Earlier this year, far-right anti-LGBTQ pastor Jack Hibbs announced that he was launching a campaign to pressure local school boards to adopt policies requiring schools to inform parents if their children identify at school in any way other than as the sex listed on their birth certificate.
A bill imposing this requirement on all schools in the state had been introduced in the California legislature, but when it stalled, members of the Chino Valley Unified School District school board enacted a local policy based on the bill's language.
It is no coincidence that the Chino Valley school board was among the first to enact this policy, given that the president and several members are congregants at Hibbs' Calvary Chapel Chino Hills church, as Hibbs confirmed when he appeared on his close friend Charlie Kirk's program on Wednesday.
"As soon as somebody sent me something that said, 'Chino Valley school board fights for parents, rights,' I said, 'I know Jack Hibbs is involved,'" Kirk said. "I have now learned that my suspicion was correct. All of the Chino Valley USD school board members whose voted for parental disclosure go to your church."
"Right, Charlie," Hibbs gloated. "In fact, the president of the school board, Sonja Shaw, she is from our church. You're exactly right."
"We took the verbiage from that [state] bill and then introduced it to our Unified School District school board, and they voted and adopted the verbiage," Hibbs continued. "So what was supposed to go state law turned out to be defeated there at the state—not even heard—but that's okay. Guess what happened? We found out something, Charlie: That the most powerful politics is local. And so what happened is the school board voted to adopt his verbiage and since that time, Charlie, we're looking at Murrieta school district, we're looking at Orange school district, Temecula school district; four school districts have adopted the verbiage, and they are standing strong. We've got five others in the state of California coming online to do the same. Charlie, this is the groundswell of involvement."
Earlier this week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that his office is suing the Chino Valley school district over this policy on the grounds that it represents a threat to transgender and gender nonconforming youth. For his part, Hibbs says that he welcomes the lawsuit, vowing to "take it to the Supreme Court if necessary."
