Legislature Begins Looking at Two Key Bills During the Interim

This week the Arkansas Legislature moved forward with plans to look at two key pieces of legislation between now and 2019.

The first is S.B. 583 by Senator Joyce Elliott. The legislature will study the feasibility of requiring 25% of lottery proceeds to fund scholarships; reinstating the 2.5 GPA requirement to be eligible for scholarships; and having independent consultants for the Arkansas Lottery.

The second is S.B. 774, the privacy bill by Senator Linda Collins-Smith. This bill would have required a person using a public shower, locker room, restroom, or similar facility on government property to use the facility that corresponds to the biological sex listed on his or her original birth certificate. The legislature will study this issue in the months to come.

Lawmakers cannot pass these bills during the interim study period, but can research these issues, collect testimony, and present recommendations when the Arkansas Legislature reconvenes as a whole.

We are glad lawmakers have agreed to look at these two issues during the interim. The next step is to schedule meetings where experts, members of the public, and others can testify at the Capitol.

Victory at the U.S. Supreme Court

Late yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision blocking a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling concerning school restroom policies.

As you may know, last spring the Obama Administration issued “guidelines” to public schools and colleges instructing them to let biological males who claim to be female use the girls’ restrooms, locker rooms, shower facilities, and so forth at school. Meanwhile, a lawsuit has been underway back east, where a biologically female student who claims to be male has sued the school for access to the boys’ restrooms and locker rooms.

The school has insisted restroom and locker room facilities should remain separated based on students’ biological sex–not based on gender-identity. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had ordered the school to let students use the restrooms and locker rooms of their choice rather than of their biological sex. Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court blocked that decision.

National Organization of Marriage (NOM) issued a statement, saying,

[T]he US Supreme Court has blocked a ruling of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals imposing a transgender bathroom policy by interpreting the term “sex” under Title IX of federal law to mean “gender identity.”

This is a big victory and protects students in the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland and comes as students will be heading back to school soon. The ruling is a blow to the Obama administration which has been working overtime to impose the gender ideology of LGBT extremists.

The effect of the ruling is to leave intact a Virginia school district’s policy that intimate facilities such as restrooms, showers and locker rooms are segregated based on a student’s actual biologic sex, and not based on “gender identity” or other subjective feelings.

It is expected that the school district will file a motion with the Supreme Court to hear the underlying case this fall. NOM will urge the Supreme Court to rule that federal law enacted decades ago does not define “sex” to mean “gender identity” and that the Obama administration does not have the legal authority to impose their transgender bathroom policy on the nation’s schools.

While the decision does not directly impact Arkansas, it is a major victory that affects the tone of future court cases.

Target Stock Continues to Tumble Amid Boycott

Target_Albemarle_Rd_Charlotte,_NC_(7579989322)According to Family Research Council, Target stock continues to reel as Americans boycott the company until it changes its policies announced two months ago concerning restrooms and changing areas in its stores.

FRC writes,

With its profits in the gender-free toilet, Target CEO Brian Cornell was on the hot seat with investors for the decision, which analysts say has cost the retailer more than $4.5 billion — and counting.

Worried about crashing stocks, Cornell was pressed about the negative fallout from the unpopular policy. He insisted (with a straight face) that there was none. “Zero correlation, zero effect,” he declared. That’s a convenient response, but not a truthful one. As everyone on Wall Street knows, Target’s stocks have taken a nearly 20-percent nosedive since April 19, when the change was announced. If there was zero correlation, why are Walmart and online retailers holding steady? Clearly, the boycott — the most successful in American Family Association’s history — is having an enormous impact on Target’s bottom line. But, much like Starbucks’s CEO, who doggedly stuck by his company’s anti-marriage campaign, Cornell made it known that he didn’t care what consumers’ think.

Family Research Council has written extensively about specific cases that demonstrate policies like Target’s can be abused, endangering the safety and privacy of others. You can read their overview here.

The American Family Association is asking Americans to boycott Target. So far, approximately 1.3 million have done so. You can find information about the boycott here.

Photo Credit: By Mike Kalasnik from Fort Mill, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.