How Crazy Are Minnesota’s Democrats?

How Crazy Are Minnesota’s Democrats?

by John Hinderaker in 2024 Election, abortion, Democrats, Gender Follies, LGBT issues, Minnesota, Tim Walz

Minnesota’s Democrats have been around the bend for a while, but not many people noticed until Kamala Harris (or someone) selected Governor Tim Walz as the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee. Now national attention has focused, among other things, on the “trans refuge” bill that the Democrats passed in the 2023 legislative session, and Tim Walz signed into law.

The intent of the bill was to make Minnesota a “trans refuge” to which minors from around the country could come for surgery or chemical treatment, if those procedures are not available where they live. So, what does that imply? Megan Kelly took off on the bill in a clip that has gone viral:

Many have asked, can that possibly be true? Are Tim Walz and the Minnesota Legislature that crazy? Can a minor really make his or her way to Minnesota and get sex change surgery without his or her parents’ consent?

I think the short answer is Yes. But, to be fair to Minnesota’s DFL majority, I should begin by saying that the law is so poorly drafted, and so weirdly grafted onto multiple pre-existing Minnesota statutes, that it is not easy to interpret. The law is here. You can read it and judge for yourself.

There are a number of miscellaneous provisions relating to jurisdiction, criminal law, extradition, subpoenas, etc, that don’t answer the question. At the end of the day, it seems that this section stands alone:

518D.204 TEMPORARY EMERGENCY JURISDICTION.

(a) A court of this state has temporary emergency jurisdiction if the child is present in this state and:

(1) the child has been abandoned or;

(2) it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because the child, or a sibling or parent of the child, is subjected to or threatened with mistreatment or abuse; or

(3) the child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care as defined in section 543.23, paragraph (b).

“Gender-affirming health care” means gender-negating mutilation via surgery, chemical treatments, and so on.

So a kid who wants sex change surgery is in Minnesota because (s)he has been unable to get it where (s)he lives. Under this section, a Minnesota court clearly has “temporary emergency jurisdiction” over that case. But, jurisdiction to do what? In principle this section only confers jurisdiction, but creates no substantive law to guide the court’s exercise of that jurisdiction.

In context, I think the only coherent answer is that the court has jurisdiction to order the sex change surgery (or chemical treatment, etc). Based on what? Presumably, in the absence of any other guidance in the statute, it is in the trial court’s discretion, based on all the facts. (Another caveat: I know little about family law, an area in which I never practiced.)

There is no reference to parents in this section, nor do I see any substantive law anywhere else in these amendments that says whether both parents, one parent, or zero parents need to be advocating for the sex change.

So I think Megyn’s interpretation is, at a minimum, defensible, and on balance it is probably correct. It certainly is consistent with the tone and apparent purpose of the amendments, which drip with hostility toward any effort to stand in the way of minor sex change operations. And it is worth noting that the DFL’s mouthpiece, the Star Tribune, has hailed an influx of children into Minnesota to obtain sex change operations.

So, yes: Tim Walz and his fellow Minnesota Democrats really are that crazy. We saw this with regard to abortion, too. They legalized abortion up to and including the moment of birth, and in some cases, by repealing the Born Alive Act, subsequent to birth.

These issues are not ones that I have mostly concerned myself with, and written about, over the years. I am most comfortable with data. I feel at home with charts and graphs, not the more morality-driven social issues. But my God: do we have no standards at all? You do not have to be a moral paragon to be appalled by the extremism that Tim Walz and his colleagues have manifested.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/09/how-crazy-are-minnesotas-democrats.php