If you don’t think America is rapidly becoming a bizarre, groupthink police state, well, you’re just not paying attention.

As reported by a variety of outlets, including CBN News, there’s a bill actually under consideration by the California State Senate that would make it a crime for those who work in long-term care facilities to “willfully and repeatedly fail to use a resident’s preferred name or pronouns after being clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns.” The legislation is known officially as SB 219, or the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Long-Term Care Facility Resident’s Bill of Rights.”

The upshot of the bill is that those employees of long-term care facilities who don’t play ball on the matter of using transgender pronouns could face fines of up to $1,000, and jail time for as long as a year.

While the bill was being vetted by the California Assembly Judiciary Committee, Greg Burt of the California Family Council passionately spoke against it.

“How can you believe in free speech, but think the government can compel people to use certain pronouns when talking to others?" he asked.

“Compelled speech is not free speech,” Burt went on to say. “Can the government compel a newspaper to use certain pronouns that aren’t even in the dictionary? Of course not, or is that coming next?”

Probably.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large