Minnesota Requires Teachers To Affirm

Here Fr. Rob Jack and Dr. Morse are talking about Minnesota attempting to require teachers to affirm the trans agenda in order to become certified. In other words, people of faith need not apply. 

Transcript:

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Fr. Jack: With us now is Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, and she heads the Ruth Institute, which is an interfaith nonprofit organization helping defend the family and repair the damage of the sexual revolution. Dr. Morse, thanks for being with us today.

Dr. Morse: I’m glad to join you. How are you doing, Father?

Fr. Jack: Well, we’re hanging in there. One of the things that’s clear is that, you know, another front has now become very obvious in this battle of the sexual revolution and just really the battle for our children. And you pointed it out in what’s going on in the state of Minnesota that now that state is going to require teachers to demonstrate a Marxist worldview in their own learning to get a teaching license.

Yeah, I would just say let’s just cancel the whole public school program and homeschool. That’s my option right now.

Dr. Morse: Well, I think that’s a live option for a lot of people. I mean, I think that’s putting a lot of people over the edge. And so part of the reason we talk about something like this, you know, you’re most of your listeners are in Ohio, but not necessarily, you know, what goes on in one state and can filter into another.

And, you know, parents need to be aware that this kind of thing is going on. Basically, what this new regulation is saying is that people of faith need not apply to the teaching profession. You know, I mean, that’s really what it comes down to. You know, unless you’re willing to affirm a child in their chosen gender identity and so-called create a favorable environment for that child, you know, a non-hostile environment, etc., etc., unless you’re willing to basically follow the gameplan of the gender activist, you can’t teach in Minnesota public schools.

That’s what’s going down. And, you know, we are, of course, concerned about that for the sake of the kids, but also for what it says about what’s happening to our institutions. And we really want people to be aware of just how dire that situation has become.

Fr. Jack: You know, Dr. when I was growing up in high school, when we had a civics class, as we learned about government, we also learned about Marxism and capitalism. We learned about all those things and we learned about them in an objective and in a critical way. So it was obvious to the foolishness of some of these positions.

Here it appears, at least from what is being implied with these new credentials, is that you’re not teaching it as one among many. You’re making this the sole focus.

Dr. Morse: Right. Right. And the other thing that you didn’t learn in high school civics and that I didn’t learn in high school civics and that nobody ever thought to teach you in high school civics is the way in which the whole culture can be rewritten from the top down.

Fr. Jack: Hijacked.

Dr. Morse: To create or to hijack. Yeah, with things that don’t normally you don’t normally think of as being part of the Constitution, you don’t normally think of marriage and whether you’re supposed to get married before you have kids or you can have sex first and then later get married. You don’t think of that as being political or part of the Constitution.

But in point of fact, what’s been happening is that we have a new sexual constitution that has been implemented one step at a time, piecemeal, you know, when nobody was really paying attention to it, we weren’t looking for it. We weren’t paying attention to the fact that making it so that marriage was no longer a lifelong commitment.

You know, for example, just take one example that that is changing the fundamental rules of the game by which everybody’s operating. Right. And so it has vast political and social and economic implications and nobody really voted on it. You know, it’s been slipped in through one means or another. And that’s part of what we at the Ruth Institute are really calling attention to these days, because it’s just it’s now so obvious that we have a new sexual constitution, so to speak.

Fr. Jack: Well, very much so, because I was talking with someone earlier today and we were saying, you know, I guess it’s been since the sixties that public schools or government schools do not teach morality anymore. And of course, if we don’t teach moral behavior, all bets are off. And so instead of teaching it, they begin to let the culture promote attitudes and ways of living.

And the opposite wasn’t really shown except in a negative light. And so now they continue to know they if there are families that want to hold to a traditional view of the human person in marriage and family life, that they’re going to have to continue to stop this. Now, was this change in their law brought about as a result of a government action or was this by the state school board? Are these people elected?

Dr. Morse: You know, that’s a very interesting question. And on the break, I’ll look it up in more detail, but I’m pretty sure what it is is a credentialing board. You know, that there’s legislative support for it. But it’s operating through not legislation, as you would normally understand it, but through the standards of a credentialing board. And increasingly, when you’re looking at what is called the administrative state, administrative agencies, and it’s sometimes very obscure administrative agencies are wielding vast control over society, right?

Just like we’ve talked about before, insurance commissions, which, you know, normally most people don’t. Yes, you might vote on the insurance commissioner in your state, but most people don’t pay too much attention to that particular office. But it turns out that through rulings made by insurance commissioners, certain things are being required of health care that are, in fact promoting the trans agenda, you know, the companies and insurance companies are being forced to pay for treatments that, you know, don’t necessarily make medical sense.

