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Missourinet

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You are here: Home / Archives for Representative Adam Schnelting

Missouri could criminalize sex changes and related treatments

March 6, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

The Missouri Legislature is being asked to ban doctors and their workers from assisting with or doing sex changes to those under 18. Representative Adam Schnelting, R-St. Charles, is proposing to charge them with a felony and yank their professional licenses for providing gender reassignments, hormonal therapy and puberty blockers, which are different from surgically changing genitalia. The Missouri House Judiciary Committee held a public hearing this week on the legislation that would also have parents reported to the state for alleged child abuse for letting their kids have a sex change.

Photo courtesy of Tim Bommel, House Communications

“This proposal simply acts as a roadblock for minors who’ve been placed under pressure – whether it’s peer pressure, whether it’s coercion, whether it’s pop culture,” says Schnelting. “So that way they can reach that decision on their own when they come to adulthood. I believe firmly in parental choice and parent rights.”

Representative Gina Mitten, D-St. Louis, argued against the bill backing parental choice.

“Really. I’m sorry but your legislation defies that,” she says.

The committee also heard from Representative Suzie Pollock, R-Lebanon, who is proposing to charge parents with child abuse or neglect for allowing their kids to undergo such services. Pollock is a registered cardiovascular invasive specialist working with heart and circulation issues.

“The side effects for transgender children who undergo these procedures include derility, sexual dysfunction, blood clots, strokes, cardiac disease, osteoporosis, cancer and persistently high rates of suicide,” she says. “Our children are not experimental subjects to use off-label dangerous drugs and procedures on. We must protect our children from being chemically castrated, sterilized and surgically mutilated.”

The line to speak in opposition of the bills was thick and testimony last for roughly a couple of hours. One mother said passage of the legislation would mean lawmakers would have the blood of transgender kids on their hands. Danielle Meert, a mother of a transgender boy, agreed. She said before her son Miles transitioned, he was depressed and struggling in school.

“Since receiving gender-affirming care, Miles is currently on the honor roll. He is thriving and most importantly, he’s alive. If this legislation passes, you will harm my child and children will die,” says Meert.

Shannon Davis, a school psychologist and a mother of a transgender daughter, says before her daughter transitioned, it was like watching her death. Davis says she provides a safe space at school for kids to work out their feelings.

“There are educators who are scared – they are scared to be allies in the schools because they will be targets from parents and administrators. So, while you guys are creating this bill, it makes the educators feel less safe to be allies. You are our leaders. You are the people we look to,” she says. “So if you guys, I’m sorry to say this, feel like bullies, we are more scared to be allies in school.”

Liz Tobin, the mother of a transgender daughter, is a lawyer who has represented children and families in abuse and neglect cases.

“I’ve seen abuse. I’ve seen neglect,” she says. “Providing my child with the standard of care recognized by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists is not abuse.”

Scarlett Wells, a retired disabled Iraq War veteran and a mother of a transgender girl, says she’s proud of her daughter.

“Her courage to live her truth. Her bravery to stand here today. Her perseverance in the face of lawmakers who would call her doctors criminals, who would call her mother, someone who fought for your rights in combat, a child abuser, proves that she is the tallest hero among all of us,” says Wells.

Another message conveyed by some parents is that the families of transgender children and their doctors should be responsible for gender reassignment decisions – not lawmakers.

The committee has not voted on House Bill 1721 or House Bill 2051.

Copyright © 2020 · Missourinet

Filed Under: Health / Medicine, Legislature, News Tagged With: Representative Adam Schnelting, Representative Gina Mitten, Representative Suzie Pollock

Domestic union instead of marriage? Missouri bill would reduce the nuptial definition

February 17, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

State Representative Adam Schnelting, R-St. Charles, wants to change the legal definition of marriage to civil unions. During a Missouri House General Laws Committee hearing today about Schnelting’s bill, he says he wants to replace marriage licenses with contracts of domestic unions – sparking opposition by some traditional marriage supporters and the gay rights community.

Capitol Rotunda (Photo courtesy of Tim Bommel, House Communications)

The interpretation and intent of House Bill 2173 varies greatly from person to person and lawmaker to lawmaker. Arguments ranged from what the bill would do to marriages involving children and adoption rights, gay couples, immigration status, federal benefits, and how a civil union would be recognized in other states for married couples moving to and from Missouri.

