Apodaca: A call for compassion as O.C. elections near
With just a matter of days to go until Election Day, many of us are feeling a stomach-churning mixture of dread, optimism and a fervent desire to just get the darn thing over with.
I realize that the vast majority of us are pretty firmly set in our beliefs, and those convictions will guide the decisions that voters make about which candidates and ballot measures they support. And by the time this column is published, many will have already cast their ballots, rendering any final attempts at persuasion moot.
Nevertheless, I wish to make a last-minute, heartfelt plea to keep a few thoughts in mind, particularly as they pertain to races for positions on school boards, city councils and other local governing bodies here in Orange County.
Mostly that plea has to do with qualities that have been disturbingly scarce during this election cycle: Compassion. Open-mindedness. Kindness. Whatever the results, it’s never too late to take another look, to reconsider whether the policies that some candidates support will actually help us be a better society, one that cares about the safety and well-being of all people, including those who are misunderstood and shunned.
In particular, I am concerned about the anti-LGBTQ+ policies that have been championed by many candidates for local school boards and city councils.
California has some of the strongest laws in the nation to protect and support LGBTQ+ youth, including the right of students to openly express their gender identities at school. Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law — the first of its kind in the nation — that will ban school districts from requiring staff to notify parents when a student expresses a desire to be known by a different name or pronoun.
This step was seen as necessary after some districts, including Orange Unified, passed policies requiring that parents be notified by school staff if a child expresses a desire to be referred to by a different gender identity.
Despite the new law, however, the battle over such policies rages on. Lawsuits have been filed challenging the law and some districts are carrying on with their policies in defiance of the state. The issue is now figuring prominently in local politics, as many candidates are promoting their “parental rights” agendas.
The power needed to maintain artificial intelligence has moved Microsoft to restart Three Mile Island, writes Patrice Apodaca, and this is only the beginning.
Keep in mind that these notification policies can put vulnerable kids at heightened risk by forcibly outing them to their families. In the name of protecting families and other students, they endanger those who are already more likely to suffer from depression, suicidal thoughts, bullying, harassment and housing insecurity.
That’s what happens when kids who, struggling and feeling like outsiders, are pushed into situations that they aren’t ready for or emotionally equipped to confront by adults who don’t understand the potential consequences of their actions.
The policies also place an unfair burden on teachers and other school employees to forcibly out their students. Do we really expect educators to become gender police at a time when they are leaving the profession in droves, citing unprecedented stress, and attracting new blood into teaching has become increasingly difficult?
Yet many candidates for local school boards have vowed to keep up the fight for parental notification policies, even to the point of pursuing litigation against the state, a legal battle that promises to be as costly as it is polarizing.
The fight over parental notification policies isn’t the only issue related to how we treat the LGBTQ+ community that’s on the ballot.
Once again, Huntington Beach leads the way when it comes to policies that promote intolerance. And that ignoble reputation could worsen after the election.
Fellow educators within Newport-Mesa Unified join English teacher Matthew Armstrong in asking voters to avoid school board candidates who want to bring national issues to the local table.
During the past couple of years, four members of the seven-seat City Council have pushed through an extremist agenda. They banned the rainbow pride flag from city property, and they’ve taken aim at Huntington Beach’s public library system.
In June, a proposal to privatize management of the city’s libraries fizzled when the bidding company pulled the plug on the effort. The council members who initially backed the proposal had portrayed it as a cost-cutting move, but their support softened after a huge public outcry.
Perhaps the opponents of privatization weren’t buying the cost-cutting rationale, instead seeing the proposal as yet another way for the council majority to cull books they deemed personally objectionable. After all, the same council members had issued a directive earlier in the year to remove books referencing puberty from the children’s section, and proceeded to form a parent-guardian review board that would be empowered to override the decisions made by the library staff in the selection of books.
Now the three council members who have steadfastly opposed these efforts are up for reelection, and they are being challenged by candidates friendly to the current majority. If the challengers prevail, they would likely add their weight behind any future attempts to wash away the gay from Huntington Beach.
As mentioned, it’s unlikely that I can change anyone’s mind about this issue. Nonetheless, I do hold out hope that some hearts will eventually open to those whose identities they erroneously view as threatening and that more people will begin to realize that the path to safer, more robust communities is through compassion and care for the marginalized among us.
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