Texas teacher says parents’ “bigoted” view of drag queens should be ignored when educating children (and other stories)

By Jonathon Van Maren

Despite nonstop horrifying revelations from the courtroom, David Daleiden, undercover investigators from the Center for Medical Progress, and Operation Rescue’s Troy Newman were found guilty of crimes last week by a San Francisco jury at the close of a six week trial and ordered to pay millions in damages to Planned Parenthood. According to the Center for Medical Progress’s press release:

Justice was not done today in San Francisco. While top Planned Parenthood witnesses spent six weeks testifying under oath that the undercover videos are true and Planned Parenthood sold fetal organs on a quid pro quo basis, a biased judge with close Planned Parenthood ties spent six weeks influencing the jury with pre-determined rulings and by suppressing video evidence, all in order to rubber-stamp Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit attack on the First Amendment. This is a dangerous precedent for citizen journalism and First Amendment civil rights across the country, sending a message that speaking truth and facts criticizing the powerful is no longer protected by our institutions.

The presiding judge, William Orrick III, refused to recuse himself when asked to do so by the defence, who pointed to his longstanding ties to Planned Parenthood. Ironically, the trial actually revealed even more details about the gruesome trade in baby body parts, but Orrick told the jury to concern themselves with trespassing charges against the undercover investigators for attending Planned Parenthood conferences in Miami and Orlando and visiting Planned Parenthood executives at their facilities in Texas and Colorado.

Daleiden and his team plan to appeal the ruling, and the case will probably wind its way up to the Supreme Court. Press freedom, the rights of whistleblowers, and much more are at stake.

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Abortion activists are complaining that the industry is struggling in Texas, where pro-life laws have been incredibly effective in shutting down clinics. In July of 2013, there were more than forty abortion clinics operating in Texas. After laws imposing restrictions on clinics passed that same month, most of them closed. Although the laws were eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, many of the clinics were unable to open, and there are only 22 abortion clinics open in Texas today. Texas is home to 29 million people, and because the abortion clinics are so far apart, abortion activists complain that some women are opting to simply have babies rather than get abortions. Despite the keen disappointment pro-lifers felt when the Supreme Court overturned House Bill 2 (which would have required that abortion clinics be outfitted like surgical centres), the legislation still shut down many clinics and is still saving babies.

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The Left has become more brazen of late, and it is a sign of their growing cultural dominance that they are now openly saying what they once denied. A teacher in Texas, for example, has triggered outrage after saying that parents should have no say in whether or not schools host drag queen events.

Anthony Lane, an English teacher from Willis High School, took to Facebook after angry parents protested the school’s decision to bring in a drag performer to teach a cosmetology class. Willis laid out his views on the backlash—and his words perfectly sum up the LGBT movement’s view of parental rights:

I believe that raising a child is the responsibility of the community, and that parents should not have the final say. Let’s be honest, some of you don’t know what is best for your kids. Parents believe they should be able to storm the school in the name of political and religious beliefs if something happens in the school that they are morally opposed to. They forget that we make a promise to prepare their children to live in a diverse world. We are not required to protect the misguided, bigoted views of their parents. If you want your children educated with your values, find a private school that will do it. The public education system is not here to serve your archaic beliefs.

In other words, the parents who pay taxes to pay for the public school system should shut up and sit down, because if Lane and his allies in the LGBT movement think your kid needs exposure to drag queens, then they know best.

And in fact, parents can be sure that if they do send their children to public school, it is very likely that the kids will be learning precisely what Lane so clearly stated: That their moms and dads prejudiced bigots.