Phil Drake

pdrake@greatfallstribune.com

HELENA — A nonprofit organization with a stated mission is to protect and strengthen Montana families is asking candidates statewide to pledge support to the defense of Montana’s schools from the federal transgender schools directive, sparking criticism that the group is promoting divisiveness.

Bowen Greenwood, spokesman for the Laurel-based Montana Family Foundation, said nearly 240 copies of the pledge have been sent to legislative and statewide lawmakers with nearly one-dozen candidates already pledging support.

Those asked include candidates for House and state Senate seats, as well as the governor, attorney general and court seats.

The pledge comes a few weeks after President Barack Obama issued a transgender schools directive for students to use bathrooms and locker rooms conforming with their gender identity.

The directive has prompted opposition.

“It’s part of the larger issue of religious freedom in this country,” Greenwood said. “People need to make their own decisions about this kind of thing rather than have the federal government say this is how we are going to do it from now on.

“It’s a local control issue,” he said. “Montana school districts are competent to make decisions on their own.”

The foundation has posted a list of candidates signing the pledge on its website. As of Thursday, 10 Republicans and two Democrats had signed up.

Recently, the federal departments of education and justice warned school they could lose federal funding if they don’t permit people who were born male to use female facilities, including high school girls’ locker rooms, the foundation claims, adding that teenaged boys who identify as female must be permitted to use the same facilities as teen girls, according to the government’s directive.

“For Washington, D.C., to threaten Montana’s schools with loss of funding if they don’t comply is a classic example of heavy-handed federal overreach,” said Jeff Laszloffy, president and chief executive officer of the Montana Family Foundation. “The federal government needs to leave this issue to local school districts, that’s why we’re asking candidates at every level to pledge to do everything in their power to stop the implementation of this directive.”

Earlier this month Attorney General Tim Fox said Montana joined nine other states and sued the federal government over the directive, and said the federal government was trying to supersede local control.

Carol Rivas, co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network, called the lawsuit “offensive and frivolous.”

Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau called Fox’s decision a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Gov. Steve Bullock, speaking to reporters in Billings Wednesday, says it‘s Fox’s decision, but he believes local school districts can figure it out better than a federal court, the Billings Gazette reported.

Fox said Thursday that such local control is the point of the lawsuit.

“I am pleased to see that Gov. Bullock and Superintendent Juneau are on the record agreeing with me that parents and our local school districts should be making decisions about accommodating students’ needs, because that’s precisely what the lawsuit is advocating,” he said. “This lawsuit is about preserving local control of our schools.”

The Montana Family Foundation pledge request has come under criticism by state Sen. Mary Moe Sheehy, D-Great Falls, who does not have to run during this election cycle.

“I find this pledge drive a classic case of ‘pot calls kettle black,’” she said. “If the Montana Family Foundation objects to ‘government overreach’ so much, it should not be urging current candidates, not one of whom is running for a local school board position, to meddle in the operations of local schools, which are constitutionally assigned to local school boards.

“The MFF is trying to convert a nonissue into a wedge issue by fanning unwarranted fears into what it hopes will become a distracting flame,” she said.

“Montana’s public schools do a great job of accommodating differences and privacy rights across the spectrum and throughout the school environment,” Moe said. “They do so because they are supervised by local trustees dedicating to ensuring that schools are safe, welcoming places for all children and helping all children reach their full potential.”

Evelyn Carlisle, a Democratic candidate from Culbertson, is one of the candidates who signed the Family Foundation pledge.

“Is such a stupid ruling,” she said of the directive, adding it takes away from local control.

She added it could be dangerous, adding she feared someone could say they were female and enter a girls’ bathroom.

Laszloffy said candidates taking a stand on the pledge helps the electorate.

“Signing our pledge will help candidates make it clear where they stand, and voters always benefit when candidates are clear on their positions,” he said.

Rivas said far right groups and their leaders are using fear to steer basic civil rights issues into the political debate.

“This pledge ploy is no surprise coming from a group that has long villainized LGBT people and is leading the anti-public education efforts in the state,” she said, adding many of the youth success stories of the last 50 years are young women of “the Title IX revolution” who broke barriers to excel at athletics and succeed well into college.

“Transgender students, like all students, deserve to be included and protected in our public schools as a place for all youth to thrive,” she said.

Earlier this month the foundation released a survey that found that 62 percent of 450 Montanans responding to its poll opposed the directive while 29 supported it.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

The pledge

Here is the pledge the candidates were asked by the Montana Family Foundation to support: “I pledge to do everything within my power as an elected official to stop the federal Transgender Schools Directive and block its implementation in Montana.”

Taking the pledge

The Montana Family Foundation is keeping a list of candidates who have taken the pledge at: