Can we count on you to stand for Texas?

June 21, 2018 SAFAFamily

Article contributed by Friends of San Antonio Family Association

Advancing the conservative principles begins with the grassroots.

In February, Texas Family hosted the First Annual Protect Texas Children Symposium in which Comprehensive Sex Education Experts from across the state shared in a learning and sharing two-day workshop. Following the #ProtectTexasChildren workshop, numerous conference calls and meetings were held to coordinate the efforts to educate people, especially public officials on the dangerous initiative of “Planned Parenthood” and Cecile Richard’s mission for the Texas Freedom Network to infiltrate and overtake every Student Health Advisory Council (SHAC) in every Texas Independent School District (ISD) since 1995.

Unfortunately for the young people of Texas, they have succeeded. Texas Family, part of the SAFA Family, has been instrumental in pushing back and helping to take back sex education in Texas. Consider joining with Texas Family by helping volunteer, praying, and/or giving money to help continue these efforts.

The fruit of these efforts has first become visible as of the close of the Republican Party of Texas Convention in San Antonio last Saturday.

Resolutions related to #SexEducation and #Abortion providers that passed at Senate district and county conventions around #Texas and testimony before the platform committees had a significant impact on the Republican Platform adopted at the state convention on June 16, 2018.

Four resolutions several of us worked on were included in the platform. It was a huge victory to get the Legislative Priority on abortion amended to prohibit Planned Parenthood in schools.

Won’t you help? Consider getting involved with your time or your money with a tax-deductible contribution so we can continue to defend and protect the Family.

#ProtectLife, #DefendLife, #PromoteLife, #ProtectChildHealth, #DefendChildHealth, #PromoteChildHealth

Big Conservative Wins at Texas Republican State Convention – June 2018

“Big Conservative Wins at Texas Republican State Convention – June 2018”

From Longtime Conservative Activist – Anne Newman

Resolutions related to sex education and abortion providers that passed at senate district and county conventions around Texas and testimony before the platform committees had a significant impact on the Republican Platform adopted at the state convention on June 16, 2018.

Information was provided in advance to platform committee members and delegates about the reasons the resolutions were needed in the platform, and grassroots parents and grandparents testified before subcommittees. Four resolutions several of us worked on were included in the platform. It was a huge victory to get the Legislative Priority on abortion amended to prohibit Planned Parenthood in schools.

The next step is to ask candidates if they will support legislation to enact these platform items, and then on to the next legislative session, armed with the platform.

Legislative Priorities

The Legislative Priorities Committee passed five legislative priorities from the platform:

Constitutional Carry: Pass constitutional carry while maintaining licensing as optional for reciprocity purposes.

Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying: Pass legislation to abolish all forms of taxpayer-funded lobbying and end the automatic payroll deduction of union dues by the government.

Abortion: Pass legislation to abolish abortion; including, but not limited to, enacting legislation that would ignore and refuse to enforce any and all federal statutes, regulations, executive orders, and court rulings, which would deprive an unborn child of the right to life, as well as enacting life-saving legislation such as PreNDA or a “heartbeat bill.”

Note: During the debate on these, the priority on abortion was amended by adding:

“Completely eliminate public funding for Planned Parenthood and their affiliates and prohibit their physical and digital presence in our schools. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kPVhzgiW50&feature=youtu.be

Our team was at the floor mics ready to make the amendment and to speak in favor if someone spoke against it. I was the only one to speak in favor because no one spoke against it.

Property Tax: Abolish the Maintenance and Operation School property tax and replace it with a consumption tax or other mechanism other than income tax while broadening the tax base, eliminating the appraisal board and taxing the property at the purchased value or the free market value upon change of hands for local government funding and special district funding. School Maintenance and Operation funds shall be allocated from the state’s general fund to Texas’ Independent School Districts via an inflation-adjusted, per-student-allocation.

