In a recent Guide for Journalists encouraging reporting that promotes the LGBT agenda, GLAAD, a pro-LGBT activist group, smeared pro-family organizations and the Promise to America’s Children coalition as “attacking” young people with gender dysphoria and lobbying to advance an “agenda of hate.” This simply is not true. Promise to America’s Children is a promise to protect and treasure America’s children, recognizing their value and dignity and to refuse to allow them to be sexualized and used.
Children deserve to be protected, valued, and loved, not used as political pawns to advance a radical sexual agenda, which is why Minnesota Family Council is part of the Promise to America’s Children coalition.
Promise to America’s Children pledges to protect children – body, mind, and heart – from harmful sexual ideologies. This means treasuring children’s minds by protecting them from pornography and other graphic sexual content; equipping kids with education that is tailored to their needs as identified by their parents - not bureaucrats or self-appointed "experts"; ensuring their right to free speech, including their right not to be compelled to promote messages that violate their consciences; and protecting their right to receive counseling that their parents determine is safe, appropriate, and in their best interest.
It also means honoring children’s bodies by protecting their right to safety and privacy in sex-specific spaces such as locker rooms, restrooms, and showers; maintaining fairness and safety in sports by recognizing biological differences and not forcing female athletes to compete against males; and protecting children from dangerous, experimental “treatments” that cause permanent damage to their physical bodies while failing to alleviate their mental distress.
And finally it means valuing children’s relationships with their parents. Every child deserves a forever family and the government should not get in the way of that by forcing people of faith out of foster care and adoption. Children also deserve to have their relationships with their parents protected, which means that the government should not remove children from their families over disagreements between parents and the state over gender identity, and that parents should be informed of and involved in important life decisions.
Promise to America’s Children is not radical. It is a recognition that adults have a responsibility to protect children. The coalition seeks to follow through on that responsibility in two ways — by connecting with policy makers to advance legislation that will protect children, and by connecting with parents and concerned citizens to help them become informed advocates for their children.
In their guide for journalists, GLAAD falsely claims that “No one with a stake in the game is actually asking for these laws; parents of trans kids are not asking for them, athletic departments and coaches are not asking for them, medical professionals and associations are not asking for them.” GLAAD’s assertion simply isn’t true. People with stakes in the game are speaking out, from female athletes who are losing opportunities to parents of kids with rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) to medical professionals who face coercion for refusing to give unethical care.
High school athletes in Connecticut have been speaking up after two male athletes won 15 women’s championship titles in track, robbing girls in the state of titles, opportunities, and potential college scholarships. These young women have stakes in the game.
Similarly, parents have stakes in the game, as we have seen with the tragic case of James Younger whose dad lost custody of him for fighting to protect him from “gender transition.” The parents of a 17-year-old girl with gender dysphoria had their daughter taken away from them when they would not let her undergo harmful medical experimentation. Parents across the U.S. are fighting to protect their children and are facing intense opposition for it. They have stakes in the game, and for their sakes and their children’s sakes deserve to be supported.
And finally, healthcare professionals have stakes in the game as the Biden administration is currently attempting to force religious hospitals to go against their beliefs and provide “gender transition” procedures.
GLAAD and their allies want to paint these young people, parents, and professionals as villains, out of touch, or simply non-existent. For those of us who have made a promise to America’s children that we will protect and treasure them, we cannot simply be silent about this. Will you join us?
