Since we have an election coming up, and I’ve already blogged a lot about the abuse of power in the FBI and DOJ, I thought it might be a good idea for people to consider what will happen to their rights as parents if the Democrats win in the 2022 mid-term elections. In order to see what Democrats will do, we look north to Canada, to see what the secular left has already done there.

Here’s a story from City Journal:

At this moment, a Vancouver postman named Rob Hoogland is sitting in a jail cell in British Columbia. He will be there until at least April 12, when he’s scheduled for a court date. At that time, he may be ordered to remain behind bars for a period yet to be determined.

Has Hoogland killed or robbed somebody? Is he an arsonist? A rapist? No. What did he do, then? Short answer: he tried to save his emotionally unstable daughter from self-destruction.

Social transitioning is the first stage:

It turned out that the school had been feeding her transgender ideology, and that she’d already begun “socially transitioning” to a male identity under the direction of a psychologist, Wallace Wong, who was encouraging her “to take testosterone.” To this end, Wong referred her to an endocrinologist at the Gender Clinic and Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.

Then comes the puberty blockers and/or hormone injections, despite the lack of consent from the child’s father:

At the beginning of ninth grade, A.B. had her first appointment with G.H., an endocrinologist at British Columbia Children’s Hospital, to receive testosterone injections.

[…]G.H. told Hoogland that her treatment would go forward, that Hoogland had no say in the matter, and that he’d no longer have access to her medical records.

Judge sides with the mother, the school counselor, and the hospital:

Instead of recognizing that very few, if any, 14-year-olds are in a position to understand the grave implications of sex-change therapy, the judge, Gregory Bowden, ruled that A.B. was a “mature minor” and that her consent, by itself, was thus “sufficient for the treatment to proceed.”

This part is important. In a society that has been completely taken over by “compassion” and “non-judgement”, fathers are the enemy. Fathers are no longer trusted to lead on moral and spiritual issues. Fathers have no right to lead their children:

Bowden placed remarkable restrictions on Hoogland. He was forbidden to try to persuade A.B. to stop treatment. He was forbidden to address her by her birth name. He was forbidden, in any conversation with anyone, to refer to her as a girl or to use female pronouns to describe her. If he were to do any of these things, ordered Bowden, it would be “considered to be family violence”—yes, violence—under the Family Law Act.

And if fathers try to tell their story in public, another judge will threaten them with arrest. Because transitioning children against the will of the father has to be done in a way that the people responsible cannot be named or shamed for what they are doing:

Soon after Bowden’s ruling, A.B. began gender-transition treatment, but Hoogland persevered with his legal fight. In violation of Bowden’s order, he also spoke in public and gave interviews about the case. In April 2019, in response to an application by A.B., Judge Francesca Marzari… ordered Hoogland to… stop communicating with others—including media outlets, and A.B. herself… about A.B.’s decision to receive hormone therapy.

[…]Marzari also seconded Bowden’s description of Hoogland’s “rejection of A.B.’s gender identity” as “family violence.”

Since the father didn’t quit on trying to save his child, he had to be imprisoned:

And then, on March 19 of this year, British Columbia supreme court justice Michael Tammen ordered Hoogland—who had never before been in trouble with the law—to be sent to prison. By speaking out publicly about his case, and by publicly calling A.B. his “daughter” and saying “she” and “her,” maintained Tammen, Hoogland had violated “a publication ban designed to protect the privacy and dignity of a young and vulnerable person.” Not the slightest concern, of course, about protecting that young person’s long-term medical health, physical intactness, and psychiatric well-being.

Tammen further said that Hoogland’s public statements could cause “psychological harm” to A.B. Once more, the judiciary flat-out rejected evidence that the treatments to which A.B. had been subjected could cause her a lifetime of psychological harm. Tammen warned that Hoogland, whose next court appearance is scheduled for April 12, would “definitely” face charges of criminal contempt at that time. Under a ruling issued last July, Hoogland, because of an appearance on YouTube, could remain in prison for five years.

This is the key – they have to imprison him to keep people from finding out what they are doing:

Most outrageous of all was Tammen’s assertion that Hoogland’s “detention is necessary to maintain public confidence in the administration of justice.”

The case files are also closed to the public. Unprecedented in the history of Canada. But necessary to cover up what the secular leftists are doing to the father.

Keep in mind that all of these actors – the teachers, the school counselors, the hospital workers, the lawyers, the judges, etc. – are all taxpayer-funded. The father is paying all of their salaries though his taxes. He is competent enough to earn the money, but not competent enough to make decisions about how to run his home. And this is fine with the “compassion” crowd. Since fathers want to lead on moral and spiritual issues, they have to be stopped by the government. Fathers are bad for children. They make children feel bad, and so they need to be overruled by the compassionate people in the government.

Should men marry?

What message does this story send to men who are considering marriage? Marriage-minded men already have to consider no-fault divorce laws, high tax rates to pay for the social programs that support single mothers, etc. Now they have to worry about having the leadership of their own homes stolen from them by the “compassionate” people in government. How did those compassionate people in government get into government? Why by being voted in by the compassionate voters. Many of those compassionate voters are now complaining that there are no good men to marry. “Where are all the good men?” they cry. Let me answer, on behalf of good men everywhere: we have no interest in becoming slaves or prisoners of the secular left state.