MassResistance Reports on International Pro-Family Group's Huge Victory Against AB 2943

HUGE VICTORY:

California MassResistance STOPS horrible anti-family bill AB 2943 in the State Assembly after extraordinary push -- organizing churches and hundreds of citizens across the state

Bill’s sponsor concedes, officially pulls bill during Friday session.

A flood of pressure on legislators. Meetings with staff members.

A victory that no one thought was possible!

August 31, 2018

On the last day of the session, California State Assembly member Evan Low, sponsor of bill AB 2943, capitulated to pressure and pulled the bill from the floor. Low is considered the most aggressive member of the California LGBT Legislative caucus.

Absolutely everyone said that Bill AB 2943 bill was impossible to stop in the California Legislature. It was the crown jewel of the powerful LGBT lobby. Democrats supported it and Republicans were afraid to touch it. But MassResistance organized statewide and stopped it!

Bill AB 2943 would have banned all therapy or counseling for sexual orientation or “gender identity” issues, even promotion or descriptions of it. Legal groups said this would include Bible verses.

The bill flew through the State Assembly last spring. On August 16 it breezed through the Senate. But because the Senate added an amendment, it had to go through another Assembly vote. That seemed like a slam dunk.

There were then only 14 more days in the legislative session ending August 31 – little time to organize in the 80-member Assembly. Major pro-family groups in California were so sure it would pass that they told their supporters to start calling the Governor’s office to get him to veto it.

But MassResistance said: “No, we will stop it.”

Last month we stopped a similar bill in the Massachusetts Legislature, a furious fight which also went to the final day of the session.

California MassResistance Director Arthur Schaper, a brilliant and tireless organizer, worked night and day.

But California is huge, a considerable challenge. Using various methods, including analyzing the districts, the upcoming elections, and watching the interaction on the Assembly floor, Arthur identified about 20 assembly members who were most likely to waver – one way or the other. He focused on those. As time went on, that group grew to 24 as legislators’ fear began to show.

Arthur organized visits to lawmakers’ district offices, frequent phone calls by constituents, and lots of emailing. We produced a handout for legislators explaining the bill’s huge problems, and talking points for citizens. Most legislators had never heard the truth about this terrible bill, mostly just the LGBT propaganda.

One of the most powerful things Arthur did was to work with over 40 churches in key districts, including that of assemblyman Evan Low, the sponsor of the bill. Many of these churches had not been aware of bill AB 2943, and were very upset and became energized once they were informed.

Arthur also arranged meetings with high level staffers connected to key legislators. We think this had a big effect. For example, Arthur and Brian Camenker spoke with the LGBT Democratic caucus director the week before the end of the legislative session. We discussed the legal challenges they would face because this legislation is clearly unconstitutional. We talked about the lies being told by the LGBT lobby about reparative therapy, which would be exposed. And we also informed them that conservative groups would raise a lot of money if this passes and use it against members who voted for it. It appears that a lot of this sunk in.

As a result, day by day the support for the bill began to diminish, especially among Democrats in swing districts. A lot of members were getting jittery about this. Every day this past week the bill was on the Assembly’s daily schedule to be voted on. And each day it was skipped over once the day’s session started.

At approximately 10 a.m. on Friday, August 31, the bill’s sponsor, assembly member Evan Low, released a statement which the LA Times subsequently also emailed to us. He was officially pulling the bill. We had won! Not surprisingly, Low says he will try again next year with a modified bill. And we will be ready for him! (Here is the California MassResistance press release.)

This is one of the greatest MassResistance victories in our 25-year history.

Some important lessons learned

It’s likely that the legislators had never experienced this kind of full-court press from pro-family conservatives. We’ve learned that’s what it takes to prevail.

Even in the bluest, most aggressively left-wing state in the country, we can win if we are willing to fight, and be tireless and unrelenting. And it’s important to employ effective strategies. Too many pro-family conservatives simply want to do what they’re comfortable doing -- and that almost always fails.

Not giving up is extremely important. As we mentioned, virtually every California pro-family group had basically conceded that this would pass (though some kept a minor email effort going). If we had relented even a day or so sooner, this bill would have passed and become law.

It’s necessary to understand that this isn’t just simply Republicans versus Democrats, but, as Arthur says, “raw political action.” There are a lot of nuances and other factors involved that should be taken into account.

Finally, just because a legislator votes for something once or even twice, it doesn’t mean he can’t be persuaded to vote against it. It just takes the right kinds of pressure. As the late US Senator Everett Dirksen famously said, “When I feel the heat, I see the light.”

[NOTE: We usually wouldn’t mention this, but this time we’re going to. Since the news about AB 2943 became public, several national pro-family groups have already made great fanfare about it, taking credit for it, and of course raising money on it. Par for the course. We didn’t see them actually on the battlefield. It’s a bit aggravating.]

