A referendum to invalidate a bill just passed and signed this fall, SB 777, launched yesteday morning at a press conference on the north steps of the State Capitol. Legislators attending Friday are Co-Chairs for the campaign including Assembly Republican Caucus Chairman Bob Huff, Assemblyman Joel Anderson and myself. Co-chairs Senator George Runner and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner had a press conference to launch it down south as well. Capitol Resource Institute, led by executive director, Karen England formed the newly affiliated [c]4 arm Capitol Resource Family Impact to wage this campaign. Thanks to Karen and CRFI directors and staff for putting together the press event and importantly, of course, this campaign.
You’ll recall that SB 777 was the bill by Senator Kuehl that set off a shock wave that would require change to school policy and curriculum that could be seen by some to "promote a discriminatory bias" [btw, we already have more than adequate protections in the law] and turn every policy that could be interpreted to have an impact on gender or individual sexuality into a legal nightmare.
Already scaredy-cat adminstrators that ban prayer in school and the flag salute would be even more motivated to disallow faith-based activity on or near schools, and could even ban homecoming queen or king activities because they would now have to be the Homecoming Androgynous Person Of The Year to not offend anyone or get sued. This bill would cause legal standing to give great momentum to such nonsense. "Finally", a way for teenage boys to have legal access to girls locker rooms, just ‘perceive’ yourself as a girl and the legal system will provide you a map and a red carpet!
On the curriculum side, instructional materials likely would be required to specifically include all types of families, not just refer to the biased mommy and daddy type home, or husband and wife in school book depictions. Yes, we in California may soon have Murphy Brown deciding your kids curriculum under this measure. Good thing the bill limiting school text books to no larger than 200 pages failed last session or pages with some actual instructional value on health, history, language, etc. would have to be ripped out in order to be replaced to legally illustrate all these alternative types.
The Save Our Kids campaign [and info on requesting petitions] can be found on the www.SaveOurKids.net site. It has already received 40,000 hits requesting petitions, which are in the mail. As well, Focus On The Family has come on board to support the campaign. It will need 434,000 valid signatures by about Jan 10. [The 90 day window for gathering referendum sigs starts the day the bill is signed, which was October 12. Many days’ time were consumed waiting for the Attorney General to put out the approved title and summary.]
This will be a strong grass roots effort as there are many very motivated parents and volunteers that seek to rescind the Triple Threat that Triple Seven is…to the confidence people do have in public schools; to families with no school choice alternatives; and the right of parents to teach and exercise their values with their kids. Less than 70 days left, get your petitions and circulate them during the upcoming holiday season, especially Christmas time.
[Publisher’s Note: FR Readers — It is critically important that you take action on this measure. SB 777 is terrible public policy, in essence allowing government to discriminate in a bad way against those who believe in and espouse basic traditional family values. Please, please, please take the time to go to www.saveourkids.net now, and do two things: (1) Make a contribution. $5, $50, $500 — (2) Request petitions and get those signatures. The bad news is that the ultra-liberal legislature passed this bill and the Governor (you know, the one the GOP played a key role in electing, twice?) — he signed it! The good news is — if there is a public debate and vote in California on this measure, like so many areas where California Democrats are out of the mainstream, voters WILL overturn this terrible law — Jon Fleischman]
November 5th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Will there be an effort to circulate this petition to paid professional signature gatherers? Gettting paid for engaging in peaceful political activity is a good thing.The other side seems ready to spend a lot of money this cycle.
November 6th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Thank you for your outstanding leadership on this important issue, Assemblyman LaMalfa!
As for paid signature gathering, we have bids out now. We are also raising the money to finance the signature gathering campaign.