The 2024 state legislative session has gotten off to a slow start, primarily because House Republicans have been following the lead of their brethren in Congress by acting ridiculous and focusing a significant amount of time on attacking each other. Now that the Republican micro-minority in the House finally has a new “leader,” state legislators have at last been able to spend their energy on actual lawmaking.
That doesn’t mean that the ridiculousness has come to a close, of course. Absurdity is the coin of the realm in the modern Colorado Republican Party, and plenty of way-too-online nutballs are trying to organize opposition to several new pieces of legislation that are fairly benign unless you just pulled your head out of a microwave. Let’s take a look at what the weirdos are worried about this week…
Here’s the official summary of this nefarious proposal:
For purposes of the school-based health center grant program (grant program), the bill expands the definition of a school-based health center and the purposes of the grant program to authorize grants for evidence-informed, school-linked health-care services. Services may include primary health-care, behavioral health-care, oral health-care, and preventive health-care services.
Egads!
The Democratic sponsors of this legislation are focusing their efforts on “medically underserved students and their families,” but groups such as the El Paso County chapter of “Moms for Liberty” smell a (transgendered) rat and are encouraging members to show up to testify in opposition to a thing they don’t know anything about. Darcy Schoening, the totally-normal GOP activist who is the “media director” for the El Paso County “Moms for Liberty” chapter, was quoted recently in “The Epoch Times” bemoaning the destruction of “parent’s rights” and saying this about Colorado public schools in general:
“Our kids are being weaponized,” she said. “They’re being destroyed for political value.”
Why is “Moms for Liberty” freaking out about legislation to help make healthcare services more accessible for underserved families? One “Moms for Liberty” enthusiast views this as part of a plan to abort babies and transgenderize kids at school:
Q: Will expansion include abortions, birth control, and/or transgender surgeries or pharmaceutical products for students?
Um, what?
This seems to be the concern: You drop your son off for what you think is a normal day of third grade, and when you return at the end of the day, little Billy is now a girl. It’s a slippery slope! Before long, the principal’s office will double as a fully-stocked surgical room where school nurses cut off penises after recess.
Here’s the deets on SB24-014:
The bill authorizes a school district, board of cooperative services, district charter high school, or institute charter high school (local education provider) to grant a high school diploma endorsement in climate literacy (seal of climate literacy) to graduating students who demonstrate mastery in climate literacy and attain green skills or technical green skills. To obtain a seal of climate literacy, a student must complete the minimum high school graduation requirements of the local education provider, successfully complete 2 courses in the area of climate literacy selected by the local education provider, and successfully complete a final experiential learning project (final project) that is approved, supported, and facilitated by a climate literacy experiential learning provider (learning provider).
This bill does not require students to receive a “seal of climate literacy” but merely provides an option. Nevertheless, The Colorado Freedom Force is on the case!
Who better to teach (indoctrinate) your child on “climate literacy”, obviously a made-up term, than the government? This bill authorizes school districts to add a seal of endorsement to students’ diplomas when they have demonstrated mastery in “green skills” after taking at least two courses in the area of “climate literacy.”
Based on Colorado’s recent education scores where only 28% of students were proficient in math, maybe there are other areas students could focus on literacy first?
“Math literacy” is an actual phrase used by these rocket surgeons.
This bill, which was recommended by the Colorado Youth Advisory Council Review Committee, directs the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to conduct or commission a “gender-affirming health-care provider study” that would report back on questions such as:
The Colorado Freedom Force doesn’t really elaborate on why they are opposed to this legislation. But according to an email newsletter from “RINO Watch,” HB24-1040 “authorizes the use of tax dollars to promote child mutilation and transgender ‘treatments.'” House Bill 24-1040 isn’t “promoting” anything — it only authorizes a study to help policy makers understand what services are already available and how many people are using them, etc. But transgender people are scary to these folks, and just talking about “gender-affirming health care” will inevitably force all Coloradans to change their pronouns (assuming they haven’t already been re-gendered in elementary school, of course).
Anyway, if you’re a right-wing weirdo, these are the things you should be worried about this week.
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"Math literacy" is in fact a real educational goal. It is more commonly called "Numeracy", though.
But of course, the weirdos are worried about anything with "health care" in the title.
They were pretty convinced that the ACA would pave the way for communish.