     

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BREAKING: Conversion Therapy Ban Bill Fails in Massachusetts Legislative Session

The 190th Session of the Massachusetts State Legislature once again tried to rush every perverse piece of legislation through at the last minute. Most blue state legislative bodies are dysfunctional in this manner, unable to get to the most important, the most pertinent bills, while going after inane issues and pushing political talking points during campaign season for the next three months.

Among the good news for pro-family advocates, the Beacon Hill politicos could not muscle through a ban on conversion therapy for minors, despite their best efforts.

From the New Boston Post:

A bill that would have prohibited therapists from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of a minor has failed in the Massachusetts Legislature, even though both the House and Senate expressed support for it.

An amendment added to the bill in the state House of Representatives five weeks ago proved the bill’s undoing, as the Senate failed to pass a reconciled version in time to meet all the technical formalities needed before the two chambers wrapped up their formal sessions in the wee hours of Wednesday, August 1.

How about that?

What happened specifically?

[W]hile the Senate “engrossed” the bill, the vote didn’t allow time for the bill to be “enacted,” a process that requires printing a bill on parchment and then having that version voted on again for “enactment” by the House and Senate. Those final steps didn’t happen before both branches adjourned (which happened at 1:12 a.m. Wednesday in the House, and at or shortly after 1:16 a.m. in the Senate, according to State House News Service).

MassResistance activists all over the country, especially in Massachusetts, made numerous phone calls, wrote in many emails, and even made personal visits to Beacon Hill to oppose this travesty.

Those efforts paid off, so much so that the state legislature attempted to shove this legislation through at the last minute in the dead of midnight so that no one would know or raise a fuss about its passage. Yet by cutting the votes on this legislation so close, the state senate botched up the legal process, and the legislature could not muscle through the final version which both houses could agree upon.

This failure of the anti-family LGBT movement proves once again that when pro-family forces work hard and push against bad legislation, they can win--many times in the most unlikely of ways.

In an interview on Boston Public Radio, State Senate President Spilka didn't even mention their failure to pass the conversion therapy ban, most likely fearing the wrath of the vile LGBT movement, which has inordinate power in the Commonwealth.

Here's the glorious graphic, exposing the epic failure of the state senate--and a major victory for Pro-Family Movement!

Conversion Therapy failed AGAIN!
Great work, MassResistance!

Conversion therapy is a serious, reputable practice which has saved countless lives, young and old. The true abuse would be to take away this choice from parents, families, and communities which want the best for young people.

The fact that this bill went down to defeat a record third time is growing evidence that aggressive pro-family efforts from MassResistance really do make the difference. Add to his setback for the abusive LGBT Hate Machine the report that the Governor of Maine vetoed the same legislation last month, and the Maine legislature could not override his veto, and then the burgeoning restoration of professional free speech before the Supreme Court of the United States in its recent rulings.

The New Boston Post adds:

Yet it’s unclear what would happen if a conversion therapy ban passes next session, because U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas seemed to invite a challenge to such laws during a recent majority opinion in an unrelated case. Thomas noted that the federal Supreme Court has never made a distinction between speech by professionals and speech by others when it comes to determining First Amendment protection.

“Professionals might have a host of good-faith disagreements, both with each other and with the government, on many topics in their respective fields … and the people lose when the government is the one deciding which ideas should prevail,” Thomas wrote in the 5-4 decision, in a case called National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, which was decided June 26.

Opponents of banning conversion therapy say the U.S. Supreme Court may eventually overturn state laws such as the one proposed in Massachusetts.

The tide is turning for life, family, marriage, and Biblical morality at an unprecedented pace.

This latest victory should embolden pro-family advocates in their fight to protect natural marriage and family, even in the bluest, most Democratic, darkest states in the union.

A full report from MassResistance will be published soon. Stay tuned!

MassResistance: Fighting Against Abusive LGBT Curriculum in Local Schools (Part One)

Here’s how Planned Parenthood (and their allies) defeat parents to get “comprehensive sex ed” into schools.

… And what parents can do to counter it!

Revealed: Their systematic tactics to deceive, marginalize, confuse, and overwhelm anyone who gets in their way.

Part 1 of 2

June 18, 2018

Parents challenging proposed sex-ed / LGBT curriculum in Fairfax County, VA.

For decades the national sex-ed lobby has been using sophisticated organizing tactics to defeat parents and push their radical programs into the public schools. We will show you what those tactics are (in their own words!) and explain how parents can counter them.

What we’ve all seen over the years

Sex education is very different than English, math, history, band, or anything else taught in schools. In 25 years, we have never seen a single school anywhere where it was brought in because there was a demand for it by parents.