Schnelting, a licensed minister and former pastor, says marriage is not the government’s business and his goal is to treat everyone equally.

“Whether you’re religious, whether you’re nonreligious,” he says. “Whether you’re straight, whether you’re a member of the LGBT community, this is about restoring the government to its proper role. If I don’t need a license for my Second Amendment rights, I certainly do not need the government’s permission or a license to marry.”

Schnelting says under his nearly 400-page bill, he thinks society would still call a marriage a marriage.

“First and foremost, this bill does not abolish marriage,” he says. “Our law states that marriage law is considered in law as a civil contract – from the standpoint of the state nothing more nothing less. That’s still in place. It doesn’t make it any less of a marriage. It’s just reducing it, stripping it down to it’s most basic legal definition.”

He says when government is allowed to intrude into private matters, it is usually contentious.

“Because then you have one section of America pitting itself against another,” he says.

Representative Wes Rogers, D-Kansas City, says the bill would reduce marriage to a couple being “civically in love” and indicates the intent of the measure has to do with gay marriage.

“Our marriage certificate says marriage and it doesn’t matter what you think and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. If I was gay and wanted to marry a man, and I have a certificate that says marriage, I’m having a hard time understanding why it’s your business,” he says.

Schnelting agrees that it’s not the government’s business.

“This 382-pages, this is what happens when we allow government to get out of control,” he says.

Representative Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, says she opposes the legislation out of potential unintended consequences of children’s rights.

Representative Tracy McCreery, D-Olivette, calls the legislation divisive, hurtful to LGBT individuals, and would be going backwards.

“I want to make sure that love can be love and marriage can be marriage and that we’re not trying to undue something that the U.S. Supreme Court said is the right thing to do,” says McCreery. “Since gay marriage became the law of the land, my marriage has not been impacted at all. I don’t think anybody in this room can raise their hand and honestly say that since gay marriage was made legal that their marriages have deteriorated. I feel like this bill is kind of a solution looking for a problem.”

According to Schnelting, the proposal would not attack government benefits for couples with a marriage license or a civil union contract. If so, he says he would change the bill to ensure those benefits would work the same way as they do now. Speaking on behalf of LGBT organization PROMO, Washington University Law Professor Denise Lieberman disagrees with Schnelting’s statement and says more than 1,000 federal benefits are attached to the institution of legal marriage.

“Really important stuff right, like social security, like Veterans benefits, like surviving spousal benefits, immigration status, Medicare,” she says.

Lieberman goes on to say she thinks the legislation is unconstitutional and federal law, which recognizes a marriage as a marriage, will trump state law.

Karl and Lisa Weslin of southwest Missouri’s Springfield oppose the bill and fear it would put their retirement years in jeopardy, including their social security, insurances, and medical and survivor benefits. Lisa Weslin says marriage is the bedrock of society.

“If the state of Missouri were to undermine our marriage, we have five daughters who are married and thirteen grandchildren, for those we hope to set an example of the sanctity of marriage. Marriage itself represents a spiritual and mystical union that is imbued with meaning much deeper and more profound than a domestic union,” she says.

The committee has not yet voted on the bill.

Copyright © 2020 · Missourinet

Filed Under: News Tagged With: PROMO, Representative Adam Schnelting, Representative Mary Elizabeth Coleman, Representative Tracy McCreery, Representative Wes Rogers, Washington University Law Professor Denise Lieberman

New legislative caucus to focus on Missouri’s radioactive waste problems

February 4, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

A new bipartisan caucus has been rolled out to track information and cleanup efforts about places in Missouri with nuclear waste.

For years, many St. Louis County residents near Coldwater Creek have reported a number of health problems, including cancer, autoimmune disease, children born with deformities and some cannot have children. They say World War II era nuclear weapons waste and underground fire fumes from a nearby landfill are contaminating the ground, air, and water.

New legislative caucus to focus on Missouri’s radioactive waste problems

The Environmental Protection Agency is forming a plan to dig up and remove radioactive material posing a public health threat at the West Lake Landfill in the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton. The plan calls for excavating about 70% of the contaminated waste and permanently capping the site. That percentage is expected to increase as crews begins digging. Work is not expected to begin there for about another 18 months.

EPA officials are scheduled to meet in about two weeks with local members of Congress and the community. The hope is to have a start date on the work during that meeting or shortly after.

