Ninth Circuit Panel: No, You Can't Discriminate Against Christians Just Because They Refuse To Say They'd Support Transing Their Children

Oregon attempted to block a Christian woman from adopting a child because she refused to say she'd support genital mutilation for the child if the child hypothetically decided to be "Trans."

The Ninth Circuit Court of appeals overturned Oregon's decision and rebuked them for blatant invidious discrimination.

Judges nominated by presidents Trump, Clinton and George W. Bush walk into a First Amendment case about compelled affirmation of gender identity and facilitation of medicalized transitions as a condition of adoption. The punchline may surprise you.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday blocked Oregon's Department of Human Services from denying Jessica Bates' application to adopt the siblings she is fostering based on her refusal to honor the asserted gender identity of "hypothetical adopted children" in speech or actions, with the Trump and Clinton nominees overruling the Bush nominee.

U.S District Judge Adrienne Nelson, nominated by President Biden, denied a preliminary injunction for the widowed Christian mother of five in 2023, arguing the failure to "respect a child's LGBTQ+ identity imposes collateral harm on the child's development, safety, and physical well-being."

Of course. Note that is the lowly district court judge making the original lawless ruling. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, acting through a three-judge panel, then overruled this woke cow.

Oregon has "training materials" for prospective adoptive parents, called "RAFT." One of the "guidances" this woke manual demands is fealty to the trans cause for all adoptive parents.

"Oregon only initiated its investigation into Bates's beliefs after she expressed disagreement with the RAFT training," which it said defines its "expectation" for adhering to the regulation that adoption applicants "respect, accept and support" the gender identity of adoptive children, said the opinion by Judge Daniel Bress, joined by Judge Michael Hawkins.

"In the context of raising children, such respect and support inevitably both restricts and compels speech," as Judge Nelson found, they said, dinging Bush nominee Judge Richard Clifton's dissent for botching the factual record and hence the correct review standards.

"The situation would be no different if the state had restricted parental speech favoring more 'progressive' views of sexuality and gender identity, while compelling speech along the lines of Bates's more traditional understanding," according to the opinion.

The duo said a "state's general conception of the child's best interest does not create a force field against the valid operation of other constitutional rights," such that it could deny adoption based on the "political view, race, or religious affiliations" of prospective parents.

This is unbelievable: Oregon will refuse you an adoption if you won't take your children to "pride" sexual kink events and fetish parades.

Oregon deems as unfit prospective parents who won't take young children "to events like pride parades," as ODHS explicitly demanded of Bates, which is "false and incredibly dangerous," Bates's lawyer Jonathan Scruggs of the Alliance Defending Freedom said in celebrating the ruling.

"The 9th Circuit was right to remind Oregon that the foster and adoption system is supposed to serve the best interests of children, not the state's ideological crusade," he said.

...

Oregon's RAFT training is far-reaching even by the standards of gender affirmation, resembling a Canadian gender studies course more than American adoption requirements.

The Bress opinion recounts its distinctives, referring to children by the LGBTQ variant "LGBTQI2-S," which is common in Canada and whose last abbreviation means "two-spirit," a modern indigenous term of disputed authenticity.

RAFT claims "an infinite number of pronouns" exist and that prospective parents must always ask for them first. Regardless of whether their children identify as LGBTQ, parents should display "symbols indicating an LGBTQ-affirming environment" and provide books and media that celebrate LGBTQ people such as "transgender women in history."

The materials take aim at religion, claiming "faith-based communities" can be sources of "prejudice and rejection" and instructing parents not to force youth to attend religious activities "openly hostile or unsupportive of people with diverse" sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.

...

Adoptive parents must give children "the ability to discuss, provide, and obtain authorization for medically necessary, transition-related treatment, if desired," referring to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries to resemble the opposite sex that allegedly improve mental health and reduce suicides, a claim with little rigorous evidence.

...

The majority repeatedly cites RAFT examples as both strong suggestions and mandates, "broadly reflective of a particular viewpoint on sexual orientation and gender identity, which parents must actively promote under Oregon's policy."

The state's claim that it's regulating speech only "incidental to conduct" would have been "much stronger" if it "simply outlawed harassment or denigration of LGBTQ children --which Bates strongly avers she would not do," but its speech regulation "predominates," they said.

That's not the only big win this week.

Due to Trump's E.O. demanding that women's sports be reserved for -- now here's a twist -- women, the Olympic and Paralympic Committees have banned men from participating in women's sports.

Trump is rolling back Woke like Reagan rolled back the Soviet Union.

From the NYT:

The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee quietly changed its eligibility rules on Monday to bar transgender women from competing in Olympic women's sports, and now will comply with President Trump's executive order on the issue, according to a post on the organization's website.

The new policy, expressed in a short, vaguely worded paragraph, is tucked under the category of "USOPC Athlete Safety Policy" on the site, and does not include details of how the ban will work. Nor does the new policy include the word "transgender" or the title of Mr. Trump's executive order, "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," referring to it instead as "Executive Order 14201." ...

The committee's new policy means that the national governing bodies of sports federations in the United States -- which oversee sporting events for all ages, from youth to masters' competitions -- now must follow the U.S.O.P.C.'s lead, according to several chief executives of sports within the Olympic movement.

The Olympic Committee is so afraid to make this change that they basically hid it and refuse to comment further on it. But apparently their hand was forced by Trump's E.O.

Collin Rugg @CollinRugg

Female fencer takes a knee to protest against her biologically male opponent during a fencing match.

The opponent, Redmond Sullivan, switched from the men's fencing team to the women's fencing team at Wagner College last year.

Sullivan shockingly started dominating the female competition after the switch was made.

During the Connecticut Division Junior Olympic Qualifiers last year, for example, Sullivan competed with the female athletes and won.

The video below reportedly took place over the weekend.

"Sullivan's female opponent was expelled from the USA Fencing event at the Univ. of Maryland over the weekend," reported ICONS.

posted by Ace at 05:20 PM

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