State Sen. Caleb Rowden wrote something the other day that falls under the category of “interesting, if true.â€
Rowden, a Republican, is the president pro tem of the Missouri Senate. Here is what he posted to Twitter after Senate Republicans passed a bill that seeks to end gender-affirming care for transgender children in Missouri.
“There is no cause more important than standing up for Missouri kids.â€
I am proud of our entire caucus for uniting behind this strong set of policies aimed at protecting Missouri kids.
— Caleb Rowden (@calebrowden)
These are not easy issues to tackle. I appreciate the work of and in shepherding these bills to passage. There is no cause more…
The Missouri Legislature would be a much better place if Rowden and his colleagues actually acted on that statement. In the case of the multitude of anti-transgender bills, fueled by a narrow view of mostly rural Republicans who say Christian faith is guiding them, the lawmakers claim to be protecting kids. But, really, they’re trying to erase them.
In the past few years, many of those transgender children — and their parents, siblings, teachers and religious leaders — have come to the Missouri Capitol to ask lawmakers to “stand up for Missouri kids†and protect the freedom to make health care decisions based on the advice of medical professionals.
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Last year, one of those who testified was the daughter of Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, executive director of the . Neiss has a transgender son. Her daughter came to a House hearing to ask lawmakers to protect her brother.
“I love my brother,†the 8-year-old testified. “Sometimes he is annoying. Please don’t hurt him.â€
But that’s exactly what Rowden and his fellow Republican senators did last week by passing a hateful bill that ignores everything the experts, the parents, the medical professionals, several religious leaders and the children told them.
They hurt them, just as Attorney General Andrew Bailey has threatened to do by invoking magical “emergency†powers to ban practices endorsed by medical experts. He wants to insert his own made-up rules.
They hurt them, just like Republican lawmakers are doing in states across the nation, because the existence of transgender children and adults is apparently the most pressing problem to tackle.
The day after the Senate passed a bill that will live in infamy, the House got to work “standing up for Missouri kids.†How did it do that? It erased a line item for funding of libraries in the state. That’s because the chairman of the House budget committee, Rep. Cody Smith, R-Carthage, is upset that the Missouri Library Association has filed a lawsuit to protect Missouri kids from the book banning that is being pushed by Republicans.
The budget committee also slashed $134 million from a request made by Gov. Mike Parson, a fellow Republican, to increase funding for child-care and pre-kindergarten facilities in the state because of a shortage of employees.
That shortage is hurting kids, Parson said, and business leaders say it is harming the state’s economic climate. But Smith slashed away. He also cut an increase to Missouri’s already anemic higher education funding because, well, if the state isn’t going to fund education for kids in kindergarten, why should it worry about them when they go to college?
Missouri’s Senate Republicans passed the anti-transgender bills on a day dubbed “Child Advocacy Day†by a group of folks who are serious about standing up for Missouri kids. The advocates that day heard from the Rev. Starsky Wilson, the former co-chairman of the Ferguson Commission who is now the CEO of the Children’s Defense Fund.
“We will not rest until children are considered first, last and always in public policy in Missouri,†Wilson said, of his speech. “Every single child in Missouri, regardless of their color, their zip code, their socioeconomic status, has the right and the ability to thrive, to flourish and to be well.â€
Every. Single. Child.
This is the state of Republicans “standing up for kids†in Missouri: our K-12 schools and our colleges are among the lowest funded in the nation — but Smith, Rowden and others are still seeking to slash corporate taxes.
Missouri kids live in poverty at a higher rate than the national average. Missouri’s rate of children in foster care is among the highest in the nation. And, of course, children are dying in the streets because of gun violence, yet Missouri Republicans want to add more guns to the equation.
It’s easier to fight made-up straw men — CRT, DEI, ESG, or the scourge of anybody who is different — than it is to solve Missouri’s very real problems.
Nothing says “standing up for kids†like erasing an entire population of children for political sport.
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