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There is a Washington State mother named Jodie Holman who testified before her state legislature earlier this year with a simple, devastating message: her fifteen-year-old daughter had run away from home — and the state helped hide her.
Without Jodie’s knowledge or involvement, school officials had taken steps that led her daughter to believe that home was an unsafe environment for someone experiencing gender dysphoria. The school narrowed its entire focus to the child’s gender identity, sidelining every other mental health concern the family was trying to address. When the daughter ran away, Washington state law kicked in automatically, referring the child for gender-affirming treatment without parental notice or consent, allowing the child’s location to be withheld from her parents, and giving the state the power to set the conditions for when — or whether — reunification could even happen.
This is not a hypothetical. This happened to Jodie Holman and it’s happening to other families right now under laws that were deliberately designed to cut off parents and replace them with the state.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case, with oral arguments scheduled on December 7th. First Liberty Institute, one of the nation’s premier religious liberty law firms, filed its opening brief last month and will argue the case alongside co-counsel Gene Schaerr [SHARE]. They are representing a group of Washington parents who have the constitutional right to raise their children according to their faith and their best judgment, but were told by the Ninth Circuit that they have no legal standing to challenge the law until after the irreversible damage has already been done.
Just let that sink in. Parents are told they cannot challenge a law that takes their children until they have already been transitioned. That is the Ninth Circuit’s position. Judge Lawrence VanDyke dissented sharply, warning that Washington’s legal regime does not merely invade parental rights — it obliterates them.
As First Liberty’s senior counsel Ryan Gardner put it, no family should face the terror of having their children run away to the state and then have those children hidden from them.
December 7th. Mark the date. This case could be one of the most important parental rights decisions the Supreme Court has ever issued.
Stay informed on this case and let us know what you think at PhyllisSchlafly.com, again that’s PhyllisSchlafly.com, and join us again for the Phyllis Schlafly Report.