Let’s put it that way, then, that they probably would not have volunteered to do absent that kind of pressure. So that’s part of what’s going on here with these licensure requirements is that nobody’s—

Fr. Jack: It’s not just licensure doctor because unfortunately, you know, if you were to attempt to get a Ph.D. today, I doubt if you could get one, not because you’re not smart enough, but because you’re not going to play by homies rules.

Dr. Morse: That’s right.

Fr. Jack: That is much more of a humiliating indoctrination of paying your dues and being knocked out and really educating or being educated.

Dr. Morse: Well, and some professions have seen much more of that than others. And I imagine in education and in counseling, psychotherapy, those type of professions, they are already weeding out the Christians through the very sort of things that you’re talking about. You know, that if you have any misgivings about doing therapy for a same sex couple, even though you would refer them to somebody who wouldn’t have a problem doing that, that’s not good enough, right?

You have to be willing to do that yourself, similar to what they’re trying to do to the doctors. If you’re not willing to do an abortion, it’s not good enough for you to refer somebody. You have to be willing to do it. You have to do it as part of your training, etc., etc.. All of these things are designed to put more and more pressure on the professions to conform to the new sexual constitution, which is the sexual revolutionary sexual state.

Fr. Jack: I know I have a niece who’s getting her doctorate right now from Emory University in classics Latin and Greek. And I was asking her to send me some of the stuff that she was doing. And I’m looking at it. I got a degree in classics and none of this stuff. She’s talking it’s about the sexual and cultural mores of Rome and how they were woke or how they weren’t woke.

And it’s like, what the heck is this got to do with Rome and Cicero? And, you know, but you’re right, it has reached its talons into all of this stuff. And, you know, the only way to stop it is to just to walk away from it. But that’s a very difficult challenge for people to do.

Dr. Morse: Well, and not only that, I mean, I don’t want to say anything against it because people do have to walk away from it, particularly when your children are at stake. You’ve got to get your kids out of it. There’s no doubt about that. But at the same time, think about what you just did. You’ve now ended that institution and all of its power and all of its reach and all of its, you know, all of its capability.

Fr. Jack: We’re speaking with Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse today about the sexual state compels teachers to affirm the trans agenda in Minnesota. Doctor, can you stay with us over the break and we can continue?

Dr. Morse: Yeah, sure. I’d be glad to.

Fr. Jack: Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse heads the Ruth Institute, an interfaith nonprofit organization. And today she’s talking about the movement in Minnesota, which is basically compelling teachers to affirm the trans agenda and the Marxist agenda in the face of just in education. It’s much more of an indoctrination. Doctor Morse, thank you for staying with us today.

Dr. Morse: Hey, I’m glad to do it. And I looked this up. We found this in an article in The Federalist. Okay. People should know about that website. It’s a good site. And it says here, Minnesota’s Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board, a division of the state Department of Education has been working to change teacher certification requirements since 2019. Okay. So they’re going back and forth with these new different rules and certification requirements and so on.

But this is where they want to go. I mean, it’s obvious this is what they want to do. They want to make it a requirement that both the trans agenda and critical race theory be embraced by every teacher in the state, that if you can’t in good conscience do that, you can’t teach in public schools in Minnesota and in many private schools.

Okay. That’s what’s coming down the pike here.

Fr. Jack: Who are groups that we can align ourselves with up in Minnesota. You know, we have the bully pulpit, especially of the Ruth Institute to support these groups because there’s got to be people up there in Minnesota that are fighting this, too, don’t you think?

Dr. Morse: Well, yes, as a matter of fact, there is a law organization that is sitting on the sidelines ready to sue them if they it’s called Minnesota’s Upper Midwest Law Center. Okay. And they are ready to sue the state of Minnesota if these rules go forth, you know, because they see it’s a violation of people’s civil rights to be forced to do that.

The president said the president of that organization said, oh, we have lots of parents who are upset by this sort of thing. The schools are ready. They’re going to be even more upset with how their teachers are going to be licensed. Okay. And so they’re ready to they’re ready to bring a lawsuit about this when the time comes.

Fr. Jack: You know, another issue I don’t know how this but I’m assuming that if you teach in a Catholic school, you have to have a state license. And so that means if we have Catholic teachers in Catholic schools will they be submitted to the same kind of tyranny that the secular teachers are?

Dr. Morse: I don’t know the answer to that question. And the reason I don’t know the answer to that question is that there are some alternative licensing arrangements out there, and it’s quite possible that some of the Catholic and Christian schools have created an alternative licensing structure for themselves. But I don’t know that to be the case here. Right. But I know people are working along those lines for sure.

Fr. Jack: Well, they’re going to have to do it. I mean, there’s no other way around it if we can’t vote them out. And we’ve said this before, whether it’s with hospitals or with schools, we’ve almost faced a point which we were faced in the 1800s with the know nothings. We’re going to have to start parallel programs. You know that Catholic hospitals will have to be accredited by Catholic organizations and take no federal money.

