I already FOUGHT this battle – NOW I may have to do it again? Crikey! After founding and running GraniteGrok for 17 and a half years, hardly a month has gone by since I announced my [semi-] retirement, yet I find myself at the keyboard again over this nonsense. ”
During that announcement, I said that my attention had to turn to advocating for the Grandson in the school system due to his diagnosis and also having to deal with the Granddaughter’s severe issues, dealing with her medical folks, the Gilford School District that has to deal with her Special Needs education, and DCYF that placed her with us (first as “Fictive Kinship Caregivers” and now full-fledged “Skilled Care Foster Parents”).
While I had said that I’d be writing from time to time, my priorities had to be ‘family.’ I also said that I had a few unfinished projects to follow up on to square all the open circles, so I’d still be writing from time to time. Unfortunately, I am faced with the same battle that I already won but at a higher, more difficult level, and no, I didn’t see it coming.
Regular ‘Grok readers are familiar with my Gilford School Board (GSD) skirmishes (and a few others) over Policy JBAB; which enforced Government speech upon all who were on school grounds. “You WILL use any students’ “preferred transgender pronouns.” Tacked onto that was THEIR shot across the bow to Parents that the GSD staff WILL lie to you about the transgender status of YOUR child in THEIR school (ostensibly as they don’t trust Parents to love and care for their children as much as the GSD staff does. After almost three years of being a relentless Pain In Their Collective Asses (including a long legal battle), I won.
Imagine my surprise, late last night while surfing, to find a couple of articles that said that the Obama retreads embedded in the Biden Administration have decided that because they control the Gold that they give out to the various States, they can now demand fealty to THEIR mandated Government Speech demands. A State’s Foster parents will use Transgender preferred pronouns for any Trans Foster Children in their care. And it goes further. ALL Foster Parents MUST be “Transgender Affirmative.”
In this case, in the State of New Hampshire, that would be me! I’m betting you already know what *I* thought of that, right?
- First, several lines from The Godfather and John Wick movies that perfectly outlined my ire (and explain why you are seeing my byline so soon after “retirement”) Me: [Godfather – Michael Corleone] “Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Pull Me Back In!”
- [John Wick] “You Wanted Me Back… I’m Back! “I’m Thinkin’ I’m Back!”
- And from Watson, the head of the infamous head of the NYC Intercontinental Hotel in the John Wick trio of movies (I haven’t seen #4 yet): “What did you think? You stabbed the Devil in the back and forced him back into the life that he just left.”
For those not in the know, Keanu Reeves plays John Wick, the world’s best assassin who fell in love with a lady, removed himself from that world, and was forced back into that life again. That’s what happens when you kill a man’s dog and steal his car, both post-mortem presents from his now-deceased wife. E.g., not a guy to screw around with.
While I make no claim to be a John Wick (I’m just an ordinary schlub from Central NH and not a make-believe character in a wildly successful film series), I can understand the ornery and absolutely dedicated nature of the character in his devotion to “correcting” people that need correcting.
I also failed to heed the advice I’ve given to others. Do not write something to someone when it’s a bit too late to be emailing ANYTHING to ANYONE due to writing mistakes that can pop up. That said, I was rather upset. I was going to have to fight this same fight all over again with a different set of people.
And I ignored myself about writing that email.
I sent it to three NH DHHS employees (two work directly for DCYF) as a shot across their bow (see image above).
Unfortunately, they are decent people, but, once again, we are REQUIRED by our NH Constitution’s Article 8 to hold our public “Magistrates and Officers” accountable. So here’s what I sent, but with some editing to clean up some atrocious grammar mistakes.
I have also added more text from the linked-to articles along with more thoughts (thinking that I’m a bit more coherent right now – but that’s always open to debate).
I think not.
Good evening,
This comes at a propitious time as I have finally done all of the long preliminary work of getting my Granddaughter settled, working hard with the Gilford School Board, advocating for all of her cognitive and emotional testing (still working on getting the needed Dartmouth-Hitchcock reference), and doing all the DCYF/CWEP classes to earn the General, Skilled Care, and Emergency Foster Parent certifications (but still waiting for the Crisis class to be offered to complete the circle). Now I have the time, given all the time spent these past four months on the more important items just listed, to return to finishing up my past DCYF-related Right To Know demands, send off a whole raft of new ones (because a few DCYF workers have created more problems and not caring that they created them for folks like me).
Add to them, what I just read tonight that will affect me personally as well as other Foster Parents across NH:
I dryly note that the actual URL for the above title gives away the Administration’s game: new-biden-rule-reveals-transgender-movements-endgame-no-dissenting-parents-allowed. A snippet from it’s opening paragraphs says it all (emphasis mine, reformatted):
Transgender orthodoxy may soon become a litmus test for parenthood, according to the logic of a new policy working its way through the Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden.
A new rule in HHS’ Administration for Children and Families would apply the idea that any lack of “affirmation” constitutes a form of child abuse to foster care placements. Once that idea takes root in foster care, child protective services agencies might start applying it more broadly.
