A New Low in the Radical Left’s Culture War: The Weaponization of Food

I t’s hard to learn on an empty stomach, but that is exactly what the Biden administration is demanding of the nation’s most vulnerable children. In an unfathomable display of misplaced priorities, not to mention a gross misinterpretation of federal law, President Biden’s Food and Drug Administration is choosing indoctrination in its view of sexual orientation and gender identity over feeding hungry children. It is a painful lesson, one that, without judicial remedy, children across the country will not soon forget.

Grant Park Christian Academy serves children from a low-income, historically underprivileged community in Tampa. Under Florida’s school-choice program, most of the families at the school attend cost-free. All of them are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. Grant Park Christian receives funding to pay for school lunches from the U.S. Department of Agriculture through the National School Lunch Program administered by Florida agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried.

Under Title IX, participating schools, including Grant Park Christian Academy, agree not to discriminate based on sex. Grant Park Christian welcomes everyone. That’s not what this case is about. However, in an audacious usurpation of the legislative branch’s authority, the Biden administration recently redefined the word “sex” in Title IX to include sexual orientation and gender identity. This new mandate would apply to all school activities, including restrooms, dress codes, hiring, and pronoun usage.

Commissioner Fried is poised to block Grant Park Christian Academy’s funding for school lunches this year, even though Title IX provides a religious exemption. When asked by school officials to confirm its exemption and that Title IX would not require it to violate its religious beliefs, Commissioner Fried’s office told Grant Park Christian that the school is “not required to participate in the National School Lunch Program.”

Alliance Defending Freedom represents Grant Park Christian Academy in a lawsuit filed against Commissioner Fried and the Biden administration to ensure that students can continue receiving lunch.

Grant Park Christian Academy exists to uplift its community by providing a quality education fueled by nutritious meals. Families that choose the school do so because it suits their needs and reflects their religious views. In a nation founded on the bedrock principle of religious liberty, no citizen, family, or religious institution should be forced by the government to choose between adherence to the laws of man and those of God.

Grant Park Christian Academy treats every student with dignity and respect, no matter what.

But the school cannot compromise its religious beliefs, and it will not provide male students with access to female restrooms, nor will it fill the impressionable minds of its students with the lies of modern gender theory.

C. S. Lewis once noted: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

There can be no better explanation of why our government’s rejection of reality, decency, and common sense rages on at a frightening pace. From forcing female athletes to compete with men, to threatening to deprive hungry children of food in your neighborhood school, and all points in between, no stone will be left unturned. The message is clear: Speak the government’s preferred message; teach your children the government’s preferred ideology; violate the deepest held convictions of your own conscience; or suffer the consequences — including the deprivation of lunches for underprivileged children.

For people of faith, the response must be equally clear: No. We will not let our children be starved into submission. With reliance on our constitutionally protected rights and faith in the Author of life, truth, and liberty, we will — and must — prevail.