Latest news with #Bangert
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
TN trans care ban: AG said defending case to SCOTUS, expected to rule soon, was God's will
DALLAS — Potentially days before the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a landmark case on a ban on transgender youth receiving certain medical care, Tennessee's attorney general told a room of Southern Baptists he believes it was God's providence that he argued before the land's highest court. "I'm in the middle of things that are so much bigger than I have any business being in the middle of. But I'm there for a reason," Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said during a June 10 panel discussion at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. 'So, I just try to remember it's not about me and that God puts his people where he needs them, where he wants them." Skrmetti's office is defending Tennessee's ban on gender transition treatments for transgender minors, which a Nashville family with a transgender teenager is challenging. The Supreme Court may decide on the case as early as June 12, and a majority of justices have signaled a friendly disposition toward upholding Tennessee's law that took effect in June 2023. The June 10 event was organized by the Nashville-based SBC's public policy arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Skrmetti and another panelist, Alliance Defending Freedom senior vice president Ryan Bangert, said the case is about science and the degree to which courts can decide public policy. But Skrmetti and Bangert, whose law firm is helping represent Tennessee in U.S. v. Skrmetti, acknowledged faith is another key component of this story and will potentially be a resounding victory for conservative Christians. More: Meet the Tennessee family behind the US Supreme Court's major transgender health care case 'I would be ready to have good conversations with your congregants, good conversations with your fellow church members about what this case means not just from a legal perspective. But from a broader cultural perspective,' Bangert said at the June 10 panel. 'I would be ready to have that conversation: 'God willing, the law has been upheld. What do we do know?'' Alliance Defending Freedom has been a decisive force in several recent U.S. Supreme Court cases that have reversed precedent in favor of conservative Christian ideals. Examples include Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade, Kennedy v. Bremerton dealing with public prayer on a high school sports field, and 303 Creative v. Elenis about a Christian web designer's refusal to work with same-sex couples. The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation's largest Protestant denomination. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission stated its opposition to transition treatment for transgender people in resolutions at past SBC annual meetings and has been a vocal proponent of bans in Tennessee and other states. Bangert said at the June 10 panel there are 26 states with bans like Tennessee's and the decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti could affect those other laws. The ERLC filed an amicus brief in U.S. v. Skrmetti, for which the SBC-affiliated agency hired a Southern Baptist lawyer to carefully and forcefully assert the Southern Baptists' position on the issue. Skrmetti praised the ERLC's amicus brief during the June 10 panel, saying it provided a theological rationale for Tennessee's law. Skrmetti's office cannot make that theological argument in its defense before the Supreme Court because an establishment clause requires the state to approach the case from a religiously neutral perspective. Skrmetti, who attends a Church of Christ congregation in Nashville, said at the June 10 panel in his capacity at Tennessee's attorney general that his religion is not a factor in how he approaches the case. But personally, he told the crowd of Southern Baptists in Dallas that the outcome will be meaningful as a person of faith. 'Pray for my team that all of us that if we win, win gracefully in a way that reinforces both shining God's light into the world,' Skrmetti said. Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at ladams@ or on social media @liamsadams. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Skrmetti cites God's will to his role in SCOTUS trans care case at SBC
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lone Catholic nun stands before Kansas House to oppose immigration enforcement resolution
