COLUMBUS, Ohio (ChurchMilitant.com) – The Catholic GOP governor of the Buckeye State is caving to transgender ideologues, breaking rank with many in his party.
Ohio’s Gov. Mike DeWine, on Friday, vetoed a measure that would have banned so-called gender-affirming care for minors as well as prevented boys who claim to be girls from participating in female sports.
At a press conference the same day, DeWine said not putting the kibosh on House Bill 68, also known as the Enact Ohio Saving Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, would do “more harm than good.”
“These are truly complex issues, and reasonable people draw vastly different conclusions,” he told reporters. “This bill would impact a very small number of Ohio’s children, but for those children who face gender dysphoria, and for their families, the consequences of this could not be more profound.”
The website shared by DeWine and his lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, says DeWine and his wife have eight children and 26 grandchildren.
Rationalizing Ruin?
DeWine claimed that parents of so-called transgender children told him that their kids would have committed suicide without sex change procedures.
Experts have long debunked this concern through their research.
In a widely circulated tweet, he said: “Were House Bill 68 to become law, Ohio would be saying that the state, that the government knows better what’s medically best for a child than the two people who love that child the most: the parents.”
GOP state senator, J.D. Vance, a Catholic, pushed back against the governor’s claim, posting,
This is a slogan, not a justification. There are many things the law rightfully says no one, including parents, may do to children. This slogan also ignores the extraordinary pressure from interest groups and big pharma to green light poorly understood, irreversible procedures. I’m extremely disappointed in the governor’s decision and hope it is overridden.
Vance is not the only one rejecting the governor’s justifications.
On Saturday, former President Donald Trump criticized DeWine for striking down HB 68. “The bill would have stopped child mutilation and prevented men from playing in women’s sports,” he posted on Truth Social.
“DeWine has fallen to the Radical Left. No wonder he gets loudly booed in Ohio every time I introduce him at Rallies, but I won’t be introducing him any more. I’m finished with this ‘stiff.’ What was he thinking?” the 45th president added.
Riley Gaines
One of the most passionate critics of DeWine’s veto is Riley Gaines, a former competitive swimmer and host of the Gaines for Girls podcast. On a recent podcast, she said,
Governor DeWine has proven himself to be a spineless coward who is unwilling to do the obvious right and moral thing. This veto doesn’t represent the majority of Ohioans or the majority of Americans. I’m confident and hopeful the Ohio Legislature will override his veto. A compromise between right and wrong will always be wrong.
DeWine’s last-minute veto caught many Republicans and Democrats off guard. They struggled to understand what could have motivated DeWine’s decision.
Follow the Money
The Federalist Papers, a media outlet describing its purpose as “giving people the means to be their own governors,” posits that “it appears to be influenced by substantial donations from organizations supportive of transgender medical care.”
The site reports that, from 2018 to 2023, the governor was given a total of $40,300 from the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association (OCHA), Cincinnati Children’s, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and ProMedica Children’s Hospital. Some of these hospitals offer what the Federalist Papers called “gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, without specifying an age limit for patients.”
Of the social media users suspicious that DeWine had caved to interest groups and big pharma, one quipped, “How nice of him to veto the bill that would have cost ‘gender affirming’ children’s hospitals millions of dollars.”