Last year, 171 Texas children died of abuse and neglect. Unfortunately, none of them were in a public bathroom. They were the most helpless and fragile victims. Their deaths were preceded in the five years before by another 800 small caskets, the tragic markers of a state’s failure to protect child victims of horrendous abuse. If they were only in a public restroom, perhaps Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick might have taken up their cause, drawn a line in the sand and rallied Lone Star pride to say “no more”. But no. Patrick has declared it is bathroom use for transgender people that is “a come-and-take-it” issue, a priority of the highest order that caused him to invoke Texas heroes of independence. He has held or issued half a dozen press conferences and media releases, saying that he is all about protecting children.
There are few better, more effective, or impactful ways for a politician to demonstrate their humanity and compassion than to declare their commitment to protecting children. After, looking out for those who will shape and determine the future is a GREAT way to demonstrate your “family values” bona fides, no? I mean, who doesn’t want to look out for innocent, vulnerable children and ensure their safety and well-being?
Who doesn’t? Well, how about Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, whose “commitment” to protecting children is as transparent as it is dishonest. His willingness to jump into the artificial “controversy” surrounding transgender use of public restrooms over his “concern” for the safety and well-being of women and children is as distressingly cynical as it is highly partisan. It’s not a cynical interpretation of his intentions to believe that his concern for Texas’ children extends only as far as it can be used to further his political ambitions by garnering as much time as he can in front of TV cameras.
The truth is that Patrick, a hyper-religious, arch-Conservative, family values Christian, is the very definition of a demagogue, a cynical political animal with borderline sociopathic tendencies whose primary concern is Dan Patrick. If the Lt. Gov. is so fired up about protecting children, why has he not been leading the fight to protect Texas’ most vulnerable citizens from the scourge of child abuse?
Right; he probably knew that staging a press conference about the child abuse crisis in Texas wouldn’t draw nearly the attention or create nearly the Sturm und Drang that railing against transgender people using public restrooms would.
Last December, a federal judge in heart-wrenching detail declared Texas had failed abused and neglected children by drugging them instead of addressing their trauma, by placing them in harmful settings and then ignoring their cries of sexual abuse, and by leaving them ignored by overwhelmed caseworkers, sometimes for years.
After that court ruling, Patrick held no press conferences. There’s no public statement on his website. He waved no banner for their well-being.
While Patrick has no authority over schools, he is a powerful force over the Department of Family and Protective Services and its Child Protective Services division.
Having spent a decade living in Texas before moving back to Portland, I’m all too familiar with Patrick. A former Conservative hate radio host, Partick’s career and brand reek of self-righteousness, self-promotion, and the open and virulent condemnation of anyone daring to think, believe, live, and/or love in a manner he defines as heretical.
Patrick’s decision to demagogue the invented “issue” of transgender people using public restrooms is very much in character. He’s consistently displayed a commitment to those issues he can employ to further his considerable ego and political ambitions.
Unfortunately for the children of Texas, none of those issues have had anything at all to do with protecting those most vulnerable to abuse. No, Patrick isn’t personally responsible for the child abuse crisis in the Lone Star State…but neither has he used his position and influence to find ways to protect children.
After all, children don’t vote.
This year 4-year-old Leiliana Wright of Grand Prairie was tied by her wrists, choked, left in a closet and slammed into a wall until she was fatally injured. Her abuse had been reported to CPS months before.
Yet, the lieutenant governor was silent.
Last year, two-year-old Adrian Langlais of Fort Worth was brutally beaten to death. Again, a few months earlier, CPS had been sent pictures of bruises all over his body.
The lieutenant governor chose not to weigh in.
Dan Patrick is neither culpable nor directly responsible in either of these tragic cases- but his silence certainly doesn’t speak to a commitment to protecting children.
We haven’t heard from the Lt. Gov. his plans and/or intentions for addressing the 108,000 confirmed cases of child abuse in Texas- because he has none. This number doesn’t begin to address the potential impact on children if Texas decides to forfeit $10 billion in federal education funds by refusing to abide by the Obama Administration’s directive that transgender children be allowed to use the restrooms corresponding to the gender they identify as.
I’m guessing Jesus will provide….
You don’t display your commitment to “smaller government” by injecting government into an invented “controversy” about who gets to use which public restroom. You don’t demonstrate your passion for protecting and safeguarding children by holding press conferences.
Then again, Patrick has undoubtedly determined that Texas’ child abuse crisis isn’t something he can spin to his advantage…and so a significant problem in serious need of attention and resolve will go begging. So has it ever been with Dan Patrick, who’s to effective, results-oriented, compassionate leadership what Wayne LaPierre is to stopping the carnage resulting from gun violence.
Meanwhile, Texas children continue to suffer and die because there’s no political hay to be made from working to protect them. There’s some inspired, prescient leadership, eh?
