State Representative Bethany Soye has sent out an editorial column this afternoon chastising Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken because the Mayor had the audacity to comment that he thought this next session that legislative time would best be spent solving problems as opposed to being culture warriors.
In defense of those who want to tell everyone what they should do and think, Soye has issued the following column to scold the mayor for not being dictating everyone’s morality and “stealing children’s innocence” and contributing to our moral collapse because he opposes more government, and to scold government in general for helping to heal the sick and to assist the poor with housing:
As a legislator I feel compelled to respond to Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken’s recent comment asking the state legislature to “stay out of culture war issues and focus on the core needs of delivering services.” One wonders what Mayor TenHaken means by a “culture war.” I think it can be defined by stating what he clearly thinks does not fall under that category: spending. The Mayor believes that government exists in order to tax its residents for the purpose of providing goods and services. This is a sad departure from what the founders of our country and state believed the purpose of government was: to protect the rights of the people. Our founders would never have dreamed of government bodies building houses, providing healthcare, or paying for childcare. They would have anticipated government officials standing up for the rights of parents and protecting the vulnerable.
One of the areas specifically given to the state legislature under the South Dakota Constitution is public education. The whole reason for the creation of our public school system is set out in our South Dakota Constitution in Article 8 Section 1: “The stability of a republican form of government depending on the morality and intelligence of the people…” This leads me to the specific policy called out by the Mayor in his complaint against “culture wars.” The bill in question is HB1197 from the 2024 session. This bill required public schools and libraries to create and publish a policy that explains how the institution attempts to keep children from accessing obscene materials. This bill passed UNANIMOUSLY through both the House and Senate. That means that every Representative and Senator from the Sioux Falls area, including the Democrats, supported the bill. How is that an evil culture war?? It seems the only one fighting this “war” is the Sioux Falls Public Library. There was absolutely no need to cancel the Student Success Card program in order to implement a materials review policy. For an example we can look at the Brookings Public Library which adopted a policy that states who is in charge of reviewing library materials and what criteria are used to ensure age-appropriateness. Easy as that. HB1197 was a simple transparency measure unanimously supported by the legislature. In response, the Sioux Falls Library has chosen to harm underprivileged children in order to make a political statement that no one can tell them what to do. If I were you Mr. Mayor, I would take a hard look at who is running your library system and what his or her agenda is. It does not appear to be to serve the public and educate our children.
If the Mayor doesn’t think library policy transparency is a worthwhile issue, then what is? Would he also scoff at protections to keep children from being preyed upon and groomed by the predatory pornography industry? I assume those protections would not provide the ROI that the Mayor is looking for: more revenue to build new public pools. I ask the Mayor and you the public: what is the point of having a city full of gleaming new public facilities if our children’s innocence is stolen and our families are falling apart? If we are truly concerned with addressing the rising crime rate we will care about strengthening the family. For those living in Sioux Falls, the next time you pay your outrageous property tax bill remember that a significant portion of that amount goes to fund the Sioux Falls City Government. It goes to fund an administration that doesn’t care what your kids are exposed to but merely sees people as economic development numbers.
Strong families and healthy, confident children provide a city with the greatest ROI possible. It’s time for the people to remind the Mayor that social issues are worth fighting for. What truly divides and angers people is telling them that their concerns don’t matter and that they should simply be happy with efficient traffic flow. We face a choice: the City of Sioux Falls can continue down its current path and become like Minneapolis or Denver with great infrastructure and a society in chaos and moral collapse. Or we can take a different direction towards building up and strengthening our greatest asset: the morality and intelligence of our people. I sincerely hope we will choose the latter.
So, there you go. Now you know the justification behind spending all that time creating more government to tell parents how they’re supposed to raise their children.
Use government to tell parents how to parent? Not a conservative approach. The folks like Soye do not want to govern, they want to rule their subjects.
Narrow minded and tribal approach.
They should worry about their own first.The parties in Pierre have supported enough people on the ballots and elected into office in recent year that have assulted children to fill a small county jail. Just days ago one of top election deniers SOS Johnson’s former Campaign Treasurer was arrested for rape of child under 13 in Rapid City. Maybe take more time to scrutinize those you put on the ballot or include in campaigns instead of wasting days on local issues.
The soon to be leadership and cabinet in DC is going to look like a who’s who on the sexual preditors list. My guess is most youth associations would not allow any of these people to coach their girl’s sports teams. I wonder how many of these “power people” MS. Soye supports?
