It’s a hell of a time to be alive as a conservative Republican in Minnesota. It can be tough living under a legacy as the only state to vote against Regan’s re-election in 1984. In fact, Minnesota has not cast its electoral votes for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972. While we have often boasted divided government and have even had some Republican governors and other statewide electeds over the years, the trajectory has been grim, culminating in the past two years under a Democrat trifecta which has gone full tilt radical leftist.
This year, the Minnesota House of Representatives is the only chamber on the ballot. We have no statewide races aside from the federal contest for U.S. Senate, which is expected to see incumbent Amy Klobuchar re-elected easily. So, almost all the focus is on the state house. I say “almost” because, for the first time in a very long time, politicos on both sides of the partisan divide see Minnesota as in play for the presumptive Republican nominee – Donald Trump.
As I write this, the announcement of a storied state director – congressional staffer Blake Paulsen - and a politically astute senior advisor – former congressional candidate and grassroots organizer Tayler Rahm – is only hours old. The news is a tectonic shift in the state, simultaneously sparing a competitive congressional district from a corrosive primary and bolstering the presidential campaign in what has become a competitive battleground. It’s in that context that Minnesota Democrats, increasingly desperate to hold on to their stranglehold upon the state, attempt to salvage what victories they can as we hurdle toward November.
One of their targets for maintaining control of the state house is first-term Republican Natalie Zeleznikar. They clipped video of her from a recent appearance indicating that she “would have kept conversion therapy” in reference to a 2023 vote which banned the practice. Of course, so-called “conversion therapy” is simply the affirmation of normal sexual function in a therapeutic setting, something which professionals, parents, and patients should be able to freely pursue under their First Amendment rights to both religious expression and freedom of conscience. Democrats have done a great job of characterizing so-called “conversion therapy” as somehow abusive, despite the fact that no coercion is involved and the goal is affirmation of natural function.
In actuality, it is Democrats who have crafted an insidious program of coercive conversion. Through their capture and repurposing of both public education and public health, Democrats have installed a cultural ratchet that only moves in one direction – conversions from normally functioning children to LGBT patients.
For one example, consider the 2023 “Trans Refuge” bill authored by celebrity trans legislator Representative Leigh Finke. The bill intervenes in parental custody disputes to favor the parent – or “person acting as a parent” – who seeks “gender affirming care” for any child within state lines. The implications prove horrifying. The bill enables sexual predators to engage in human trafficking, luring kids from other states to Minnesota under the auspices of “gender affirming care” and therefore legally preventing custodial parents and guardians from reclaiming their children. Imagine watching from across state lines as your son or daughter is poisoned and/or mutilated for the sexual gratification of a non-custodial adult, and having no legal recourse to stop it. Welcome to Minnesota!
Democrats in the North Star state also passed the nation’s most aggressive abortion bill, which may actually be the deadliest abortion provision in the entire world – on par with North Korea and China. In Minnesota, not only can you kill your unborn child for any reason without question, regulation, inspection, or scrutiny, right up until the moment of birth. Your underage daughter can do so without your consent or notification, escorted to the unregulated and uninspected clinic by the pimp you did not know she had. There is no protection under our laws for her, and certainly none for you as the parent. Welcome to Minnesota!
That same abortion provision proves so expansive that it also covers both “gender affirming care” and sterilization. So, your teenage daughter, distraught, misinformed, and groomed by perverts and fiends, can be legally lured to a clinic and consent to ending your bloodline without your knowledge.
But, yeah, you should be deeply concerned that Natalie Zeleznikar would respect parental rights and patient’s objective best interests.
Such political narratives by Democrats only work because conservatives and Republicans fail to fight for what we believe and know to be true. As I outline above, it’s Democrats who have enabled “conversion” against the will of parents and in abuse of children. It’s Democrats who present a clear and present danger to youth, violate the sanctity of life, and defy the natural order to affirm their own delusions. We should be willing to say so, boldly, and daily.
