Minnesota Set to Ban Faith-Based Teachers, Require All Others to Ensure 'Gender-Identity Affirmation'

(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
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Remember the good ol’ days [sarc] when bakers who refused to bake wedding cakes for same-sex couples and pizza chefs who refused to cater same-sex wedding receptions made national news?

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Now, just seven years after the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the law of the land, we live in a whole new world. America, you’ve come a long way, baby. In which direction depends on one’s views.

As covered by The Federalist, the state of Minnesota will soon ban Christians, Muslims, and Jews from teaching in public schools. That is chilling in itself, not to mention reminiscent of ugly periods in world history. Moreover, the Gopher State will require every state-certified teacher to “foster an environment that ensures student identities such as … gender identity … are … affirmed.”

This madness will undoubtedly and immediately be challenged in the Minnesota judiciary system and likely in the federal courts, as well. But here’s the thing: We’re getting to the point where references to Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks, the Chinese Communist Party, and George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, have almost become trite, but we reference them on a regular basis because the more time passes, the more we’re reminded of the ultimate fate found in these examples of totalitarian groupthink run amok.

Doug Seaton, president of Minnesota’s Upper Midwest Law Center, told the Federalist:

We have lots of parents who are upset by this sort of thing in schools, already. They’re going to be even more upset with how their teachers are going to be licensed. Their teachers are going to have to be faced with hiding their beliefs or getting denied [for a state teaching license].

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That, or by hiring teachers who walk lockstep with the radical left teachers’ unions and school boards across America. Seaton then went bottom-line, describing the nearly finalized regulations as:

Christians, Muslims, and Jews need not apply for Minnesota teaching jobs.

Minnesota’s Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) has been working to change teacher certification requirements since 2019, which illustrates the sick obviousness: Rather than focusing on improving the overall quality of STEM education — science, technology, engineering, and math — we now have state departments of education more interested in ridding public schools of faith-based teachers while simultaneously working to ensure that all teachers support the indoctrination of students with a belief system in which gender fluidity, self-identifying pronouns, critical race theory indoctrination, and transgender ideology, are normal. They are anything but.

PELSB justified its changes by claiming:

The predominantly white teacher workforce must be equipped to understand their own implicit bias and the unique lived experiences of all their students as a core requirement of teaching. For this reason, PELSB has worked closely with a wide range of stakeholders, including researchers and experts in the field of pedagogy, to ensure that anti-racism, cultural competency, and implicit bias were effectively embedded and identified throughout the scope of the proposed Standards of Effective Practice.

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Uh-huh. I hear “cultural competency” manufacturing facilities are springing up all over Minnesota, as we speak. Just think about all of the exciting new career opportunities to follow!

The Bottom Line

The Minnesota case is yet another example of the radical left’s insidious goal to control — make that program — the minds of America’s youth. In addition to indoctrinating kids with the leftist nonsense discussed in this article, an attempt is also underway across the country to dumb down the public education system to the lowest common denominator.

As we reported in August 2021, Oregon eliminated standards requiring all students to be able to perform basic math, reading, and writing skills before they are eligible to graduate — the soft bigotry of low expectations, as it were. Similar examples abound.

Meanwhile, China continues to produce untold numbers of physicists, other scientists, and engineers at an alarming rate. But, hey — we’re kicking the ChiComs’ butts in the educational fields of transgenderism, gender fluidity, and self-designated pronouns.

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