Religious Freedom and Privacy: Pass legislation prohibiting the violation of the rights and freedoms of individuals, organizations and businesses, to exercise their sincerely held religious beliefs by local ordinances or state laws; and pass legislation that protects the privacy and safety of women and children in multi-use facilities such as bathrooms, locker rooms and showers in all Texas schools and government buildings and oppose legislation that would undermine these privacy and safety protections.

2018 GOP Platform Planks Excerpts

The platform planks that resolutions and testimony affected are as follows:

Obscenity Exemption: We urge repeal of the Texas Penal Code “Obscenity Exemption” that allows children access to harmful, explicit, or pornographic materials under the guise of education materials.

School Health Advisory Councils: Until the legislature removes sex education from the curriculum of public schools, the State of Texas should adopt changes to Texas Education Code 28.004 to require every member of the School Health Advisory Council (SHAC) to be appointed by the Board of Trustees; require every school district to post SHAC meeting minutes, full and fair disclosure of the contents of the human sexuality instruction, and proposed changes to health education; close loopholes and prohibit contraception distribution and demonstration; and expand the grievance process to cover the entire section of Texas Education Code 28.004.

Sexual Education: We demand the state legislature pass a law prohibiting the teaching of sex education, sexual health, or sexual choice, or identity in any public school in any grade whatsoever, or disseminating or permitting the dissemination by any party of any material regarding the same. All school districts, individual schools, or charter schools are prohibited from contracting with or making any payment to any third party for material concerning any of the above topics. Until this prohibition goes into effect, sexual education shall only utilize sexual risk avoidance programs and promote abstinence outside of marriage.

Note: The call for eliminating sex education came as a result of parents testifying about the extremely offensive materials in their schools. One talked about a book called “It’s Perfectly Normal,” which is anything but perfectly normal. This book has cartoon-like drawings of naked people — young, old, Black, White, fat, thin, tall and thin. Drawings also include a boy and girl masturbating and a couples having sex. The book, which is for ages 10 an older, has a two-page spread about laws and rulings on abortion. I gave the committee members a lesson called “Herman Uses a Condom,” a graphic description of how to put on a condom.

Healthcare in Public Schools: Legislators shall prohibit reproductive health care services, including counseling, referrals, and distribution of condoms and contraception through public schools. We support parents’ right to choose, without penalty, which medications are administered to their minor children. We reaffirm that the age of consent in Texas is 17 years old.

Planned Parenthood – We support completely eliminating public funding for Planned Parenthood and any other abortion providers and all their affiliates, and we oppose their digital or physical presence in our schools and other public institutions. We also support elimination of public funding for embryonic stem cell research, research on fetal tissue, or human cloning.

Local Control for Education: We believe that all children should have access to quality education. Under the US Constitution, the power to regulate education is reserved exclusively to the States and to the people.

Parents have the primary right and responsibility to educate their children. The classroom should be a place where all viewpoints are welcomed, free speech is celebrated, and “person before politics” beliefs are preached. We support the right of parents to freely choose public, charter, private, parochial, or home schooling for their children. We support the right of parents to choose the specific public school that their children attend. No child should be forced to attend a failing school. We reject the imposition of federal education standards and the tying of any government funding to the adoption of federal education standards.

We reject the intrusion of government in private, parochial or home schools. We affirm that the policies, procedures, activities, and finances of public education in Texas at all levels should be fully transparent. To ensure transparency, the check register of all traditional school districts and charter schools should be posted online with the link on the homepage. We respect parental authority regarding sex education. We believe that abortion providers and affiliates should be prohibited from providing any curriculum or instruction in schools.

Other planks related to sex education that were adopted:

Gender Identity: The official position of the Texas schools with respect to transgenderism is that there are only two genders: male and female.

No Sexuality Indoctrination: We call on the state legislature to pass legislation so that no public school or other educational institution may force, require, or pressure any child or student to profess, espouse, or adopt, or otherwise be indoctrinated without explicit parental consent, specific views on sex, sexuality, gender, or gender identity.

You can keep up with more news and information at www.facebook.com/TexasFamily, www.SanAntonioFamilyAssociation.com/TexasFamily, and www.facebook.com/ProtectTexasChildren.