A Christian radio host who works for an out-of-state Bible software company sat down at his computer this year to complete a training California law required. He got a few slides in, read a question asking him to affirm that misusing pronouns is sexual harassment, and stopped.
“There’s absolutely no way I’m going to do this,” Dennis McCourt told California Family Council. “You could put a gun to my head. I won’t do it.”
McCourt is not exaggerating the stakes. California has quietly built one of the most aggressive compelled-speech regimes in the country, and it unquestionably reaches for-profit religious employers, like the Bible software company McCourt works for, with no more than five employees. Whether it reaches churches and religious nonprofits the same way is a question California has never definitively answered.
California has required sexual harassment training since 2005, but two bills transformed it into something else entirely. In 2017, State Senator Ricardo Lara authored SB 396, requiring employers with 50 or more employees to add a new component to supervisor training: instruction on harassment based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. It took effect January 1, 2018.
The following year, State Senator Holly Mitchell authored SB 1343. It kept the gender ideology component and dropped the threshold from 50 employees to five, while adding a new one-hour requirement for every rank-and-file employee, not just supervisors. Both laws are now folded into Government Code section 12950.1, and the next compliance deadline for every covered employer is January 1, 2027.
The reach of this law surprises most people. An employer must train its California employees so long as it has five or more employees anywhere in the country, even if only one of them lives in California and even if the company’s headquarters sits a thousand miles from Sacramento. That is exactly how McCourt’s employer, a Bible software company based out of state, got pulled in. Two employees in California. Five-plus nationwide. Full compliance required….
I remember, as a Fire officer (a supervisor) in California, I had to take the sexual harassment prevention training.
(BTW, it’s not harassment training, harassment is the problem.) One of the questions on the test was about a hypothetical employee who complained to me about a biological male in the women’s restroom. What was I to do?
I knew they wanted me to say that I would address the woman complaining about the male in the restroom, letting her know that harassment of the man in her restroom was not permitted. I knew I could pass the harassment prevention exam if I missed only that one question. So, I answered with what I really would do, not with how they wanted me to address the woman who came to be about the restroom situation. The on-line test would not allow me to put what I really would do and miss one question. In order to complete the training, I had to “say” that I would do what, in fact, I would not do. However, I had to pass this “exam” in order to keep my job. This kind of indoctrination and intimidation is not acceptable. Demanding an employee deny biological reality is more than absurd and ridiculous, it is dangerous.
They need a powerful group to bring a big lawsuit against these evils in California, and get rid of these sick, insane “leftist hippie” laws.
The sad part about this situation is what goes on in California usually goes on in the rest of the country. California is in a state of mess and is trying to mess the whole country with their woke agenda. Like Deacon Craig Anderson says, “Demanding an employee deny biological reality is more than absurd and ridiculous, it is dangerous.” Wake up California convert and repent. Our Lady of Fatima pray for California.
We used to be shipped off to various antiharassment and “sensitivity” training sessions. Repeatedly. The result? Smouldering resentment and a cynical contempt on the part of most employees for the whole endeavour.
YOU ARE EVIL IF YOU DON’T PROMOTE EVIL!
The “logic” is unassailable.
Help spread the enlightenment nationwide! We’re out and proud socialists. Just don’t call us Commies. (That’s really hurtful and triggering.) Free abortions, free genital mutilation, free medical care, free rent, free weed, free groceries, free everything. Send in you donation to help us get everything free today. Who is opposed to love?
(Just be sure to save enough of your money to pay your state taxes, so we can fund a small percentage of all the free stuff Gavin the Catholic and the Democrat Socialists are “promising.”) Utopia will be here soon. Vote early and vote often.
Are there any Fake Voters for Democrats here?