by Lou Aguilar
To save America, first save the court system. Because it may be the last institution in the country doing its job — repelling progressive insanity. Four sound, sage judgments last Friday battered the Left all the way up from a local school district to the White House. Two of them made it a very bad day for the trans movement. But all stress the urgency of voting conservative to maintain righteous normalcy, far more than political circuses like last Wednesday’s Fox Business/Univision/RNC-mounted Republican Primary Debate.
A Virginia jury found former Loudoun County Schools Supervisor Scott Ziegler guilty of vindictively firing a teacher who testified about sexual molestations at her high school. Loudoun County was ground zero in the parental rights battle against progressive school administrators and teachers. Many will remember the repulsive video of a dad, Scott Smith, getting manhandled and arrested by police while trying to describe the male “trans” student assault on his 16-year-old daughter in the girls’ bathroom.
At the time, Ziegler denied not only the abuse but the existence of the abuser. “The predator transgender student or person simply does not exist,” Ziegler said, adding, “We don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms.”
Fortunately, and thanks mostly to parents, Virginia now has a solid conservative Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, and a dedicated non-Soros type (Cuban) Attorney General, Jason Miyares. Miyares impaneled a grand jury investigation of sexual misconduct in the public schools, vigorously and legally opposed by the leftist Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS). The grand jury evinced both the existent student and his very real crime. A Virginia juvenile court found the young man guilty of the sexual assault. Last month, Governor Youngkin pardoned Smith of all charges, including disorderly conduct, to more howling from the Left.
But Ziegler proved to be even more nefarious in his second coverup. Special-ed teacher Erin Brooks testified to the grand jury about school officials refusing to stop a student from constantly molesting her. Ziegler punished Brooks by giving her a bad review and ultimately firing her. For this transgression, Ziegler now faces up to a year in prison.
The Second Amendment also got a welcome favorable decision in the lamentably blue state of Maryland. A federal judge blocked part of the new state law that limits gun possession practically everywhere. The judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law around liquor suppliers, public demonstrations, and private establishments. Clearly the phrase, “the rights of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” means little to the Democrats who never stop infringing. “Today’s injunction is a win for public safety in Maryland,” said Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey.
But both judgments pale in comparison to the magnificent one from the Sixth Court of Appeals upholding the bans on child mutilation and chemical castration in Tennessee and Kentucky. The ruling went against a lawsuit by the ACLU and several parents of “trans” children, which was also supported by Biden’s Department of Justice . And in the written decision, the court flawlessly skewered the activists’ standard classification of transgenders as an oppressed minority.
“The plaintiffs separately claim that the Act amounts to transgender-based discrimination, violating the rights of a quasi-suspect class. But neither the Supreme Court nor this court has recognized transgender status as a quasi-suspect class … The (Supreme) Court has not recognized any new constitutionally protected classes in over four decades, and instead has repeatedly declined to do so.
One of the leading champions of the ban, Daily Wire host Matt Walsh, wasted no time in lauding the decision. “Last night, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a devastating ruling for the trans cult,” Walsh tweeted. “No other court decision has so thoroughly dismantled, point by point, every disingenuous argument from trans activists.” Naturally, the mainstream press had a more tragedian take, as indicated by the typical headlines:
“Appeals court upholds ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors” — The Tennesseean. Note the word “medical.”
“Federal appeals court allows Kentucky’s gender-affirming health care ban for trans youth to remain” — WHAS-TV Louisville. Note the word “health.”
And, of course, almost every single outlet used the inviolate term “gender-affirming care,” a completely fabricated and delusional concept. Though Lambda Legal dispensed with “gender-affirming” in their headline, “Sixth Circuit Allows Tennessee’s Ban on Care for Transgender Youth to Take Effect,” implying Republicans would deny “transgender” kids urgent care like many Democrats wish to do for abortion-surviving babies.
There was another anti-trans-madness decision on Friday. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an Iowa school district’s demand that students “respect” their classmates’ “gender identity” or risk discipline violated the First Amendment.
The rulings prove that sanity still survives in American courts. But for every Constitutionalist in law school, there are hundreds seeking to shred the founding document into scrap paper to achieve a progressive goal. We must elect leaders who will choose the traditional few over the ideological many and continue to help save America.
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Lou Aguilar is a published novelist, produced screenwriter, and arts culture essayist. His latest novel, “The Christmas Spirit,” a Yuletide romantic ghost story, and two earlier books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and great American bookstores.
Photo “judge’s gavel” by wp paarz CC BY-SA 2.0.
And I hope the dad goes after Ziegler now…
The student walking up and grabbing her isn’t molestation, it’s assault.