The Crenshaw High School football team, five-time city champions, only had 13 of its players vaccinated. The school district’s mandate stipulates that football teams must be able to field 18 fully vaccinated players in order to compete.

Set to compete in the playoffs, Crenshaw High School had to forfeit its game, sending the opponent to the quarterfinals automatically.

Many of the Crenshaw players felt deflated after this abrupt season end, and some of the students lamented that their chances for football scholarships are now probably minimal.

“Yeah, playoffs, especially championship games, that’s really where everything gets seen, and that’s what I was hoping on,” one student said.

More on the story here.

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