Let’s begin with the obvious — Tim Walz is not the “center” or “moderate” that many in the mainstream media have suggested.

The conventional wisdom when choosing whose name will go on the VP slot on a ballot is to go with someone who unites the party.  Your VP pick is generally used to mitigate political attacks, and draw in as many votes as possible from those who might have a bone or two to pick with the presidential candidate.

That is not what Kamala Harris did in choosing Tim Walz as her running mate.  Quite the opposite.

It should come as no surprise, then, to learn how extreme things have gotten in Minnesota over his tenure as governor.  You’ll probably be able to get a good feel for the situation from hearing it described by a Minnesota State Senator, via Fox News Digital:

“I mean there must be a new word for ‘center’ because he’s nowhere close,” Minnesota Republican State Senator Mark Koran told Fox News Digital.

“The most radical policies that we have, as a conservative Republican in Minnesota, the most difficult process we have is trying to describe the bills that were passed in the last few years. The agenda is so heinous, removing parental rights, the transgender ideology which puts our children in harm’s way. He signed every one of those bills and to me, most don’t believe it because it is so radical when we try to educate them.”

Tim Walz is not what you might call a “moderate”.  He is a true Progressive along with everything that goes along with that word in 2024.  Now that I’ve beaten that dead horse into the ground to my satisfaction, here’s the news.

As the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz has spearheaded a push to completely radicalize the public school system in Minnesota.  And he has been so successful at it that when the law he signed takes effect, Christians would literally have to renounce some of the most basic tenets of their faith in order to become a teacher in the state of Minnesota.

I’m going to revert to a post on x.com to summarize the situation, because I am literally so worked up I can hardly type.  And then I’ll give you the details.

What Tim signed into law, just codifies what public schools have always been…Marxist.

Under Tim Walz, Minnesota Banned Christian Teachers https://t.co/AgbfEectxG

— Waterboy (@GMRench) August 27, 2024

Okay — you might want to sit down and have a quick Bible study, maybe take a moment to pray, just to get your head right before you read further.  As a freedom loving Christian, this sort of thing really ticks me off.

You know, that righteous anger that Jesus talked about and exhibited?  This is just the sort of situation that it applies to.

Here it is in a nutshell, from a story featured this week on The Federalist:

Starting next July, Minnesota agencies controlled by Walz appointees will require teacher license applicants to affirm transgenderism and race Marxism. Without a teaching license, individuals cannot work in Minnesota public schools, nor in the private schools that require such licenses.

The latest version of the regulations requires teachers to “affirm” students’ “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” to receive a Minnesota teaching license.

If you’re like me, you tend to imagine when you read something like that, happening in the good ‘ole U.S.A. — surely it must be an exaggerated characterization.  That was my first thought.  And then, I looked up the actual licensing guidance manual put out by the Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board.  It is titled, “Standards of Effective Practice”.

Just click the link above if you want to look for yourself.  It is littered with, well, trash — to put it bluntly.  But no need to get sidetracked just yet.  I’ll include the pertinent section below for your reading convenience.

The most concerning section appears on page 4 of the licensing manual in an outline of various roles that will be required of those seeking to be licensed as educators in Minnesota:

The teacher fosters an environment that ensures student identities such as race/ethnicity, national origin, language, sex and gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical/developmental/emotional ability, socioeconomic class, and religious beliefs are historically and socially contextualized, affirmed, and incorporated into a learning environment where students are empowered to learn and contribute as their whole selves.

*emphasis is my own*

Let me just say, as a Christian, I would not “enjoy” even teaching ABOUT certain aspects that are considered to fall under the heading of “sex and gender, gender identity, sexual orientation” in 2024.  But understand, I would only be UNCOMFORTABLE if I had to do so.

It wouldn’t quite be equivalent to renouncing my faith to teach ABOUT these things.

But I emphasized two little words near the end of that excerpt from the licensing manual which turn this from an “uncomfortable” situation for a Christian teacher, into exactly that — a demand that they deny their faith.

