Tag: oregon

Christian Parents Sue Oregon After State Brands Them “Child Abusers” for Refusing to “Affirm” Daughter’s Transgender Identity

A Christian mother and her husband are fighting back after Oregon officials effectively branded them child abusers because they refused to “affirm” their teenage daughter’s transgender identity.

Nicole and David Calaway filed a federal lawsuit on July 15 against their daughter’s former therapist and multiple Oregon Department of Human Services officials, accusing them of violating the couple’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

“It has destroyed our lives,” Nicole told The Daily Signal.

According to the lawsuit, Child Protective Services removed Nicole’s then-15-year-old daughter, identified as K.A., from the Calaways’ home on July 18, 2024.

The seizure occurred one day after Nicole and her daughter reportedly terminated the services of therapist Jennifer Forster. Court documents allege that Forster then contacted the child-abuse hotline after being encouraged by ODHS caseworker Rachel Woods.

Forster allegedly told authorities that Nicole had appeared “aggressive and angry” and intended to leave her daughter without mental-health support.

The Calaways contend those statements were false and created a “fabricated appearance of urgency” that Oregon officials used to remove K.A. from their home.

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Oregon Sees Disturbing Spike In Gender Transition Therapy For Children

If you’re curious to see what the US would look like under an entrenched progressive regime, deep blue states like Oregon offer special insight.  Four years of woke Democrats running the show under the Biden Administration was bad enough – Pride flags draped across the White House and naked transgenders dancing across the lawn was an embarrassing moment for the nation. 

However, for people living on the West Coast, the agenda continues unabated.

The children of blue states are still on the menu, and Oregon is surpassing them all with an acceleration of gender-based indoctrination.  According to a recent study published in Oxford Academic’s Research Connections, children in Oregon are up to three times more likely to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria compared to the national average.

The study maintains that the rate of gender treatments in Oregon remains “rare”, but when the numbers are compared to most states across the country a disturbing trend becomes visible.  Using insurance data as a baseline, the authors note that between 2016 and 2023, roughly 1 in 240 girls and 1 in 630 boys in Oregon received cross-sex hormones by age 17.  These rates are about 3x the national average for girls and 2x for boys (even higher – 4x to 5x – at ages 14 -15). 

Oregon is the only U.S. state to formally adopt WPATH standards of care. This expands Medicaid coverage for hormones and surgeries, in many cases with no age minimums.  The state also passed shield laws, which allow 15-year-olds to consent without parental notification.

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Saturday in the Park in Portland: Naked Man, Snatched Child, Angry Tourists — No Cops

After the details sunk in and the revulsion wore off a bit, what happened in Portland, Ore., over the weekend settled into a low, droning case of the sads. Here we were at the new normal. The  communist DSA city councilors, the woke mayor, his protester-loving police chief, and their kindred have virtue-signaled my hometown into the slovenly, low-expectations, burnished turd of a place that it is today.

And I have incontrovertible proof. 

First, the cop shop usually sends out press releases on only the crimes most Portland people agree are, you know, bad or of high priority to Portlanders. So you know that limits things quite a bit.

For example, Portland has decided that teens who conduct street takeovers are bad actors. They’re obviously a pain in the ass, block traffic, scare the children, and someone usually ends up hurt.

Official Portland really hates street takeovers, and everyone can get behind police efforts to stop them.

These episodes are usually followed by a Portland Police press release recounting how many cars were towed. Sometimes there are photos of crunched-up Nissans. 

Everyone’s a hero. Got it. 

Drug dealers: bad. Unless they’re homeless, but that’s another story for another paragraph. So stay with me. 

One time not long ago, the Portland Police Bureau sent out a press release about a bad guy caught on Skid Row for selling drugs he shouldn’t have had. Drug dealers are anti-social. Everyone agrees. 