Pierre needs to figure out how to keep our state funded and running smooth without Biden’s COVID cash and raising taxes. Let the locals boards decide community standards instead of painting the state with a wide brush from Pierre, SD. Then allow me as a parent decide if the books that my child brings home are approriate. It is called local control.
The mayor began the fray by telling the upcoming legislators what not to discuss during session.
Mr. Wagner responds with typical virulent whackadoodle personal attacks against the messenger. Absolute trash. For the record, I couldn’t agree more with the Mayor, our host on this site, and legislators concerned with preserving democracy from these attacks.
Yeah, “Vince Wagner” is one of the Talkington’s trying to use a fake name. And they’re gone.
wow this open letter thing falls perfectly in line with the bogus “South Dakota Voices” blog i was shoved onto by substack. this mirrors somewhat the anonymous blog post written by some spook in an office in San Francisco, designed to craft and direct negative public opinions to power political actions. i guess that stuff found its fertile ground and sprang roots.
for the record, this is how people are duped into enslaving themselves mentally.
” this is how people are duped into enslaving themselves mentally.”
Well, you would know all about being duped, mr. I’m wrong on almost everything I have stated.
The “I know you are but what am I” defense. Brilliant rhetoric, bud.
Not rhetoric, I can back it up moron.
Now we are using the “nu-uh” defense. I feel like I’m in a debate class with a 10 year old.
lol
It’s ironic that she talks morals as one of the few that thought our former AG did nothing wrong?!?!
I currently live in District 9 and I’m embarrassed to admit that with the contingent that will be going to Pierre. It’s like watching a football game and you see fans of a terrible team wearing sacks over their heads in embarrassment.
If a bill has anything to do with bathrooms or libraries, kill it before it multiplies. Please.
This legislator should like she could of easily have been a Jim Jones follower.
sounds like*
Who IS this socialist woman? What a nut case.
More like National Socialist determined to destroy Amerika.
Bethany is like a deadbeat parent; she wants to tell me how to do everything, through government overreach, with my kids but doesn’t want to support them. Go back to your buddy Rafael in Texas; SD doesn’t need you.
Nothing says “protecting the rights of the people” like banning books and the government making the decisions on what kids can read instead of their parents. Freedom sure is weird when you have to change its definition to support your moral grandstanding.
There was a segment on this topic this morning on the Greg Belfrage show. All callers into the program were in support of Representative Bethany Soye. The reason? They were all parents with children, some of them stated they don’t take their children to story time at the library anymore because they don’t know what will be read. One caller suggested that he would not be able to read these books on air as it would violate FCC regulations and Greg agreed with him . None of the callers were advocating for certain books to be banned, they didn’t want children under the age of 18 to have access to them. I think that is reasonable.
Cool, they can control their own children then. They don’t get to make and choose what rules the rest of society follows.
So, are the people on the right supposed to unilaterally disarm in this war?
The people on the left are still promoting their agenda to tell parents how to raise their children AND, more importantly, pushing policies for schools and other institutions to bypass parents with regard to how children are raised.
Until there is a consensus and government acknowledges the parents are the preeminent authority regarding the raising of children and the presumptive position is deferral to parents (with consensus exceptions regarding safety, etc.), it is foolish to unilaterally disarm.
You’re in a war? Against your fellow citizens? Well, that’s a healthy, not-at-all-psycho way of looking at civic disagreements.
Went to Taco John’s today. Ordered a bean and rice burrito, got a chicken burrito. THIS IS JUST LIKE ARCHDUKE FERDINAND.
Good comeback. Obfuscate. Bully. Ridicule. Belittle. Avoid the issue.
Except we have looked behind the screen and now realize how puny, phony and deceptive you are at your core.
Such a good little victim you are, show us where the books hurt you!
You called it a “war,” you histrionic lunatic, not me. Grow up.
Well isn’t that specciiaallll.
Like born-boys/men competing in girls/women sports, once again the GOP runs from an issue that has broad majority support in both parties.
You just can’t make this crap up. Saying the elites are out of touch is too kind.