During a press conference today at the Missouri Capitol, Chairman Doug Clemens, a St. Ann Democrat, says the turning point for him to form the caucus came when he saw copies of a report in recycle bins at the Capitol detailing Missouri’s radioactive waste sites. He says the launching the caucus is a big step in holding the federal government accountable.

“No one knew what they were. We need a body that provides institutional memory after Representative Chappelle-Nadal is gone, after I’m gone. We need somebody else who understands the situation to be able to sit on top of federal government oversight and possibly design legislation if need be,” says Clemens.

He says the feds have not been good about letting residents know what lies beneath.

“We have backyards in north St. Louis County, which have this stuff in it, right there next to somebody’s house. They haven’t cleaned them up yet,” he says. “One of the things that we need to combat here is ignorance about the situation – just letting people know. There’s more to this than what appears on the surface or what we’ve heard about.”

Clemens says the group wants the U.S. Department of Energy to get a budget increase or reallocate funds to Missouri to cleanup these sites sooner.

Representative Maria Chappelle-Nadal, a Democrat from University City, whose district includes St. Louis County, has been raising these concerns for years.

“In my investigatory work, I have found other landfills that have nuclear legacy waste in them,” she says. “One of those places – there is an Amazon distribution center sitting right on top of it today.”

Chappelle-Nadal is sponsoring House Bill 2225 this session that would require public hearings to be held prior to building on top of a landfill, to determine if testing for radioactive materials should be done. Testing would have to be conducted before a land use permit could be issued. The measure would also require St. Louis County to compile and keep a list of historic landfills in the county and make the list available to the public.

Chappelle-Nadal has held numerous town halls about radioactive contamination problems in her area and has learned a great deal of information from citizens about the history of nuclear waste sites, health problems area residents are having, among many other things.

As a young girl, she remembers going down St. Louis Avenue and seeing nice, new houses.

“Little did I know, until a couple of years ago, that the reason why these homes are experiencing subsidence, is because there is a landfill underneath them. I don’t think it’s right that people are living on top of landfills,” she says.

Another related measure that has been filed this year would strongly urge the U.S. Army to explain chemical testing that occurred in St. Louis in the 1950s and 1960s. Representative Kevin Windham’s proposed resolution, HCR 69, would request the federal government to conduct a study on the health effects of such tests.

Other caucus members include:

Co-Chair: Justin Hill, R-Lake St. Louis
Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann, R-O’Fallon
Tommie Pierson, Jr., D-St. Louis
LaDonna Appelbaum, D-St. Louis
Kevin Windham, D-Hillsdale
Adam Schnelting, R-St. Charles
Keri Ingle, D-Lee’s Summit
Mark Sharp, D-Kansas City
Ashley Bland Manlove, D-Kansas City
Paula Brown, D-Hazelwood
Rasheen Aldridge, D-St. Louis
LaKeySha Bosley, D-St. Louis
Alan Green, D-Florissant
Alan Gray, D-Black Jack
Jay Mosley, D-Florissant
Gretchen Bangert, D-Florissant
Raychel Proudie, D-Ferguson
Chris Carter, D-St. Louis

View reports associated with St. Louis County nuclear waste contamination:

63043 is the zip code next to West Lake Landfill referenced in the link directly below with elevated childhood brain cancers.

https://health.mo.gov/living/healthcondiseases/chronic/cancer/pdf/ccanalysisSept2014.pdf

https://health.mo.gov/living/environment/bridgeton/pdf/bridgeton-healthconsult.pdf

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/pha/coldWaterCreek/St_Louis_Airport_Site_Hazelwood_InterimSto_PHA-508.pdf

Copyright © 2020 · Missourinet

Filed Under: Health / Medicine, Legislature, News, Outdoors Tagged With: Coldwater Creek, Environmental Protection Agency, Representative Adam Schnelting, Representative Alan Gray, Representative Alan Green, Representative Ashley Bland Manlove, Representative Chris Carter, Representative Doug Clemens, Representative Gretchen Bangert, Representative Jay Mosley, Representative John Wiemann, Representative Justin Hill, Representative Keri Ingle, Representative Kevin Windham, Representative LaDonna Appelbaum, Representative LaKeySha Bosley, Representative Maria Chappelle-Nadal, Representative Mark Sharp, Representative Paula Brown, Representative Rasheen Aldridge, Representative Raychel Proudie, Representative Tommie Pierson, West Lake Landfill



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