We got a look at the photo that came along with the press release. No, not a photo of the bad guy we should be watching out for when they invariably let him out of jail without bail. Ever since Antifa members started getting caught, mugshotted, released — and Andy Ngo started showing their faces — Portland has stopped releasing mugshots to the public.

Mug shots: bad.

But we did get a photo. We got a look at the bad guy’s booty. The drug dealer may have had, say, eight $1 bills in the photo. He was a high roller.

Meanwhile, Antifa and drug addicts who populate the streets with impunity and make everyone afraid are left to turn the city into the festering boil that it is.

Fun fact: The arrest of female Portland drive-by shooter Isis Symone Irving, in a politically and possibly racially motivated hate crime committed against a group of conservatives last February, has resulted in zero charges.

It was only after the gun was readied, aimed, and fired at the Donald Trump supporters that they realized it was a pellet gun. Pull a gun and not shoot it to ward off an onslaught of Antifa members coming to attack you for a second time? That’ll get you thrown in jail in Portland.

Hey, is there a bomb in that dumpster being rolled by Antifa protesters in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Southwest Portland over last weekend? Why, yes, there is.

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Oregon County Prioritizing Housing Aid for Non-White and ‘LGBTQIA2S+’ Homeless Over Struggling Families, DOJ Vows Lawsuit if They Don’t Stop

Multnomah County, Oregon, which is home to Portland, is using a points-based screening system that awards extra priority for housing assistance based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

The policy, part of the county’s Multnomah Services and Screening Tool (MSST) rolled out in 2024, is under fire for not using traditional measures of need to determine who gets assistance, such as length of homelessness, domestic violence survival, and having young children.

Multnomah County uses the MSST through its Coordinated Access process to prioritize who gets access to its limited housing resources.

The tool prioritizes groups described as “over-represented” in the local homeless population, including non-white households and “LGBTQIA2S+” individuals.

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Christian Therapist Beats State of Oregon, Will Not Have to Pay Eye-Watering Fine for Standing By Christian Beliefs

A Roman Catholic therapist who refused to bow to the LGBT altar is no longer being threatened with a $90,000 fine for being true to his beliefs.

Frank Canepa ran afoul of Oregon’s rules when he refused to get all gushy over a client’s same-sex relationship, according to Just the News.

Oregon’s Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists decided that standing up instead of bowing down required a hefty dose of discipline, and whacked Canepa with a $90,000 fine. The penalty and the disciplinary notice that went with it have both been rescinded.

Then came a March ruling from the Supreme Court that cut the legs out from under Oregon by ruling in favor of a Colorado therapist, Kaley Chiles, who did not fall into line with state thinking by saying minor clients suffered from gender confusion.

During a counseling session with a client Canepa had seen for more than two years, he refused to support her same-sex relationship, as noted by a news release from the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Canepa explained that his faith would not allow him to do what his client wanted.

“The government can’t target counselors for their views and force people to say things that go against their core convictions,” ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Litigation Strategy Jonathan Scruggs said.

“The Supreme Court recently took Colorado to task for censoring counselors and mandating orthodoxy in the counselor’s office, and Oregon should take notice. ADF will continue to ensure that free speech is protected in Oregon — and every state where it’s threatened — and halt states’ attempts to weaponize their licensure systems,” he said.

Although Canepa tried to avoid passing judgment on his client’s relationship, the client persisted until he finally told her what he believed was not compatible with what she was doing.

For that, the Oregon board said Canepa violated Oregon law and the American Counseling Association’s Code of Ethics. In addition to the fine, he was ordered to undergo six hours of education.

“The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects counselors and that the government cannot then attempt to punish counselors for answering a client’s question about a counselor’s view on a subject,” Logan Spena, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Free Speech, said, according to the Statesman-Journal.

