A significant part of my role with the California Family Council (CFC) is to keep Christians informed about the legislation and issues emanating from the Capitol. Most people lack the time to follow the latest news closely. However, with the CFC office adjacent to the Capitol, I am immersed in it daily.
Over the last several years, CFC has published two or three weekly stories on Capitol News and state news of interest, but there is much more to tell. I will begin to write regular updates, offering an overview of the ongoing developments now that California legislators have introduced several thousand bills in the past two months and committee hearings are underway. So buckle up.
- Free Condoms for 7-12 graders: This Wednesday, the Senate Education Committee will hear a bill, SB 954, by Senator Caroline Menjivar (D-Van Nuys) requiring public high schools to notify students where they can get free condoms on campus. Additionally, it mandates that junior high and high schools permit community health partners, like Planned Parenthood, to distribute condoms during sex education classes.
Furthermore, the bill encourages schools to collaborate with nonprofits, like Planned Parenthood, or a condom manufacturer to secure grants or condom donations for distribution in schools. School boards will also be prohibited from restricting condom distribution from their school-based health centers. Finally, the bill prohibits retail stores from refusing to give condoms to minors.
I’ll be testifying against the bill because it promotes a hookup culture that creates perfect conditions for STIs to spread. If you would like to join me in opposing this bill, see details here: https://sedn.senate.ca.gov/agenda Call members of the Education Committee hear and tell them to vote “no” on SB 954.
- Proposed Expansion to CA’s Assisted Suicide Law: We knew this would happen. Once the state legalized helping people kill themselves, the activists would then push and push to make the suicide drugs available to more and more people. Southern California Senator Catherine Blakespear (D-Laguna Hills) has just introduced SB 1196, at bill to remove more “safeguards” from California’s Assisted Suicide Law.
* Currently, a doctor must confirm a terminal illness with a six-month prognosis. SB 1196 removed that requirement and said suicide drugs will be available for anyone with a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.”
* SB 1196 will also expand assisted suicide to those with early to mid-stage dementia.
*SB 1196 will let the drugs be received through intravenous (IV) infusion. Drugs must be taken orally by the patient now.
* The current law requires the patient to ask for the drugs twice with a 48-hour waiting period between the requests. SB 1196 removes that requirement.
Read more details from Blakespear’s factsheet. Read an article from the Deseret News.
- Here Come the Rainbow (Unicorn) Homes: Last year the California Legislator passed a law, AB 665, giving minors 12 and older the right to leave their homes for any reason and be placed in a state funded residental center. Parent permission or notification is not required for this to happen. We feared this bill was part of a plan separate LGBTQ identified kids with parents who disagreed with their new identities or refused to lets their children harm themselves with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or double mastectomies.
This year Assemblywoman Tasha Boerner (D-Solana Beach) has introduced AB 2007, a bill to establish transitional housing for homeless LGBTQ+ Youth Program for Sacramento and San Diego counties. Our Duty, an organization full of parents fighting to prevent the medical gender-transitioning of their minor children, believes this bill is all part of a plan to removing gender confused children from homes of parents. Read their letter of opposition to understand their concerns
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Good Bills Introduced to Fight Sex Trafficking:
Making Loitering for Prostition a Crime Again: Senator Scott Wiener passed a bill several year ago, SB 357, to legalize loitering for the purposes of prostitution. CFC and its allies fought vigorously against this bill warning legislators that pimps and sex buyers would use this law to increase the buying and selling of children and woman for sex on the streets of the state’s low income neighborhoods. That is exactly what happened. Read here and here.Several bills have been introduced this year to again criminalize Loitering for Prostitution. One bill CFC is supporting is SB 1219 by Senator Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta). This bill makes loitering in a public place and impeding traffic with the intent to direct or solicit prostitution as disorderly conduct. SB 1219 is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Public Safety Committee on April 2. Send in letters of support here.
Making Buying a Minor for Sex a Felony: In California buying a minor for sex is only considered disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, if you can say you didn’t know the person was a minor. SB 1414, introduced by Senator Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), gets rid of that excuse and increases the penalty for those convicted.
According to Grove’s fact sheet, SB 1414 states that if an individual solicits, agrees to engage in or engages in any act of commercial sex with a minor, regardless of whether or not the person knew or reasonably should have known that the person solicited was a minor, then that person is guilty of a felony, punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for 2, 3, or 4 years, a fine not to exceed $25,000, and registration as a sex offender.
