By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Friday, May 13, US Representatives Martha Roby (R-Montgomery), Bradley Byrne (R-Montrose), Gary Palmer (R-Hoover) and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange (R), all issued statements blasting the Obama Administration for its threat that public schools who do not comply with the President’s pro-transgender agenda will lose federal funding.
Congresswoman Martha Roby said, “They have lost their minds. This is a great example of an issue in which we need a lot less government and a lot more common sense. These are children. Eighth grade boys don’t need government-guaranteed access to the sixth grade girls’ bathroom, or vice versa.”
Congressman Gary Palmer said, “This is yet another example of overreach by the Obama Administration. The guidance purports to create an environment that is “supportive” and “safe”. It will do neither. In fact, it will create an environment with much more potential for sexual misconduct and harm. No reasonable person could conclude that forcing school children, particularly adolescents, to share bathrooms and showers with individuals of the opposite sex, no matter how they might self-identify, is a smart idea. The safety implications for sexual predation have been well documented, but this Administration apparently has no concern about the sexual predators.”
Congressman Byrne said, “So this is the point we have reached…the federal government is now trying to set requirements on how schools handle their bathrooms. This is just another example of the federal government being involved in an area where it shouldn’t be involved at all. The federal government needs to leave our schools alone.”
Rep. Palmer said, “This guidance does not have the force of law and schools all over America should reject it. Alabama schools should reject it. The Obama Administration is engaging in an ideological war against our nation that not only is ripping our moral foundations apart, but now threatens our children’s safety and privacy. This action should cause all people of strong faith and moral convictions to come together across racial, religious and political lines to stop it. Members of Congress regardless of political affiliation who have the moral courage and conviction to do so, should stand to together and use every viable tool, including the power of the purse to stop the Administration from bullying states and local schools into adopting practices that the vast majority of Americans reject. This action should be seen for what it is, an act intended to force Americans to conform to the will of an increasingly extremist and provocative Administration.”
Attorney General Strange said, “Here comes the Obama administration with just another of their absurd regulatory overreaches, friends. School bathroom use is an issue that should be decided by parents, teachers, and principals – not Washington, DC bureaucrats.”
Rep. Byrne said, “I’ve been watching some of the reports on the Obama Administration’s new ‘bathroom guidance,’ and I am pretty frustrated. Schools in Alabama or anywhere around the United States don’t need the federal government to dictate ‘bathroom policy’ to them. Let’s get real here for a minute – this entire debate is executive overreach at its worst. Washington doesn’t always know best, and it has no business getting involved in a debate about where people go to the bathroom.”
Rep. Roby said, “Schools can figure out how to accommodate students’ unique needs on an individual basis without federal bureaucrats’ tortuous redefinition of sex. Moreover, threatening to sue schools or withhold funding if they don’t conform to this backward application of law is an abuse of power that won’t stand. I look forward to hearings that will expose how ridiculous and unworkable such a policy is.”
AG Strange told the Alabama Media Group’s Crystal Bonvillian that if President Obama wants to try to enforce this edict that Strange will join with other attorney generals in fighting this.
One school superintendent told the Alabama Political Reporter that a possible solution to this would be to rip out all the existing restrooms and replace them all with individual restrooms like a line of portable toilets at a outdoor event; but the cost of retrofitting all of Alabama’s schools would be substantial…though perhaps less substantial than the cost of litigation.
