Sanctuary cities for parental rights? California city aims to protect families from radical gender policies

(The Daily Signal) – The mayor of Huntington Beach, California, is fighting for parental rights despite a recently signed state law requiring schools to conceal students’ gender transitions from parents.

Huntington Beach Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark introduced an ordinance Aug. 6 to make the Southern California beach town a “Parents’ Right to Know” city.

“The state of California is one of the most dangerous states to raise a child,” Van Der Mark told The Daily Signal.

The city’s legal department has until Sept. 3 to determine the details of how to best protect parental rights in light of the new California law allowing public schools to hide a student’s gender identity from his or her parents.

Van Der Mark wants to send a message to Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature that despite Newsom’s signing Assembly Bill 1955 into law last month, Huntington Beach will respect parents, the mayor said.

Van Der Mark also wants the “Right to Know” ordinance to help parents who want to sue the state to overturn AB 1955.

“One of the reasons people don’t sue is because the process is so tedious and so dysfunctional that they don’t know where to start,” Van Der Mark said. “It’s also expensive, so we want to do whatever we can to make it easier for the parents to fight for their parental rights.”

AB 1955 overrules any school board policies that require transparency with parents about their child’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Though Van Der Mark has no jurisdiction over the schools, she said the law affects her constituents and she wants to do what she can to help parents protect their children. 

“There are schools that are pushing back,” Van Der Mark said, “and we want to help any parents who would like to push back on their end.”

The Anderson Union High School District and the Orange County Board of Education voted unanimously to join a lawsuit filed by the Liberty Justice Center challenging AB 1955. 

“We all know that AB 1955 is unconstitutional,” Van Der Mark said. “So, if we can help in any way for parents who want to fight for their constitutional rights to raise their children however they see fit with their morals, their values, which should be allowed, then we want to help them.”

Long-standing U.S. Supreme Court precedent establishes that parents have the right to determine major issues affecting the education of their children, said Harmeet Dhillon, founder of the Center for American Liberty and managing partner at Dhillon Law Group Inc.

Dhillon told The Daily Signal she expects California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, to sue Huntington Beach and any other city or school district that challenges AB 1955.

“Whatever Huntington Beach passes that protects parents’ rights, we can expect the attorney general of California, like he has done in multiple other cases where clients of ours have been affected, to sue those school districts or those municipalities over these issues,” Dhillon said.

She said parental rights in education are not just a constitutional issue, but also a human rights issue.

“It’s a fundamental natural law issue, and so Huntington Beach is doing a brave thing,” Dhillon said. “They know they’re going to get sued, and they’re standing up for the rights of parents, and they’re right under Supreme Court precedent.”

Less than 20 minutes from Huntington Beach, Santa Ana public schools allow students to change their name, gender, and pronouns without parental consent. 

“School personnel should not discuss information that may disclose a student’s transgender or gender-nonconforming status to others, including parents/legal guardians and other school personnel, unless legally required to do so or unless the student has authorized such disclosure,” Santa Ana Unified School District’s “Transgender, Non-Binary, and Gender Nonconforming Students” board policy says.

Van Der Mark wants to keep such policies out of Huntington Beach so parents feel safe to raise their kids there. She said the high cost of living makes it hard for working parents to monitor their children’s education as closely as necessary. 

“They’re completely shutting out every single person who’s blood-related, who loves and cares for this child and knows them better than anyone, and they’re giving perfect strangers who are not trained, like teachers and counselors, the discretion to make decisions for this child,” Van Der Mark said.

Patti Pappas is a retired college professor of child development and educational studies and a Huntington Beach resident. Her grandchildren attend local public schools.

“Puberty is not easy, and the school can’t be the one guiding them,” Pappas told The Daily Signal. “The parent needs to know, so the parent has to have that right, and the parent can then guide them and work with them.”

Six of Van Der Mark’s children attended public schools in Huntington Beach. A stay-at-home mom, Van Der Mark decided to run for City Council after finding pornography in her children’s schools in 2017, she said. In Huntington Beach, City Council members take turns serving one-year terms as mayor.

“I’ve been home raising my children for the past 23 years,” the mother and grandmother said. “But because the community is so concerned with what’s going on, they have supported me to the point where now I’m the mayor of the city. Parents are concerned. They just don’t know how to fight back.”

“Now that my kids are adults, and they don’t need me, I’m going to dedicate every single day of my life that I can to fighting against this nonsense coming from Sacramento,” she continued.

Protecting parental rights should not be a partisan issue, Van Der Mark said.

“A lot of us have children, and this would be an issue to bring us all together,” the mayor said, “but once again, it became a four-three vote, where the four of us conservatives do support Huntington becoming a Parents’ Right to Know city and the other three do not.”