A secular campaign based on women’s rights, affordable schools and respect for parents’ control over their own children

In 2016 we (BCS) were the bleeding-heart liberals, the knee-jerk liberals, adopting the civil-rights angle, and proposing gender-neutral bathrooms in the local high school. But we woke up.

Vermont schools should get back to basics. Our proposal:

Replace costly interscholastic sports with frequent exercise and non-contact sports.

Offer non-preaching classes in Christianity and other religions and philosophy.

Provide online materials on sex, politics and gender identity only for parent-guided study at home. Government should not become the parents.

Preserve our schools’ independence by compromising with the Trump administration instead of risking federal control and lawsuits.

Government is injecting itself in every facet of students’ lives, trying to replace real parents. Respect parenthood. Get schools Back to Basics.

VOTE NO ON PROPOSAL 4

Prop 4 proposes an amendment to the state constitution. The amendment is supposed to protect women, but it advances “gender identity” rights at the expense of women’s rights. Gender identity contradicts the whole concept of women. It denies the simple reality that there are two sexes. Gender identity conflicts with women’s rights not just in sports and bathrooms, but in government grants, in colleges, in shelters, in hospitals. They are in conflict in the text of the amendment.

We were fooled in 2016. Don’t you be fooled now. In 1986, Vermonters narrowly rejected a women’s Equal Rights Amendment partly on fears that the concept of “sex” would be stretched beyond its plain meaning. Now forty years later, the Prop 4 amendment does exactly that, using women’s rights as a diversion while it slips gender identity into the constitution.

The first paragraph guarantees equal treatment of people regardless of “. . . sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or national origin.” The second paragraph says the amendment is intended “. . . to provide equality of treatment and opportunity for members of groups that have historically been subject to discrimination.” But rights of gender expression and gender identity have NOT been HISTORICALLY abridged. They are brand new concepts in our society, and they are in conflict with the civil rights of women, whose rights have been historically abridged. 

People wanting gender-based rights are not such a group. So the amendment wording is self-contradictory and unconstitutionally vague.

This may very well win, because so many people jumped on the bandwagon without thinking about it, just like we did.

But we must oppose it. If it wins, we will challenge it in court. You who feel you are supporting trans people, it’s not what you think. It harms people. Please look into it.

The victims of deceptive politics like this are mostly confused girls and young women. We must help them, and we must RESTORE BASIC TRUTH IN SOCIETY. Join us, stand with us at this historic moment. 

This announcement is paid for by Brattleboro Common Sense, Inc., because we need your donations and teamwork. BrattleboroCommonSense@gmail.combrmse.org.