Look at a breakpoint, daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth

for the Colson Center on John Stum Street.

I bill currently on the desk of the governor of the state of Washington would, if he signs

it, allow homeless shelters and youth homes to hide, runaway youth from their parents.

If those parents will not help the students, obtain gender-based medical interventions, the

law would not require shelters or law enforcement to investigate whether or not the parents

have been abusive or neglectful or if the young person is actually in danger.

All that would be required is for a young person to claim that his or her parents do

not support their intent to take cross-ex hormones or obtain dangerous surgeries.

This is the latest, the most alarming example of an often portrayed conflict these days between

the rights of a child and the rights of parents.

Increasingly, in fact, parental rights are seen by school boards and other state officials

as perhaps the greatest threat to the rights and well-being of children.

This is not only a dangerous and misleading mistake that places children and their rights

at risk, it places the state as the adjudicator of this conflict of rights and as the primary

protector of children.

How human rights are defined depends, first and foremost, on who we believe humans are,

what we believe humans are for.

In our culture, it's widely assumed that humans must determine their own purpose, which

is not based on any shared plot about what humans are, as a result, human rights are

abstractly defined as something akin to autonomy, the ability to self-determine who we are and

how we should live.

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