'State-sanctioned kidnapping': Watchdog sues Washington state to block minor shelter law

America First Legal on Wednesday announced a lawsuit against Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee to block a state law on minors seeking "gender-affirming care" that it says infringes on parental constitutional rights.

"No state action more frighteningly illustrates the threat to our children than this law," America First Legal President Stephen Miller said in a press release. "This sick, authoritarian law essentially allows the state to kidnap children from their parents and hide their whereabouts to surgically and chemically mutilate them — and to formally deprive their parents of any legal ability to stop the medical disfigurement of their sons and daughters by gender extremists targeting their children." 

"In short, this statute allows shelters and homes to keep children at locations without their parents' knowledge and refer those children for health interventions without their parents' knowledge or approval," the group wrote in a filing to the Western Washington District Court. "It does not require children to be returned on any particular timetable or under any particular conditions."

The group argues that state legislation creates a "dangerous incentive for minors who disagree with their parents on 'gender-affirming care' to run away to a shelter or host home."

They specifically take exception to provisions that eliminate a requirement for shelters to notify parents and permit the state "to refer a minor for 'behavioral health services' without defining what that entails, potentially meaning that a minor could receive - at least - mental health services that the parents would not endorse, and arguably also medical treatment that the parents would not authorize."

America First Legal's suit further names state Attorney General Robert Ferguson and Department of Children, Youth, and Families Secretary Ross Hunter as defendants along Inslee.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.