In every case, sexuality education (now updated to “comprehensive sex ed” with LGBT components) was brought in through a targeted effort by well-organized special-interest groups affiliated with Planned Parenthood and similar organizations. It was done in a very systematic manner, as quietly as possible, using a great deal of deception to mask its radical and objectionable content.

Starting with a few key faculty members, administrators, and local activists, they would get the school authorities to let them form a formal “health curriculum committee” (or some similar name, such as “Family Life Education Curriculum Advisory Committee” in Fairfax County, VA). They would then add many prominent community members to give it credibility (though no conservatives, of course). But the core group would control the agenda and everything the committee did. The committee would later present the School Board with a “health curriculum” which coincidentally mirrored that of Planned Parenthood and its allies. The School Board would then quietly vote it in – with little dissent or serious questioning by the Board members.

But often during this process, parents would find out what the health curriculum committee was proposing. They would be shocked at the radical and vastly inappropriate sexuality, pro-abortion messages, homosexuality, “gender identity,” and other content of the proposed curriculum. Sometimes they would form a parents’ group voice their concerns. 

But when parents would try to stop it or at least get it modified, they would be thwarted at every turn, often publicly attacked and humiliated, and completely defeated. As soon as a conflict became public, there would be a well-crafted PR campaign in the schools and local media to “reach out” to parents about how “healthy” the curriculum really is (cherry-picking the non-objectionable parts), and how “backward” the parents were who objected. It was a horrible experience for parents everywhere.

Here’s what parents have been facing

Parents don’t realize it, but they have been facing a very well-oiled machine. It appears to be something local but is actually organized on a national level.

Planned Parenthood and its affiliated groups (including LGBT groups) are determined to push their radical programs on schoolchildren everywhere. They receive enormous funding from corporations and government, including even the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). They have devoted allies in virtually every state and local education system. Most parents cannot appreciate the degree to which these people are driven by a social and political agenda. These people do not care what the average parent thinks, or how their bizarre programs affect the lives of children. Many of them are involved with these sexual lifestyles themselves.

The strategies being used against parents

“Advocates for Youth” is a national group that acts as Planned Parenthood’s hardcore organizing arm in local school districts across the country. We have seen them publicly in action against parents’ groups, but most people have never heard of them. They almost always work behind the scenes.

Back in 2008, Advocates for Youth published a series of articles outlining the strategies and tactics they had been using for years to defeat parents who interfere with their efforts to a force sex-ed curriculum into a school. The most prominent article, Managing Controversy in Pressure Cooker Situations, was recently noted on the Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction website. Since then we’ve tracked down the others from that series.

Bear in mind that every year, more radical topics are brought into sex-ed or “family life” curricula, for example, anal sex or the recent push for transgenderism. But the tactics remain the same.

Here is the main article: See the counter-tactics by MassResistance in Part 2of this report

Managing Controversy in Pressure Cooker Situations
(and MassResistance counter-strategies)
This is the main set of tactics that sex-ed activists use to defeat parents who challenge the sex-ed agenda being pushed through. We’re sure that any parents who’ve been in this fight in their town will recognize a lot of these tactics which have been used against them!

These two additional articles are also useful for understanding their strategies and tactics against parents:

Curriculum Controversy – Lessons from the Field
This outlines their broader strategies for subverting parents during the process of bringing in the sex-ed. It discusses the creation of the curriculum committee (“a broad sex education working group”). It also has strategies for dealing with public hearings and School Board members.

Hot Potatoes: Keeping Cool in the Midst of Controversy
This is a fascinating guide for sex-ed activists on how to prepare for dealing with the press, and the questions they plan to have responses to. Basically, this reveals that they already know how shocking and objectionable this is to parents.

Parents need to take this seriously

The basic aim is to push radical sexuality (and LGBT) information to children under the guise of “health,” and have as much of it as possible be considered “confidential” – i.e., kept from the parents’ knowledge.

Once their curriculum gets in, school systems open the doors to bringing in all kinds of bizarre and dangerous groups targeting children. For example, the Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction website is involved with several radical national groups. (And Wisconsin is typical in directing teachers and children to radical websites such as SexEtc., GSAnetwork, GLSEN, Human Rights Campaign, and PFLAG.)

Overall, there is virtually no limit on what these people want to push on schoolchildren. It is extremely frightening, and parents need to take this seriously. It’s important to understand that attempting to reason with these people is completely futile. They are single-minded and quite ruthless.

Unfortunately, most parents are ill-equipped to stop it. What they intuitively think is a good approach (and what mainstream pro-family groups will tell them: be polite, have a dialogue, run for school board) is usually completely ineffective. But you can fight them and win – by enlisting more community members to help, by not being afraid, and by using the right counter-tactics and strategies.

Part 2: Commentary and counter-tactics by MassResistance.