A Linn-Mar parent issued a call to action for parents in the district at Monday night’s board meeting as a radical transgender policy passed 5-2. Prior to its passage, one parent warned the board passing such a policy would start a war over parents’ rights.
“I come before you representing a family that has a transgender, has a gay, has a straight, we have white, we have Mexican, we have Samoan and we have black,” she said. “I also serve your community through the driver education program. There is not a parent on my family side of any of those identities, nor of those races, nor in your community, that I have met, that would hand over their parental responsibilities for driver education to you. They also would not hand over their parental rights on gender issues to you.”
She said she found it “ironic” that Randi Weingarten said parental rights bills are the way in which wars start.
“So I’m going to ask you guys, to seriously, especially the five (who voted for the policy previously), I’m going to assume you don’t have children because if you have children, I feel sorry for them,” she said. “I would never want my mother or my father to give up their parental rights on how they guide me.
“You guys are waging war on the very people who were in our womb before they were in your school. They were in our homes before they were in your school. I am pleading with you to not pass this bill because you will begin a war on parent rights. And I don’t want to see that happen in the state of Iowa. I don’t want to see that happen in Linn-Mar.
“Now, to every parent that is here listening to me and watching me, it is time to wage war. We are the parents of our children. We place them in position, we can remove them from position or they can work with us.”
