Support for anti-trans bill exposes hypocrisy of Idaho’s ‘liberty-loving’ legislators
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” according to the Declaration of Independence.
This notion that our human rights derive from the Creator and that the government’s purpose is to protect those unalienable rights is the bedrock of America’s republican form of government.
Why, then, are Idaho Republican legislators so bent on infringing upon the rights of certain groups of Idahoans, namely transgender Idahoans? More important, why do they not see that a proposed anti-transgender law is an infringement on the rights of the individual?
The House State Affairs Committee last week passed a bill that would criminalize medical providers in the state for providing gender-affirming care for transgender children.
The bill bans gender-reassignment surgeries, which typically aren’t performed on minors, but it also bans any kind of medication a child might take to have their body more accurately reflect their gender identity.
“ ‘Local control’ and ‘parent choice’ shouldn’t be just buzzwords to serve politicians when it’s convenient,” Danielle Horras, a mom of a transgender girl, wrote in a guest opinion last week.
It is ironic that this comes during the same session when these same “liberty-loving” legislators argued in favor of school vouchers on the predication that parents are the best-equipped to make decisions about their children’s education. If parents are best able to make education decisions, why, then, are they not best able to make medical decisions? Why is the government stepping in to make those personal medical decisions for them?
Mind you, these are also the same legislators who are thumping their chests about health freedom, when some of their constituents threaten revolt over the unforgivable infringement on their right not to wear a mask or at the very mention of a vaccine mandate or “vaccine passport.”
Meanwhile, on Idaho’s books is a law that exempts from government interference parents who deny their children medical care in the name of religious freedom.
The contradictions are numerous. The hypocrisy is obvious.
Further, why are Idaho Republicans so obsessed with gay and transgender kids and their families? Why can’t they just leave them alone?
Two years ago, we listened to heartbreaking testimony from transgender kids and adults and their moms and dads who just wanted to be free from government interference.
The government didn’t listen to them, though, and passed a bill that banned transgender girls and women from competing in girls and women’s sports.
These girls and women simply wanted the same rights as others have, to attend school and compete in sports that they enjoy.
Now, legislators want to infringe on the rights of transgender children and their families to make their own medical decisions.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation, that alleged bastion of individual rights and small government, shows its hypocrisy by giving a thumbs-up to the anti-freedom legislation, selectively favoring big government trampling on individual rights. It all depends on who those individuals are, apparently.
House Bill 675 is an anti-freedom bill. Transgender rights are human rights, and those rights are unalienable.
If Idaho’s Republican legislators start picking and choosing which groups of people have unalienable rights and which do not, they clearly don’t understand or believe in that bedrock of American democracy.