Sister Therese Bangert of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth offered the only in-person testimony during a Kansas House committee hearing on a resolution directed Gov. Laura Kelly to support President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agenda. No one spoke in favor of the resolution. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — Sister Therese Bangert stood alone before the House Federal and State Affairs Committee to denounce a resolution urging Gov. Laura Kelly to do everything in her power to support the immigration enforcement agenda of President Donald Trump. Bangert, who has been with the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth for more than 60 years, said the nation's immigration system had been broken for decades. By default, she said, the federal government had allowed migrant laborers to fill jobs in the United States without extending to those individuals an accessible path to legal residency or citizenship. She said people targeted by the Kansas Senate-approved resolution were Kansans in every way except for possession of U.S. immigration documents. 'I suspect these are the immigrant women who are milking cows in the western Kansas dairy industry, the men and women on the killing floors of Kansas slaughterhouses and those roofing the homes in my neighborhood,' said Bangert, who was worried they were all vulnerable to deportation. 'I find troubling the heated rhetoric when speaking about our sisters and brothers who are immigrants.' No one showed up at the House hearing to argue in favor of Senate Concurrent Resolution 1602. Likewise, there was no one present to articulate a neutral position. Wichita Republican Rep. Tom Kessler, chairman of the House committee, said written testimony lauding the resolution had been submitted, but it wasn't publicly available. When the Senate conducted its hearing in January on the resolution, Bangert wasn't given the opportunity to speak to lawmakers. Sen. Mike Thompson, chairman of the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee and sponsor of the resolution, said Bangert needed to notify the committee 24 hours in advance to be granted permission to testify. Proponents of the measure, including Attorney General Kris Kobach, were permitted to address Thompson's committee. The Senate went on to approve the resolution on a party-line vote of 31-9. It was expected to pass the House by a wide margin. During the House committee hearing, Rep. Susan Ruiz, D-Shawnee, noted the absence of a throng of in-person witnesses to argue on behalf of the Senate resolution. 'There is no one here as a proponent, which I find really odd,' Ruiz said. The void was partially filled by Republicans on the House committee who offered commentary demonstrating their sense that Kansas governors ought to authorize use of state resources to help patrol the national border, including deploying Kansas National Guard troops, and to assist with Trump's strategy of detaining and deporting thousands or millions of people. There was no evidence of support for a concurrent crackdown on Kansas businesses hiring people without proper documentation. Rep. Brian Bergkamp, R-Wichita, said the state and nation needed a higher standard of border security to address immigration among people without permission to remain temporarily or permanently in the United States. The security concept mirrored justification for a metal-detector at the main entrance to the Capitol instead of relying on an antiquated open-door policy for visitors, he said. 'I definitely stand for immigration,' Bergkamp said, 'but in a more orderly fashion.' GOP Rep. Kyle McNorton of Topeka said it was wrong for anyone to view people in the country without permission as law-abiding individuals. 'They broke the number one law coming across our border without permission and are still here,' McNorton said. In response, Wichita Democratic Rep. Angela Martinez said the majority of people in the United States without authorization had overstayed a Visa rather than enter by sneaking across the border in defiance of immigration authorities. 'I support the deportation of criminals,' said Martinez, who was temporarily placed on the committee to coincide with debate on the resolution. 'I ask this committee to sit and be honest with yourself. If you were subject to violence and tyranny and you couldn't support your children and there was an opportunity for a better life … would you go?' Rep. John Alcala, a Topeka Democrat among temporary appointments to the committee, said proponents of the resolution hadn't taken into account economic harm that would fall on Kansas if full deportation occurred. He said the National Immigration Law Center estimated Kansas' workforce was comprised of thousands of people without documents to stay in the United States. He said an NILC study indicated there were 25,000 in manufacturing, 17,000 in food service and 16,000 in construction. In 2020, he said, NILC estimated those workers paid more than $600 million in state and federal taxes. 'I don't think people realize what the impact will be on businesses that are struggling with labor shortages,' Alcala said. 'How are we going to offset that economic loss? Can Kansas afford that loss of revenue? I don't think so.' Lawrence Rep. Brooklynne Mosley, a Democrat, said issues of human dignity and moral injury might not have been considered by champions of the resolution. 'What does that do to the cloth of a community when they start to see families being ripped apart?' she said.
