New bill would criminalize pronoun usage in nursing homes

Sacramento, CA—The latest battleground over gender theory is coming to nursing homes—and failure to conform to State orthodoxy could be a crime.

The mandates on long-term care facilities, their employees and even non-employees are set forth in Senate Bill (SB) 219, proposed by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco).  The bill is set for hearing on Tuesday afternoon, March 28, in the Senate Human Services Committee which Sen. Wiener chairs.  The Pacific Justice Institute Center for Public Policy sent a letter to the committee on Friday opposing the bill.

In the letter, Kevin Snider of the PJI-CPP details a number of concerns with the bill, including religious freedom, pronouns, names and compelled speech.  Among other things, the bill contains no exceptions for religiously-operated institutions, which means nuns caring for the elderly and disabled in covered facilities would be expected to embrace the State’s gender ideology.  The bill also fails to account for the sad reality that many residents of long-term care facilities are not in their right minds and may have delusions that should not be imposed on caregivers. 

Brad Dacus, the president of the PJI-CPP and a frequent FOT guest, noted, “Radical gender theory has real, negative consequences for society.  All of us should be alarmed by the attempt to now criminalize the use of legal names and grammatically correct pronouns in nursing homes.  We believe this bill is not only unconstitutional, but unconscionable.”