• affirmed
• incorporated

Within the radical context of the law that created these changes, those two words are not equivalent to “respect”, in a broad sense.  They mean exactly what they mean.  A teacher in Minnesota will now be compelled by state law to both AFFIRM and INCORPORATE a worldview into their teaching that runs completely counter to the basic tenets of Biblical Christianity.

Please understand, this was no accident.  This what designed to do exactly what it is doing.  First, to secularize the public school system in Minnesota to Marxist levels, and in the same breath force Christian educators to choose between their career or their faith.

More on that from Doug Seaton who was interviewed for The Federalist story I referenced above:

Some Christian universities in the state will obey these regulations, said Doug Seaton, founder and president of the nonprofit Upper Midwest Law Center, located in Minneapolis. Some Christian universities will not, but so far those UMLC has reached out to that plan to disobey these state commands to violate their faith will do so quietly and only sue when the state finds and punishes them, Seaton said.

“Some are not willing to do it [file a lawsuit] until they actually have their college programs tagged for noncompliance or their graduates actually not licensed as a consequence of not adhering to these standards,” he said in a phone interview.

Faithful members of the world’s largest and oldest religions cannot in good conscience “affirm” non-heterosexual sexual orientations and gender identities. Christians who do so publicly deny their faith, something Jesus Christ said endangers a person’s soul and eternal bliss after death: “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32, 33).

Minnesota’s teacher requirements therefore force Christians, Muslims, Jews, and adherents to other religions to violate their faith and endanger their hopes of eternal life in order to work in government-run schools.

Forcing people to testify to beliefs they don’t hold, often called compelled speech, is clearly unconstitutional, he said: “They’re essentially requiring people to affirm these ideas that they don’t really believe, in many cases, as a condition of being a public school teacher or being part of a program to be a licensed public school teacher. You can’t force that kind of speech, you can’t require adherence to ideas that aren’t believed.”

According to the same article, Walz’s very first executive order after becoming governor was to create a “diversity, equity, and inclusion” council.  Yep, DEI strikes again.

I am focusing primarily on the hurt caused to Christian teachers and would-be educators in Minnesota, but of no less importance is the harm caused to students.  In just the few years that DEI policies have taken hold under Walz’s term as governor, Minnesota students have plummeted from where they were tracking nationally before Walz’s sweeping Progressive changes.

The fact is, no matter what arena of life we consider, as soon as it becomes a higher priority to align everything with a socially engineered agenda rather than focus primarily on whatever the point to the endeavor actually is — this is the result.  Disaster.

This is probably the most negative, glum story I’ve written to date.  The problem is, it needs to be written.  These disasters need to be covered.  The man who is primarily responsible for these sweeping unconstitutional changes in Minnesota is potentially a few weeks away from becoming, (may God forbid it), the Vice President of the United States.

That should frighten every person of principle into action.  It should frighten us the way God intended the fear reflex to work — out of complacency or apathy, and instead to tackle head-on that thing that is so frightening to imagine.

I thought long and hard about how to end this story.  I don’t have a whimsical witty quip, or some corny punchline.  I want to show you a very short video of Tim Walz, and those who are relentlessly pushing the agendas he brings to the table.

Please watch this video a few times, so you understand the situation.  And notice two things.  First, this is Tim Walz… signing a Minnesota law to legalize killing a baby right up to the point of birth.

The second thing I want you to notice are the people around him.  Applauding.

The seriousness of this situation can not be overstated.  What do we do with this?  Talk to your friends.  Talk to those you work with.  Pray.  And when it comes time in November… let your vote count.

Here is Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signing the bill to legalize killing babies in abortions up to birth.

Democrats are literally applauding.

If you’re celebrating the dismemberment and destruction innocent little babies you’re evil. pic.twitter.com/KOgsxenYUe

— LifeNews.com (@LifeNewsHQ) August 6, 2024