Just because your media claims “broad support in both parties” doesn’t mean that is the reality. Walk around town and ask people how much money they would be willing to dedicate for private institutions to be governed by us, which we pay for. The answer will be nearly zero. The NCAA and all other organizations, such as the Olympic Committee and SDHSAA, set the standards for defining gender and who plays in their sport leagues. We have never had a government-organized agency to control rules of sports leagues. How far do you MAGA people think you can grow with government, you are supposedly against socialism, but what do you call it when we no longer have any income because we have to control every person’s life through the tax structure? Pretty soon the billionaires will be the only ones left with the crypto currency and we will just work for them for scraps. I hope you MAGA people will be happy at least, don’t worry, your reward will come after you die.
“Just because your media claims “broad support in both parties” doesn’t mean that is the reality.”
There are few issues in this divided country where 69% agree on anything.
Gallup Poll: “The survey — conducted from May 1 to May 24 via telephone interviews with roughly 1,000 adults living in the U.S. — found that 69% of people say that transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth, compared with 62% in 2021.”
Media source is NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/americans-oppose-inclusion-trans-athletes-sports-poll-finds-rcna88940
If you go direct to the link to the poll: 48% vs. 47% of Democrats think athletes “should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender.” Two years ago it was 55%-41% who thought “transgender athletes should be able to play on sports teams that match their current gender identity.” This is a seismic shift seldom seen on any political issue.
NCAA and SDHSAA are not private institutions but are entities sanctioned and ultimately governed by an overwhelming majority of public, taxpayer supported institutions.
Furthermore, the NCAA and SDHSAA are subject to Title IX (because they accept federal funds), the hard fought federal legislation to compensate for “leaving it to the best athlete” would effectively eliminate girls/women from being able to compete in athletics and insure biological girls and women had the same athletic opportunities as biological boys and men.
We are onto your obfuscation and lies like asserting the NCAA and SDHSAA are “private institutions” or somehow not subject to the Title IX clear language to divide sports based on physical attributes (Title IX allows institutions to have coed sports/activities if there are no gender physical advantages).
And, we won’t lay down and cower when you bully or belittle us.
My bet is that Trump Hotels are required to make bathrooms accessible for the extremely small number of guests who are trans sexual or in that process.
It’s good for business. I’d also bet there are facilities available for trans sexual in the White House. The whole thing is a tempest in a teapot.
Tempest in a teapot= belittle
Confusing bathrooms with physically superior boys denying equal access to girls playing sports in violation of Title IX = moronic
In the words of VP elect to Martha Radich: Do you even listen to yourself?
The opposition percentage is moot, the premise was if we want to pay for government to expand and control this issue. I don’t support it either, but I sure as hell don’t want to pay to regulate it, and most I talk do don’t want to either.
Just because an agency accepts federal dollars does not mean it is a federal agency. NCAA and SDHSAA are not the government, and nobody wants them to be except you MAGA people. This grievance of the month will pass, just like tall the others, and you’ll be on to trying to ban something new like “violent video games” or “profane music” in a year or two.
At what point in your delusions do we have too much government? You can create victim scenarios in your head all your want, but reality doesn’t change, you are growing government more than a socialist would…..or perhaps you are a socialist?
SDHSAA is a creation of the South Dakota Legislature governed by primarily government entities.
NCAA is an entity owned and governed by member schools of which the vast majority are government entities.
SDHSAA and NCAA are subject to Title IX.
These are facts. Pretending otherwise is a delusion.
That said, if you think it appropriate that transgender athletes can compete in the sport of their identity (without regard to any physical advantage that athlete would have because of birth gender advantages), you are in the minority and in general (subject to the Constitution) the majority get to set public policy for public entities or entities who accept public funds.
P.S. your obfuscation to mention socialism is really weak. A smart person could do better.
I live in the district she represents. I voted democrat and will continue to do so every time she’s on the ballot. She makes the GOP look like petty religious zealots and I’m sick and tired of her holier than thou attitude.
I agree we can do without Scoldi-locks and her moral judgements.
Kettle calling pot black.
You are saying these District 9 voters are the ones acting like religious zealots judging everyone with a holier than thou attitude? I don’t see how you draw that conclusion….
It’s become exactly as you describe. The reason for this is CAH closed his trashy blog to post his pathetic attempt at a novel, based in all places Russia. The libs and name callers had to go somewhere and they settled here,
One thing is clear: Those who said anything about the matter raised can only attack Soye personally.
Must be the best argument they have. Proceed Soye.
I agree with the Mayor. These ultra right wing zealots need to focus on governing not culture wars!!
The progressive left just lost an election in an embarrassing fashion due in no small part to its woke culture war.
How incredibly short sighted of Rep Soye and the rest of these culture warriors.