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University Of Oregon Grapples With Budget Crisis After Years Of Woke Excess

It appears that being unrelentingly woke means that you need fewer dormitories. The University of Oregon is facing a major budget crisis and will cut $65 million from its budget and close dorms due to low enrollment. That growing crisis, however, did not stop Oregon from burning almost a million dollars fighting against free speech. It also did not induce its faculty to offer greater intellectual diversity and tolerance to prospective students. Oregon is a cautionary tale for a generation of academic social warriors, but also an opportunity for those who want to restore balance in higher education.

Oregon has long been an example of academic orthodoxy. While most state schools begrudgingly yield to First Amendment demands and offer better free speech alternatives to private universities, Oregon is known as a hardened silo for the far left in teaching.

We previously discussed how Portland State University Professor Bruce Gilley, who was blocked from the Twitter account of the University of Oregon’s Division of Equity and Inclusion after tweeting “All men are created equal.” Oregon spent almost a million dollars fighting to bar such speech.

Such controversies have plagued the university for years, with no sign of self-examination by administrators or academics. The university was criticized for its monitoring of social media to punish errant thoughts or microaggressions. The law school’s law review was accused of anti-Israel discrimination.

The school previously gave special recognition to University of California (Santa Barbara) Professor Mireille Miller-Young, who criminally assaulted pro-life advocates on the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara.  At the University of Oregon, she was honored as a featured speaker at the University of Oregon’s  Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.  Part of its “black feminist speaker series,” Miller-Young’s work was highlighted by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of English to show “the radical potential of black feminism in the work that we do on campus and in our everyday lives.”

Now, the school is facing declining revenues and enrollments.

President Karl Scholz recently announced that this was due to lower out-of-state first-year enrollment, which means lower tuition revenue, increased costs, and a loss of grant funding.

Strangely, while closing dorms, the school is still building two new dorms.

Putting aside the school’s past budget judgment and discipline, the university’s reputation for intellectual orthodoxy deters many who do not want to pay tuition for their children to be indoctrinated or silenced.  Even with plunging trust in higher education, administrators and faculty cannot resist the temptation to exclude opposing voices.

Oregon is not the only school facing such shortfalls. Some woke institutions have closed entirely. The irony is that faculty would seem to prefer to see their institutions die than restore balance to their departments. However, this may offer a real opportunity for legislators and donors to force real changes in the culture of these schools.

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Oregon Under Fire For Grant Program That Won’t Give Money To Schools With Too Many White Kids

Two nonprofits are demanding an investigation into Oregon’s allegedly anti-white education grants.

Defending Education and Do No Harm (DNH) filed a joint complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights against Oregon’s education department and Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC) on May 28, according to a Defending Education press release. The complaint accuses an Oregon grants program of being racially discriminatory.

The U.S. Department of Education, Oregon’s Department of Education, and HECC did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

“What stands out most about Oregon’s system of public school funding is the sheer blatancy of the discrimination – explicit racial quotas and race-based bonuses for distributing public funds written into Oregon law and policy. This race-based essentialism has no place in Oregon or elsewhere in the United States,” DNH Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kurt Miceli told the DCNF.

Oregon’s Department of Education awards the Charter School Equity Grant to schools where at least 65% of students are disabled and/or students belong to “[r]acial or ethnic groups that have historically experienced academic disparities,” according to the grant’s text.

This violates the “‘color-blind’ mandate” of both Title VI and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, the complaint alleges.

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Petition to Ban Hunting and Fishing in Oregon Reaches Threshold to be on the Ballot This Fall

Back in February, we told you about a petition that was being circulated by progressives in Oregon, to essentially ban hunting and fishing in the state. It’s actually worse than that. They are trying to ban the killing of animals in the state, so this would not only affect hunting, but also the raising of animals for food.

Well, the leftists got their signatures and this is actually going to be on the ballot in Oregon this fall. Do you think this is what the pioneers who settled Oregon had in mind?

These people are completely insane.

The New York Post reports:

‘Animal cruelty’ ballot initiative criminalizing hunting and fishing moves forward in Oregon

A wild new “animal cruelty” ballot proposal would put hunters and fishermen on the hook.

