"If you love your children, you need to flee California. You need to flee."

"If you love your children, you need to flee California. You need to flee."

This is the response from CA state senator Scott Wilk (R-Antelope Valley) after Assembly Bill 957, passed 8-1 from committee. It will rewrite much of the state’s family law and classify “a parent’s affirmation of the child’s gender identity as part of the health, safety, and welfare of the child.” Meaning failure to affirm a child's gender identity will be grounds for removing the child from parental custody.

Wilk is a member of the legislature who has been known for encouraging the dwindling number of Republicans to fight as parental rights are stripped. With his warning, he also announced that he will be leaving CA at the end of his term to enjoy the freedom the rest of America offers. CA has been a one-party state for more than a decade, so liberty-lovers have been packing up little by little, so much that the state is hemorrhaging legal tax-paying residents -- more than one million last year.

For many who stay, their reasons are most often "the weather," or "the opportunities" or "family" which are understandable. CA has it all -- the ocean, amusement parks, every variety of food imaginable, mountains, rivers, and deserts all within a day's drive. And being close to your family and a support network is critical. And yet...

Imagine being the parent who loses custody of a child who is "transitioned" by the state and later regrets the permanency of their decision, or who learns that the evidence of "affirmation" on the child's well-being were grossly exaggerated (or worse turn out to be a financial decision benefiting the healthcare provider alone), or whose resources, job prospects and reputation are decimated by those whose ideology you oppose... will those reasons seem sufficient?

The hard work of raising a child to honor God and love others over oneself is difficult. To succeed against a bureaucratic behemoth with unlimited resources in an environment which actively and aggressive intends to produce the exact opposite result seems impossible.

The art of sexual self-control requires a chorus. It has to be encouraged not just once by a single source, but repeatedly, from many role models in a positive way over time, if it's going to become a character habit. A few years ago, the worst case scenario was having only one parent that bought in to it as an achievable goal. Now teens and preteens must overcome unrelentingly indoctrinated by teachers, librarians, coaches, administrators and all their entertainment options. In their culture, sexual licentiousness as the norm. A teen doesn't use other people for sexual gratification is a unicorn.

Sadly, Scott Wilk's warning is not just political grandstanding, it has to be taken seriously.