Gov. Mike Dunleavy is hitting back at fake-news the Anchorage Daily News. In a short video posted to Twitter on Wednesday, Dunleavy pointed out inaccurate items in the newspaper’s story about his parental rights bill.
House Bill 105 makes it clear that parents have rights over how their children are taught sex education.
In schools around the country, parents have been shocked to learn that their young children are being taught the specifics of things like how to have anal sex and even how to have sex with adults.
In one third-grade curriculum, children are taught, “You might feel like you’re a girl even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are ‘boy’ parts. And you might not feel like you’re a boy or a girl, but you’re a little bit of both. No matter how you feel, you’re perfectly normal.” Some parents may view this as gender identity training and would want to know if their third-graders are being indoctrinated.
Reports about teachers telling children that there are multiple gender identities have prompted widespread protest across the nation as parents flock to school boards to set their school officials straight.
Dunleavy encouraged people to read the bill he has authored for themselves, rather than through the filter of the newspaper, which painted the bill darkly.
The bill can be read at this link.
“Another example of fake news by the ADN. We introduced a bill yesterday on parental rights in education. And basically what the bill says is parents have the right to say yes or no to whether their child is going to receive instruction or be part of a program that touches upon the subject of sex or gender,” Dunleavy said.
“Here’s what the Anchorage Daily News says,” he continued. Then he read a sentence from the story the newspaper, which stated, “Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Tuesday introduced education policy proposals that would limit sexual education and the rights of gender non-conforming students in public schools.”
Dunleavy said, “This bill does nothing to limit the rights of anyone.”
Reporter Iris Samuels slapped back on Twitter, with a passive-aggressive response: “Thanks for reading our coverage, governor! Proud of the reporting we are doing at @adndotcom about this legislation and thankful to our readers who look to the ADN for fair journalism. Just like the governor say [sic]: read the bill (then judge our reporting for yourself).”
Reporter Sean Maguire for ADN also was defensive, summarizing a conversation he had with Dunleavy’s Press Secretary Jeff Turner:
The Anchorage Daily News is not the only liberal entity that has decided to take a hostile stance to the bill. The author of the ranked-choice voting system (Ballot Measure 2) now used in Alaska also had words of rebuke for the governor, and wrote that children are more likely to be abused at home because of the bill.
In a Twitter message, attorney Scott Kendall fantasized all manner of abuse that parents might inflict on children, should the bill pass.
The bill is unlikely to pass, of course, because the liberal-run Senate is going to bury it in a committee. Rep. Loki Gale (she/her), who chairs the Senate Education Committee, has said she will not allow the bill to even have a hearing.