Controversial legislation that would outlaw killing or “injuring” any animal — even while shooting or catching your dinner — is one step closer to landing on the ballot in Oregon, officials said Wednesday.

The measure, Initiative Petition 28, has garnered 120,000 signatures, more than the roughly 117,000 it needs to go to vote in November, The Oregonian reported.

Along with banning hunting and fishing, the legislation would also prohibit slaughtering livestock and using animals in rodeos and for scientific research.

It would also prohibit operating a commercial poultry business and castrating or neutering livestock, among other practices.

Hunting advocates said the legislation misses the mark — by a mile.

“[It’s] an all out assault on Oregonians’ way of life,” gubernatorial candidate Sen. Christine Drazan (R-Canby) told the Statesman Journal.

“It criminalizes ranchers, farmers, meat producers and threatens to kill thousands of jobs. It would mean the end of hunting and fishing in Oregon, killing not only traditions and ending access to an essential source of food, but butchering natural resource-based industries that support hunting and fishing,” she said.

Do these people have any idea what they’re doing?

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Oregon petition to criminalize hunting, fishing reaches signature threshold

Supporters of an effort to criminalize the killing of animals for food in Oregon are one step closer in getting a measure on the November ballot.

Initiative Petition 28 would make it illegal to injure or kill animals and would effectively ban hunting, fishing and the breeding of animals.

Supporters have been collecting signatures for this since 2024 and this past week, they reached the number necessary to make it onto the November ballot.

But it’s not official yet. The Secretary of State’s Office still needs to verify the signatures.

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Blue Cities Like Portland Prioritize the Antisocial Over the Law-Abiding

Like many of America’s once-great metropolises, Portland, Oregon, has seen better days. Drug-addled homeless continue to ravage the streets, and businesses have begun packing their bags for greener pastures, following the thousands of city residents who have had enough.

The reason Portland has become such a disaster is simple: It prioritizes the needs of its most destructive residents over those who follow the law. A story from last week exemplifies this perfectly.

Portland resident Chris Bolton tried to get the city to deal with a festering homeless camp outside his home. After spending months begging the city to come sweep the camp, Bolton was stunned to receive a visit from the Portland Bureau of Transportation, claiming he was the problem due to an overgrown hedge that would block a proposed stop sign.

The city then threatened Bolton with fines and liens if he didn’t deal with the hedge, all while drug paraphernalia, deserted vehicles, and biowaste accumulated nearby. Bolton and some neighbors trimmed the hedge and even cleaned up some of the homeless’ trash. The city then tried to punish Bolton for doing what the city failed to do.

Bolton’s experience reveals the logic increasingly common in progressive governance: The law-abiding are regulated aggressively, while chronic disorder is accommodated indefinitely. In Portland, those who follow the law are targets, not just of the lawless, but of the city itself.

By contrast, the lawless are free to do as they like—someone else will deal with the mess later. The vagrants outside of Bolton’s house left mountains of trash that he was eventually forced to clean up. No consequences for them, just for Bolton.

And when the natural consequences of the government’s failure to act in the interest of its citizenry come home to roost, that same government seeks to punish the law-abiding even more.

It’s no surprise, then, that Portland’s downtown is hollowing out in the wake of lax enforcement and a hostile political climate. The city’s office vacancy rate sits at a record high of almost 30%, one of the highest rates of any city in the country.

Why would any business choose to invest in Portland? The city has proven that it refuses to deal with the myriad problems preventing businesses from thriving. Fentanyl zombies prowl unabated, causing anemic foot traffic. Unrestricted shoplifting ensures that retail consistently operates at a loss. All that paired with a tax rate rivaled only by New York City, and investing in Portland looks like a losing proposition.

Rather than enforce the law, city leaders respond by seeking to punish the few remaining businesses. Portland authorities are considering a vacancy fee that would punish business owners whose properties remain empty for too long.

That same punitive philosophy shapes Portland’s drug policy.

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