Mason Beasler of the right-wing American Family Association spent a March 11 CNSNews.com column ranting about parental rights, citing this case:
Take, for example, the story of Anmarie Calgaro and her teenage son, who was referred to by the media as E.J.K.
Although no legal emancipation had taken place, E.J.K. was not living with his parents. In 2015, he acquired a letter from the Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid Clinic, not the court system, that said he was an emancipated minor. The clinic never spoke to E.J.K.’s mother before taking this action.
However, E.J.K. was not legally emancipated, and his mother had not lost her parental rights.
Regardless, E.J.K. showed that “letter of emancipation” to his school principal, which led to the high school cutting Calgaro off from any participation in her son’s education, without so much as notifying her of her removal.
The 16-year-old was also able to obtain a sex-change procedure, irreversible surgeries and services provided without any parental consent whatsoever.
“This is an unacceptable situation for any parent,” said Erick Kaardal, Special Counsel for the Thomas More Society, “and a serious violation of parental and due process rights. It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. Anmarie Calgaro’s child, while a minor, was steered through a life-changing, permanent body-altering process, becoming a pawn in someone else’s sociopolitical agenda and being influenced by those who have no legal or moral right to usurp the role of a parent.”
Keep that last part in mind – “those who have no legal or moral right to usurp the role of a parent.”
Shockingly, E.J.K. wanted to change his name to J.D.K., but the court disallowed this name change on the grounds of E.J.K. not being legally emancipated.
Regardless, E.J.K. was still able to receive sex-change services from Park Nicollet Health Services and Fairview Range Hospital in Minneapolis, without his mother’s consent, whose parental rights were still completely intact.
Beasler is rather deliberately hiding the full truth. As we documented when WorldNetDaily pushed this case, the teen faced abuse from the mother after coming out as gay at age 13, moved out of her house at 15 and had been living apart from the mother for several months, was earning her own money, while Calgaro made no apparent attempt to bring her home or contact her. Those who promote this case never seem to explain why such a neglectful mother was suddenly demanding that her alleged rights be respected — or why the child was listed as a defendant in the case, meaning that the mother is suing her own child for acting on her own, which doesn’t seem to be a very loving act.
Beasler is outright lying in claiming that Calgaro’s “parental rights were still completely intact”; the teen turned 18 in 2017, meaning the mother no longer has parental rights to exercise, though that didn’t stop her and her legal team from the right-wing Thomas More Society from trying to take the case to the Supreme Court in 2019.
This is just part of CNS’ anti-transgender bent in the past few months.