No issue in this year’s campaign for governor of Michigan between incumbent Democrat Gretchen Whitmer and Republican challenger Tudor Dixon more clearly highlights the difference between the two candidates than traditional family values.
From abortion, which Whitmer has publicly vowed to “fight like hell” to protect, to the gay and transgender indoctrination of Michigan school children, the contrast could not be greater.
In 2021, Whitmer proclaimed the month of October as Transgender Empowerment Month in Michigan.
On Oct. 14, 2022, Dixon, a pro-life advocate and mother of four daughters, met with a couple of hundred concerned parents angry about public schools sexualizing their grade school children by introducing them to gay and transgender ideology.
Dixon was part of a panel discussion sponsored by Moms for Liberty, a national organization with 240 local chapters across 42 states that is dedicated to empowering parents to defend their rights.
Whitmer, who is running for reelection to a second term, was invited to be a panelist but did not attend.
The event was held in Troy, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, the night after 1,300 parents jammed a Dearborn school board meeting demanding the removal of what they described as “pornographic” books from their children’s classrooms and school libraries.
The well-attended back-to-back events illustrate the importance to voters of family values and parental rights as leading issues in the fast-approaching Nov. 8 election.
A man attending the panel discussion told The Epoch Times, “We came out tonight to see and hear Tudor. She understands that we should not have to debate pornography in our schoolbooks. She’s got common sense.”
Grandparents April and Larry Borton of Mount Pleasant arrived at the meeting early and were eager to share their views with The Epoch Times.
April said, “I was heartbroken by what the school board did to our children. Trying to confuse them and making them think they need to be a different sex.
“We are small town people. We’ve always gone along to get along with others in our community, but this is so disturbing that we felt we better stand up now or it will be too late.”
April recounted how her 5-year-old granddaughter was told by her teacher that she could be a boy if she wanted to and that her teacher would help her.
That’s when April started attending school board meetings.
“We’re part of quite a group, and, of course, we have all been labeled racists and bigots,” said Larry.
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich told the audience, “Parents are under attack, but we moms have gone from baking cupcakes for our child’s class to participating in school policy-making.
“Our local group leaders have not been embraced by school officials. They’ve been shamed, bullied, and beaten down.”
An educator in the audience with a background in psychology told the crowd, “Children cannot process sexual information until high school. They are not cognitively, emotionally, or spiritually able to process this stuff.
“What’s going on in our schools is evil, and we’re paying for it,” she said.
“We’re in a spiritual warfare,” said one man.
“Our schools are infusing sex education into every course,” said a panelist.
A mother, accompanied by her 11-year-old daughter, told The Epoch Times, “I was shocked into getting active when on the first day of school my daughter was asked for her preferred pronouns. I am one of about 10 parents who started showing up at our school board meetings.”
A former teacher from Commerce Township said she supports Dixon because “she will bring new energy in pursuit of the right goals.”
“We’ve poured record amounts of money into education, yet Michigan students are ranked near the bottom,” she said.
A former educator from Rochester Hills told The Epoch Times, “Things have changed. Used to be we could not tap a student on the shoulder or pat a child on the head for fear of the gesture being misconstrued as somehow being sexual.
“Now, you can be so familiar with a student as to ask, ‘Are you comfortable being a girl?’ I’m glad my children are grown.”
One speaker, a mother of four, said, “We are beginning to see what’s behind the curtain. We do not co-parent with the government.”
Dixon said she is a strong supporter of Michigan’s proposed Parents Right to Know Act.
She is also a proponent of intensive remedial tutoring for students scholastically damaged by Whitmer’s repeatedly extended lockdowns and school closures during the pandemic.
Dixon told the audience, “As a state, we have left too many kids behind. Michigan ranks at the bottom.
“Nearly 60 percent of our third graders failed reading and writing. The number in Detroit is 90 percent.
“We want accountability.”
According to Dixon, the Michigan Department of Education needs to report to the governor instead of functioning independently.
She bemoaned an education system led by people so extreme that they don’t want parents notified even if “their kid is considering self-harm.”
One panelist pointed out that the school office must make a phone call to obtain a parent’s permission to give a student an aspirin, yet “today, they want to give a child puberty blockers or take a girl for an abortion without notifying mom and dad.”
“Educators have said that notifying parents would endanger the child. That’s their explanation!” said Dixon.
The meeting was attended by a sitting member of the state board of education, several Republican state legislators, as well as numerous candidates for local school boards and other county and municipal offices.
