Have you ever seen someone you used to know whom you thought was put together well? Then you run into them years later, and they look like they just gave up. That’s Vermont.
A shadow of its once great self, unwashed hair but lots of make-up, searching other people’s pants pockets for change to feed the washing machine at the liquor laundromat.
No unfiltered Lucky Strike hanging from one chapped lip – they more or less banned those things. And so it goes. The home state of Calvin Coolidge. A land carved out between New Hampshire and New York in part by a militia and a will to self-govern, and look at it now. It gave up. Democrats rule. The state even banned militias. So, it should be no surprise that this same state has an unconstitutional religious test.
A pair of Christian foster couples is suing the Vermont Department for Children & Families (DCF) for allegedly blocking them from taking on additional foster children due to their Christian views on gender and sexuality. …
Brian and Kaitlyn Wuoti and Michael and Rebecca Gantt began fostering in 2014 and 2016, respectively, with the Wuotis adopting two brothers and the Gantts taking in three children. Brian Wuoti and Michael Gantt are both Christian pastors, as well.
Seeking to renew their license in 2022, the Wuotis were initially hailed by a caseworker who said she “probably could not hand pick a more wonderful foster family,” but mention of their Christian faith and “that they could not say or do anything that went against faith-informed views about human sexuality” prompted their license to be revoked, according to the lawsuit.
If you want more details on that, the internet has plenty. I’m not here to tote that barge or lift that bail. I’m more interested in the culture behind it—the dangerous political undertow visible at a distance, like the flag pole problem in Nashua. It’s just a flag and a pole, but that’s not the matter that should concern you most. As I noted here, yesterday,
What’s the worst that could happen? The City has to stop pretending to be non-partisan and unbiased; no more citizen flags of any stripe. That’s what Boston did after wasting two million dollars defending its viewpoint discrimination and losing. Let them do that and then we get to ask them what else about their administration is just like the flagpole
The answer is probably everything.
Nashua also has a criminal disregard for public records law. That’s a problem, but the real issue is what lies beneath it. So it goes with a State like Vermont, which—without any public announcements or citizen approval—deployed and enforced a religious test for foster parents. You’d be a damned fool to think there isn’t one for other features of State government or that the culture that abets such a thing hasn’t poisoned other wells in “the community.”
The volume of impropriety is a proverbial iceberg.
It is why we pushed back so hard on a bill to charge fees for public documents. It is why we pushed back on a Camel’s Nose red flag bill proposed by a Republican. I don’t care what protections you think you included. You can make all the sensible arguments you want; this will lead to abuses whose risk is far greater to life and liberty than the odds that a mentally unstable person will look for and find a gun-free zone in which to harm others with a firearm (the cure to which is to ban gun-free zones by the way).
We do not open these doors. They are hills to die on. And the religious test is not a fluke. It is evidence that the patients are running the asylum, and if you bother to look, you can see the results. Higher taxes. Declining services. Dumber students. Increased lawlessness. Drug crimes. Drug deaths. And the only answer the inmates can think of is for you to give them more money and power. A cabal that calls you names and tries to destroy you if you dare to push back.
And you voted for this.
So, when you think about the case of the Christian Parents, remember that this has nothing to do with their faith or yours. It is about the demise of a once great state that valued natural rights before political power. That’s what this is about. It is about watching that political system gnaw away at your rights until you have none (in the name of Democracy, no less). And you can choose to continue to ignore it or not.
It’s your state.
But I don’t advise it.
Note: More than a few corrections after publication – so this version differs slightly from the original.