The rule would reinterpret the Social Security Act, which requires agencies to ensure that each child in foster care receives “safe and proper” care. The rule would lay out steps agencies must take to meet that requirement for “LGBTQI+ children,” defined as kids who “identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, as well as children who are non-binary, or have non-conforming gender identity or expression.”
Before agencies place a child with a foster parent, known as a “provider,” that person must “establish an environment free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the child’s LGBTQI+ status;” receive training “to be prepared with the appropriate knowledge and skills to provide for the needs of the child related to the child’s self-identified sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression;” and must be able to “facilitate the child’s access to age-appropriate resources, services, and activities that support their health and well-being.”
In short, using “discrimination” is once again being used to supercede Constitutionally protected Rights of Free Speech, the prohibition to Government not to interfere with one’s Religious beliefs, nor the Right to Association (or the converse: the Right to NOT Associate with those you may not wish to). Go read the whole article.
…Providers are “expected to utilize the child’s identified pronouns, chosen name, and allow the child to dress in an age-appropriate manner that the child believes reflects their self-identified gender identity and expression.”
Sorry, we are not devotees to either the CRT bastard child called “Childism” nor the Social Justice variant that “children run a family” (which is being demanded here) – that’s extremely poor parenting along with the other stupid idea that parents that are supposed to be their child’s “friend” instead of doing the hard work of, you know, doing actual parenting. Nor will I be forced to learn the now THOUSANDS of preferred pronouns, neo-pronouns and all of the craziness of made up words simply to be “affirming” and this sector has literally gone off the rails (search here on GraniteGrok for “stack of stuff” to see any number of stories I’ve listed containing material on this) and have my Granddaughter taken from me because I don’t fit someone’s Leftist Ideology.
So when is the NH DHHS/DCYF in favor of implementing this new rule now proposed by the Biden Administration (comments end 11/27/2023)?
Ah yes, silly me – asking a simple question rather than using RTKs. It’s getting late so I figured I’d try the simple way first – like I did the Gilford School Board. Funny that – they eschewed “easy” and went directly to “boy this is gonna hurt for a while”. However, I’m hoping for better this time.
I just spent two and a half years suing the Gilford School Board and forced them to modify their blatantly unconstitutional strictures encased in their Policy JBAB that violated Part 1 Articles 5 and 22 of the NH Constitution as well as those proscribed in the US Constitution’s First Amendment of
- MANDATED usage of “preferred pronouns” by anyone on school grounds – a government-enforced speech violating the above
- Also, their unconstitutional mandate forced their staff to lie to parents over the raising of their children by denying parents knowledge of their child’s transgender identity in the school (by various means).
Indoctrination much in demanding fealty to a government philosophy or suffer consequences? The School Board, the NH Association of Superintendents, and the NH School Board Association were forcing this Policy JBAB upon Districts state-wide (note: given the level of lawsuits here in NH and nationwide, the NHSBA pulled JBAB from their portfolio and told local Districts: “we may have given you this policy but good luck, suckers – you’re on your own!”. CYA at work – they understood what was coming as being the progenitor of that Policy).
That #2 was “interesting” as I used the Grandson’s Principal to make my point in calling out the School Board, IN FRONT OF THEIR Sr. Staff, for forcing their staff to lie, during the Public comment section of an open School Board Meeting by directly asking “What is the transgender status of my Grandson?”. And no, not an idle threat:
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2022/05/gunstock-commish-kiedaisch-my-bylaws-trump-state-statutes-gilford-school-board-brava (go to 8:36 to cut to the chase about lying to me but the starting is also illustrative – and other courts are ruling against the use of preferred pronouns all over the nation – we are hitting “Peak Trans” (a la “Peak Oil”).
Way to go, you SB morons for cratering that most fragile of attributes between those that govern versus citizens attribute even as:
Trust
E.g., Article 3 (emphasis mine):
When men enter into a state of society, they surrender up some of their natural rights to that society, in order to ensure the protection of others; and, without such an equivalent, the surrender is void.
I posit that Free Speech and Religious Freedom are not counted amongst those “surrendered Rights”.
Most of the students AND parents sitting behind me that night were quite unaware of the Policy – afterwards, I had a ring of parents asking rather upset and pointed questions. It pays to read RSAs and Rules. The school board and staff, however, were not amused.
Point was made – the Policy was soon neutered as they couldn’t point (nor could their lawyer as they FINALLY asked her “What is the RSA or Ed RUle that supports this Policy?”). In this Dillon’s Rule State, the Legislature has never delegated such Powers to a mere subdivision of the State such as a School Board.
Nor to DCYF, as DCYF is a mere subdivision of the State as well.
This will be amusing to bring this issue to our GraniteGrok friends in the Legislature (see NH Constitution, Article 7) in on this “development”. So, I look forward to version 2.0 in this matter. Please also note I know a number of lawyers in such pro bono groups that take on such cases in this matter (especially the ADF, among others), that do.
Added for this post: ACLJ, Christian Legal Society, Liberty Counsel, Thomas More Law Center, and Pacific Justice Institute. Since I’ve already done this fight before, I’m betting they’d take a listen from me.
Hmmm, somehow I think that my semi-retirement from GraniteGrok, announced just a month ago, is also now going to be revoked/voided…