OPINION:
Recently companies of all types and backgrounds have coordinated to advance pro-LGBTQ viewpoints and attack legislation such as Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law.
In one case, a Disney executive touted the “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” which she promotes through the company’s content.
Similarly, Apple leads a nationwide coalition of Fortune 500 companies that oppose the Florida law. The coalition also opposes Texas’ efforts to prevent children from receiving so-called “gender-affirming” care, such as puberty blockers, hormone injections and chemical castration.
All these actions have one thing in common: They likely stem from the Human Rights Campaign, which functions as America’s largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization.
The HRC pressures major corporations, law firms, hospitals and government officials at all levels to march in lockstep with its agenda, which includes gender-affirming care. It provides resources for schools to recruit kids into a campaign antithetical to child protection and parental rights, and it does all of this under a “civil rights” banner.
Much of the HRC’s work is accomplished by corporate executives from companies such as Apple, who “worked with a national coalition organized by the HRC to speak out and lobby against” the new Florida and Texas policies. The connection between Apple and the HRC goes back to at least 1995, when then-Apple executive Elizabeth Birch became HRC’s executive director.
Apple and other Fortune 500 companies participate in the HRC’s “corporate membership calls” to coordinate “state-level fights.” They also coordinate to promote broader efforts, such as the HRC’s largest legislative effort, the “Equality Act.” The HRC’s “Corporate Equality Index” holds companies hostage, incentivizing them to cooperate with their political agendas.
However, the HRC’s direct relationship with schools is strong too, and its influence is pervasive. Through its “Welcoming Schools” lesson plans, the HRC claims to have trained educators in 43 states, influencing over 10.5 million students. As result, it’s hardly surprising to see students at Washington, DC’s elite Georgetown Day School create a school-wide art project to protest what the school terms “anti-LGBTQ+ bills.” Teachers unions, meanwhile, help sustain the HRC’s activism through donations. One of the HRC’s biggest donors is the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union.
Finally, the HRC has close ties to government officials and campaigns, and this is particularly true for the Biden administration. President Biden was the guest speaker at the HRC’s 2019 benefit dinner, and the “our work” section of the HRC’s website declares: “Together, we elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, won the Georgia runoffs and achieved pro-equality majorities in the House and Senate.”
It appears that the HRC’s relationship with the Biden administration did not end with the campaign, either. The Biden administration recently promoted a “transgender day of visibility,” the commemoration of which included a vlog and a 4,409-word White House press release covering more than 60 transgender policies with 15 mentions of “youth.” The press release, however, bears a striking resemblance to the HRC’s “2020 Blueprint for Positive Change” brief of “85 individual policy recommendations for the new administration,” which was released one week after the election.
It is deeply disturbing that just a few powerful activists at the HRC are potentially calling the shots within the Biden administration, major corporations, schools, and even the pediatric medical and mental health care industries. Further troubling, the HRC’s agenda calls for chipping away at parental rights so more of this “work” can happen in secret.
Simply put, the gender-ideology indoctrination and “gender-affirming” care the Human Rights Campaign is pushing harms kids — socially, emotionally and, most importantly, physically.
If parents don’t want their kids to become collateral damage from the HRC’s campaign, they’ll need to wage a campaign of their own to reassert their parental rights and keep the HRC’s political agenda as far away as possible from their kids’ bodies.
• Mary Miller is a private school advocacy associate for Parents Defending Education.
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