The same will be true with Catholic schools. We’re going to have to create, if you will, a parallel culture. And it’s the only way we can survive.

Dr. Morse: That’s true. And it’s got to be a both and kind of thing. And the reason I say that is that the sexual revolutionaries are very aggressive and they’re not going to let you go off by yourself and they’re not going to leave you alone. You know, I mean, because you would think we would already be safe because we already have Catholic hospitals.

We already have Catholic schools. But to go after the licensing, the state licensing that you don’t count as a doctor, you don’t count as a teacher, you know, they’re taking unless you do it our way, unless you do what we say. You know, the increasing power of the state and the increasing reach of the state into every aspect of human life, that is part of what has to be resisted as well. Otherwise, they’re going to come after you, you know, even in your even in your alternative set up.

Fr. Jack: And we see it happening right now because this is the things of have Catholic schools, unfortunately, and Catholic health care have learned to live with federal money. And with that comes federal strings. And that’s not a good thing. And I never said it. I never said it would be a good thing for a long time.

But they say it’s free money. And I said nothing is ever free. It just isn’t, especially where the government is involved. So but look at the things we can do for science and for math. And we have all this money to buy all these great electronics and things. I said this to yea, but you’re doing that, but you’re doing this with a very strong possibility of them losing their soul because you won’t be allowed to teach it on all that groovy stuff you have.

Dr. Morse: In a sense, people talk about this as if from sometimes I’ve heard people use the term soft totalitarianism and what they mean when they say soft totalitarianism is that people aren’t being rounded up and shot or sent off to gulags or things like that. Right. In the United States, that’s not happening, by and large. What is happening, though, is a kind of seduction.

Right. And in a sense, the seductive we’re being seduced into our own into forging our own chains. You know, really, you know, that we will give up our liberty and we will give up our religious beliefs in exchange for this comfortable thing you’re offering us. And it’s happening to us piecemeal. And people like you and me who say, hey, this is not going to work out in the end, we’re considered alarmists.

But now that process has gone on so far, it’s clear that we aren’t alarmists. We weren’t we were never alarmists right. People should have been paying attention to the fact that this is very seductive. I mean, after all, the serpent did not walk, you know, stroll into the garden and say, Hey, Eve, let’s flip off the boss.

You know, let’s just let’s just blow off God and tell him to go pound sand. It was, “Oh, oh, did he really say that to you? Oh, but look, it’s so beautiful. So tasty. It’s going to be wisdom.” You know, it’s offering all of these things that have the effect of turning your eyes and your commitment in your heart away from God and towards this other thing.

Fr. Jack: Well, that just is so twisted culture. We face this in the Catholic Church. You know, as the parish situation has changed, one of the things it’s got to be comfortable. It’s got to be convenient. So, well, all of a sudden now we can’t have five masses. We’re going to have four, and yours is the one that’s getting dropped.

Well, that’s just awful. What am I going to? You know, I got a, well, okay, so it’s more important for you to go at this time than to go at all and worship God. So your convenience and your comfort is much more important than your faith in God. Just say that honestly and we’ll part separate ways. You know, just be honest with yourself, because this is the thing.

We are we’re not allowing people to just this is what I believe. And I would say, if this is what you believe, then you know best of luck to you. And when you wise up, you know, we’ll still be here. And, you know, we’ll welcome you back with some with some, you know, contrition. But it’s just this is all this stuff we’re facing right now, Doctor.

The government knows how to seduce. And it’s with money and prestige and fitting in all of the things. It’s all human concupiscence that people aren’t thinking about. We’ve been talking today with Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, about the situation in Minnesota regarding new teacher certifications and don’t think it won’t come to Ohio or Kentucky.

It’s all possible. Dr. Morse if people want to find out more about the Ruth Institute and see some of your Dr. J shows, where can we send them?

Dr. Morse: Ruth Institute dot org. You go to Ruth Institute dot org, you can sign up for our newsletter. And right now we’re sending people a free document called Ten Reasons Why Your Marriage Matters to America. So as soon as you sign up for the newsletter, that’s going to come right into your inbox. Ten Reasons Why Your Marriage Matters to America.

Fr. Jack: Well, thank you very much for being with us, Dr. Morse. I hope you feel better soon.

Dr. Morse: Thanks, Father. My pleasure.

About the Ruth Institute

The Ruth Institute is a global non-profit organization, leading an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.

Jennifer Roback Morse has a Ph.D. in economics and has taught at Yale and George Mason University. She is the author of The Sexual State and Love and Economics – It Takes a Family to Raise a Village.

To schedule an interview with Dr. Morse, contact media@ruthinstitute.org.

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