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MassResistance submits strong testimony on important school bill, despite attempts to derail pro-family voice

At Judiciary Committee hearing in Massachusetts State House

POSTED: May 12, 2013

This past Tuesday, May 7 marked the beginning of the public hearings for pro-family issues in the Massachusetts Legislature. An important bill dealing with the sexualization of children in the schools, Bill H1282, was heard before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. This Committee has long been run by legislators fairly hostile to pro-family people. And predictably, this time they did everything possible to make it difficult for the pro-family people who came.

Ultra left: Sen. Katherine Clark, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, enjoys herself at a State House press conference supporting the Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes bill in 2009. At the time she was a State Rep.

MassResistance was there, but we never got to testify. However, we did submit our testimony in writing and went over it with some Committee staffers.

Why is Bill H1282 needed, and what does it do?

In recent years, public schools have been exposing children to more and more graphic, often sexually explicit pornography, including homosexual pornography. Psychologists tell us that very sexually explicit materials can have terrible and lifelong effects on children, adolescents, and teenagers whose minds are still developing. If an adult gave this material to your children, he would likely be arrested.

Unfortunately, there is a loophole in the Massachusetts law that exempts schools (also museums and libraries) from the dissemination of "matter harmful to minors." And parents have been powerless to do anything about it.

Bill H1282 would close that loophole regarding schools. The bill has co-sponsors among its co-sponsors in the Legislature. Read more about H1282 HERE.

We came armed with testimony that would make it crystal clear to the Committee why this bill was desperately needed:

WARNING: The testimony we submitted is VERY disturbing:

Amy Contrada's testimony (with pictures)

Brian Camenker's testimony

Committee's efforts to thwart our testimony

You can't make this stuff up. It's pretty clear they didn't want to hear from us.

After being told they'd be testifying early, Amy Contrada and Brian Camenker of MassResistance waited and waited and waited, but were ignored until nearly seven hours later.

The hearing that day was being run by the Senate Chairman, Sen. Katherine Clark (D-Medford), who has filed her own bill to require sexuality education be presented to kids. She is a strong supporter of the Planned Parenthood agenda in the schools, and she was a big supporter of the transgender bill.

It was upsetting that Sen. Clark placed Bill H1282 in a hearing dealing with changes to the sex offender laws. This would put us somewhere in a very long, emotional hearing (60 bills that day) on that difficult issue, that ended going from 1 pm into the evening.

The day before the hearing, Clark's office told us that people at the hearing would be called to speak in the order that they signed up. So we came early and were among the first to sign. But in fact, they made all the pro-family people wait until the very end of the hearing, nearly seven hours later. We (and others) were not able to stay that late because of other commitments. Later they admitted to us that they did that purposefully. (They had also decided to ignore the 3-minute time limit for testimony that day, otherwise the hearing would have ended hours earlier.)

The attitude of the Judiciary Committee staffer was that pro-family people don't matter. But we don't give up that easily. The Committee members got our written testimony. And we're going to make sure the entire Legislature gets our message on this important bill.