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
KC parents, educators push back on Missouri bill requiring cursive be taught in school
Lisa Meinen-Doerksen, a mother of two children at Border Star Montessori in Brookside, said she likes cursive writing. She believes it has helped her children's fine motor skills and their ability to write from left to right. However, when she thinks about public education, teaching her children cursive writing is not at the top of her list. 'It's a good mental exercise,' Meinen-Doerksen said, 'but I don't believe they will be using cursive in their lives.' Yet, several Missouri Republican lawmakers are again pushing to pass bills that would require cursive handwriting to be taught in Missouri public schools. Missouri State Reps. Peggy McGaugh of Carrollton, and Renee Reuter of Imperial along with Missouri State Sen. Curtis Trent, who represents the Springfield area, have sponsored bills that call for the requirement during this legislative session. The benefits, they've highlighted, include brain stimulation, improved academic performance and help for children with dyslexia and dysgraphia. But adding cursive to the curriculum has been no easy feat. Former Rep. Gretchen Bangert, a Florissant Democrat, carried the bill for seven years without success before McGaugh picked it up. The bill was put onto other bills, Bangert said, which was one of the reasons why it failed. But even when a couple of those bills made it through, the cursive requirement wasn't included. 'It was on an education bill, two of them, and then it was ripped off in the Senate for some reason,' Bangert said. 'I don't know why. I couldn't get an answer from the Senators as to why they took it off.' In Missouri, Republicans and Democrats have supported cursive bills, proving it to be a bipartisan issue. However, although teaching cursive has garnered support from both sides, bills making it a teaching requirement have yet to be pushed through the finish line. David Price, president of the Kansas City Federation of Teachers, said that currently, Kansas City Public Schools does not require its schools to teach cursive as part of their curriculum. While he did teach it to his class at Benjamin Banneker Elementary, it wasn't something he focused on. 'I taught third grade, so I would introduce cursive toward the end of the year as just kind of a fun extra thing,' Price said. 'But it was not a part of our curriculum.' Nationwide, the number of schools teaching cursive has grown. During the mid-2010s, most states adopted the Common Core State Standards, which did not explicitly require teaching cursive but emphasized keyboarding. Around 10 years ago, only 14 states required schools to teach cursive. Last year, Kentucky became the 24th state to require cursive to be taught. One of the biggest arguments for requiring cursive is so children can read historic documents, which are penned in cursive, Trent said. 'Cursive writing is a key part of literacy, of being able to access many historic and original sources that were written in cursive,' he said. 'I think it's a very effective way to take notes and do the kind of day-to-day writing that one has to do to function in many professions.' But Price, whose union opposes the bills, said that while he sees the benefits of teaching cursive, there aren't strong enough arguments to support it. 'I know the biggest issue is that someone doesn't know how to sign their name, and the old tell-tale of 'they can't read the founding documents' and things like that,' Price said. 'I think nowadays, that's becoming less and less of a worry. You can find the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in print.' Price said cursive used to be important when all communication relied upon handwriting everything. But that isn't how the world works anymore. 'In those days, you had to be able to write,' Price said. 'If you had a thirty-page paper, you had to handwrite thirty pages. The only form of communication was handwriting. And, now, that's become less, and there are very few people nowadays who do handwritten anything.' While Bangert's bill highlighted that there would be no fiscal impact on the education department if the bill passed, Price said there are still a few downsides to taking on mandatory cursive. He said his union opposes the bills because of the additional testing. 'It doesn't benefit everyone the same way,' Price said, 'and could be a detriment to someone who is behind in their reading development or is struggling with certain aspects of language.' Montessori schools typically teach cursive before print, according to Montessori For Today, which is why Meinen-Doerksen's children learned to read and write in it. However, Meinen-Doerksen disagrees with the idea that learning cursive is necessary as technology becomes a bigger part of children's lives. 'Most likely, elementary school children today will not need to write checks or sign documents,' she said. 'They will not need to pen letters. All of that will be done electronically.' But Trent disagrees. While technology can be helpful, he said students should not take it for granted. 'Technology is a tool,' Trent said. 'It shouldn't replace knowledge or capability in a person. It should supplement the knowledge and capability people naturally develop.' Much of the focus on teaching cursive is related to understanding and conserving the past, but Meinen-Doerksen said she doesn't believe that is enough of a reason for children to learn it now. 'Teaching cursive to children simply because that's what you learned is like older generations telling me I needed to learn shorthand if I wanted to go into the office world,' she said. 'I think that's a weak argument.'
