June 23 — Part of electing politicians to be our voice in government is to have the legislators make the laws for us.
It’s kind of what democracy is all about.
But what happens when certain organizations go around the legislators and make rules and regulations all on their own?
The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission has added definitions to civil rights legislation that include changes to race, religion, sex and even hairstyles. The decisions were made within the commission and our legislators were not consulted.
The new rules will take effect in August.
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM pointed out, “It looks like the Human Relations Commission here in Pennsylvania is making an end run around the legislature, adding definitions to basically civil rights, things that can be acted on here in Pennsylvania, that a lot of people I think would be surprised. I don’t think they have the authority to do this, but as of August that’s going to be put in there.”
PA Representative Rich Irvin said, “That’s not something that’s unusual with the Democratic administration that we’ve been dealing with, this one or the previous one. If anything should be added to the Human Relations Act that should be through the legislature.”
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM asked, “What are you going to do about it? If the Human Relations Commission is going to run right over you guys and I’m paying you full time salaries. Apparently, I don’t need you guys at this point. What can you do or what will you do when you see something other than lawyer up? Which makes my stomach turn because who’s paying for those lawyers? I guess we are. So I pay you guys and then the Human Relations Commission gets involved and goes around you guys. Then I’ve got to pay lawyers to pull this back for the control that should be in your hands in the first place.”
Irvin said, “With us being in the minority in the House right now, whenever it comes to any kind of public policy hearing or anything of that nature, our hands are somewhat tied through the committee process, but we do have our policy committee that can bring this to the attention of the citizens of Pennsylvania and try to PR that and bring some public outcry to the administration as well as to the commission and to the legislature.”
Jansen noted, “Differences in sexual development is one of the things they added and hair texture. This is all related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. I’m going to keep pounding that.”
DEI is also working its way into agriculture in PA in yet another commission.
Jansen said, “When I read the list of things they want to do, it’s completely unconstitutional. They want to hand out money and land based on immutable characteristics such as race or gender in historically marginalized. This is unconstitutional, yet we’re handing power to yet another commission to try to make this real.”
Irvin said it’s “another example of trying to create a bureaucracy to run the lives of everything and you would think farming has been in Pennsylvania for hundreds and hundreds of years. That’s something that we would hope that we can at least keep Diversity, Equity and Inclusion out of. Our farmers are very hard workers in Pennsylvania and everything that they have is what they’ve worked for, and worked hard for over the years. Sometimes it’s been handed down generation to generation. To just out of the blue put forward a bill and this bill was around whenever I was actually on the agriculture committee last session that I had to get off because of taking a chairmanship. We as Republicans kept it buried. It was done. It was never going to see the light of day. I think it’ll be dead on arrival in the Senate. I know the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau came out very much against this and they’re completely opposed to any kind of commission being created. The last thing we need is another layer of bureaucracy.”
Jansen added, “With the Human Relations Commission adding things to what’s considered civil rights protections, you have to start worrying about how all these things are going to interact. I’m glad to hear and I hope I would think that the Senate Republican majority would keep that out.”
Add to that the fact that some universities are looking to treat transgender children with hormone blockers and you begin to wonder what the future of this country will actually look like.
Jansen said, “These universities are engaged in treating young children with puberty blockers, something that there is no evidence that there really is benefit to this and we know that the so-called trans kid population has grown immensely. I think it’s pretty obvious it’s mostly because of social contagion. And here you have I’m sorry, I’m gonna call the so-called medical professionals recommending this and actually giving this kind of stuff to kids. We’re moving away from any long term evaluation of these kids psychologically and sadly moving to more quick so-called affirmation therapy where you’re not even allowed to question whether it’s wise to do this. I’m glad that this stand is being taken. I was surprised that there were a number of Republicans that actually voted for this, but I know all of our local Republican legislators did not. Can you share a little bit more about the concerns about this so-called therapy?”
Irvin said, “I think your universities are definitely the boiling pot for the movement. The University of Pittsburgh has been on the chopping block with the Republican caucus for a number of years, just for their their fetal tissue research and actually risk getting aborted children to do that study on. If you look at our PSSHE system, the state university system, your Millersville, Shippensburg, IUP, Mansfield, they agreed to freeze their tuition in the budget negotiations if if they received a 2% increase. Penn State, University of Pitt, Temple, they all proposed a 7% increase, and they’re still raising their tuition cost at this point in time. They’re completely out of touch with where the working family and your students are in this economic downturn. They’re at the point that they think that they’re above that and there’s no ending pot of money for them. You do have some Republican legislators that do have the Penn State branch campuses or the local university in their backyard and it’s a big economic driver. But I’m willing to take that stance to try to wake up the university to make sure that they know that we’re keeping an eye on you, we know what you’re doing.”
