CV NEWS FEED // A city on California’s Pacific coast widely known for its surf culture may be poised to become an outpost for parental rights against the backdrop of a pro-“transgender” law Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last month.
The Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell reported Monday that “Huntington Beach Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark introduced an ordinance” earlier this month “to make the Southern California beach town a ‘Parents’ Right to Know’ city.”
Mitchell indicated that the “city’s legal department has until Sept. 3 to determine the details of how to best protect parental rights in light of” the anti-parent AB 1955, which Newsom signed into law July 15.
Van Der Mark emphasized in comments to the Signal that she believes “California is one of the most dangerous states to raise a child.”
The mayor stated that she “wants to send a message” to Newsom and the Democratic-dominated California State Legislature that “Huntington Beach will respect parents,” Mitchell noted.
A suburb of Los Angeles, Huntington Beach is located in Orange County, an affluent battleground county that was historically a Republican stronghold. The coastal city has a population just shy of 200,000.
>> CA PARENTS, SCHOOL DISTRICT FILE SUIT AGAINST NEWSOM AFTER HE SIGNS AB 1955 <<
As CatholicVote previously reported, AB 1955 “prohibits educators in the state from notifying parents if their children begin to socially transition at school.”
“Under the new law, employees of school districts, county education offices, charter schools, or state special schools cannot tell parents if their children wish to use different names, pronouns, or single-sex spaces,” CatholicVote added.
The law is set to go into effect on the first day of the 2025 calendar year.
Van Der Mark said that another purpose of her proposed ordinance is to make it easier for parents and schools to sue California over the law, which she called “unconstitutional.”
“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,” the Huntington Beach mayor explained:
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.
There are schools that are pushing back and we want to help any parents who would like to push back on their end.
…
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.”
>> RELATED: PAIR OF TEACHERS SUE NEWSOM OVER PRO-‘TRANS’ LAWS <<
CatholicVote reported last month that “the Chino Valley Unified School District filed [a] lawsuit against Newsom on July 16, arguing that the state cannot undermine parental rights.”
“The lawsuit also argues that the law violates the First and 14th Amendments as well as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA),” the July report noted. “The school district is represented by Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit law firm.”
Liberty Justice Center senior attorney Emily Rae said at the time: “School officials do not have the right to keep secrets from parents, but parents do have a constitutional right to know what their minor children are doing at school.”