Paul Szmal: Good morning. It's 7.50. It's F-HELX Morning Tuesday and we're on the phone with Aisha Crites who is with the Coalition to Protect Kids in New York. Aisha, good morning.
Aisha Crites: Hi, good morning. We're happy to have you here. We're going to talk about ballot Proposition 1 on the November 5th ballot here in the state of New York and many people probably don't even know what that is. So it is a proposed amendment to the state constitution. It reads, no person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws of this state or any subdivision thereof. No person shall, because of race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed, or religion, or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive health care and autonomy, be subjected to any discrimination in his, her, or their civil rights by any other person, or any firm, corporation, or institution, or by the state, or any agency, or subdivision of the state pursuant to law. Kind of a mouthful. And again, that would be a constitutional amendment, so it would need to be passed by the voters and then go through that process. So explain your position on Question 1.
Aisha Crites: Sure. So the, you know, I guess the most important message, like when we're looking at, as you stated, the word salad, is that first the language is rather vague and notably absent from a lot of, you know, within that are words like minor, parents, conscience, and so when we were looking at it, you know, Prop 1 is the only proposition in the United States, like ballot issue, that includes rights for minors in general, things like transgender rights for minors, when you put all of those things together, and it gives the ability or empowers the state to strip parents from their rights and the authority to make medical decisions for their children, right? And so that's the, one of the biggest things, that's why we're talking about protecting kids, right, that there's a coalition to protect kids, or a wide variety of people. We don't believe that we should be allowing schools, other athletic organizations, right, to force biological girls and women to compete with biological boys and men. This also sets the stage for something like that to happen, like in school sports and other competitions. So, you know, we think those safe spaces for women, locker rooms, restrooms, you know what I mean, like those should all be protected, and again, they want to say that we are trying to prevent the unequal treatment of, but when we look at that and break it apart because of its vagueness, it sets the stage for that as well, you know, as a constitutional right. This isn't a bill, this is a constitutional amendment, which is even more, you know, it's hard to undo a constitutional amendment. The process to get one through is rather difficult. So New Yorkers need to know, hey, there's something on the back of your ballot that wants to amend the New York Constitution, and really be able to understand it. They want to amend 96 words, you just read that, and on the back of your ballot you're going to see, you know, all of 26, 30 of those words, maybe.
Paul Szmal: So is that your primary concern, and that of the coalition, is that this would enshrine within the law biological boys attempting to play on girls' teams?
Aisha Crites: That's one of the major concerns, and it's not that they would be taking part, but it's the forced part. You know, again, we have co-ed sports, and that's absolutely fine, you know, people have the choice to do that and to sign up, but it would set the constitutional right for a biological male to play with a biological female without a choice. And, you know, it's risky for those types of things to happen. But, you know, the issue of parental agency, right, is very important. Us as parents should have the right to be able to raise our children the way that we see fit, and not, you know, being, you know, in the 80s, right, you used to be like, oh, that's where I'm from, sorry, I'm aging myself, right, that your kids may be able to, you know, I call the police on you and tell you what you can and can't do because they're mad. And this really does set the stage for that, because, again, if you can't discriminate based on age, and all of a sudden your 12-year-old, right, thinks that maybe their mom, because this never happens, right, mom or dad doesn't understand them, and say, hey, I don't want you to tell my mom or dad. And if you do, then now you're discriminating based on age, right, we have common-sense guardrails in society, right, for all sorts of things based around age. And we just don't think those should be loosened at all. We think those common-sense guardrails should be protected. And, again, notably absent is the word minor. Legally, the word age is first breath to last breath.
Paul Szmal: I need to just jump in here, because we're almost out of time, and I just want to give you time to tell people how can they learn more about the Coalition to Protect Kids and learn more about this Prop 1.
Aisha Crites: Yeah, you can just go to ProtectKidsNY.com, that just as it sounds, ProtectKidsNY is in NewYork.com, and there's all sorts of information that is on there on how you can get involved every Tuesday evening at 6 o'clock. We have a Zoom meeting that you can sign up for and learn more about it. We have open discussion, people from all walks of life come on, and we present everything in full and have a Q&A, answer people's questions, and do all sorts of things as well.
Paul Szmal: All right, Aisha Kreitz, so we appreciate your time this morning. Thanks for talking to us.
Aisha Crites: All right, thank you so much.
