WASHINGTON – On May 20th, Democrats moved a reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), H.R. 2480, through the House via the suspensions process and passed it via a voice vote. The bill included significant changes to CAPTA that undermine parental rights and could ultimately lead to good parents unjustly losing custody of their children.

Specifically, the House version of CAPTA expands abuse-prevention outreach requirements to include “individuals and organizations experienced in working in partnership with… sexual and gender minority youth,” thus empowering LGBT groups to report to authorities any parent that disagrees with them on how best to care for their child.

Jon Schweppe, Director of Policy and Government Affairs at American Principles Project, released the following statement:

We’re in the endgame now. Just a few short years after Obergefell, the most radical elements of the LGBT movement have set their sights on using the power of the state to completely abolish parental rights. The House version of the CAPTA reauthorization bill is a direct attack on anyone who questions the wisdom of dressing an eight-year-old in drag, putting a twelve-year-old on puberty blockers, or injecting a sixteen-year-old with cross-sex hormones — in fact, it opens the door for parents losing custody of their kids if they refuse to comply with the demands of an insatiable activist movement.

Obviously the House is bonkers, but thankfully, we have sensible leaders in the Senate. American Principles Project urges the Senate to jettison the added provisions in the House-passed bill and instead pass a clean reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) as soon as possible.

First passed in 1974, CAPTA was designed as a mechanism for the federal government to fund state-level child abuse prevention efforts. APP believes there are a number of fundamental issues with the existing version of CAPTA — especially when it comes to due process and non-existent standards for removing children from the home — but the Democrats’ House-passed version would be significantly worse and pose a severe and immediate threat to both parental rights and the health and well-being of children.

To schedule an interview with Jon Schweppe, contact Paul Dupont at (o) 202-503-2010 or pdupont@americanprinciplesproject.org.