Imagine life in Idaho just 10 years ago. Would you ever think to see a headline like this? “SJSU 'disappointed' in Boise State's decision to forfeit playoff game against trans player” (FoxSports). Would you ever expect to see a flyer at your Idaho public library advertising for a drag queen story hour with the kids? Would you even contemplate how a 20-year-old social media “influencer” could make over $43 million in a year by providing pornographic content of herself to men around the world? Would fentanyl proliferation and porn on cell phones be at the top of your ‘danger to kids’ list?
The world is Slouching Toward Gomorrah, as Robert H. Bork put it. What was unimaginable just a few years ago is now commonplace. Kids may not be at grade level on math or reading, but most of them know what “bottom surgery” is, what alternative pronouns are, and what a “furry” is and how some educators want to accommodate them in school.
The principles of freedom and free markets are time-tested and enduring. They don’t change with time and circumstances. However, when we consider protecting children and families, the times have definitely changed. The advancement of disturbing, harmful, and degrading debauchery directed toward children is obvious and blatant. Kids are in danger.
The Constitution guarantees and protects our freedoms from government encroachments. But let’s be clear on this: the constitutionally protected right to free speech does not include a right to harm or endanger children. Thus, the decline in current cultural conditions, which threatens our children and our future, means our laws must meet those challenges. The leftists’ plan of pushing moral degeneracy on us and our children is by design and is, in a worrying amount of cases, protected and enforced by bad legislation. It’s time to fight fire with fire.
So far, Idaho leaders and legislators have heeded parents’ calls to stand in the gap between the would-be predators and children. They have already passed a handful of laws to combat this, and even more laws are in the works. Some of these proposals have posed interesting questions for us at IFF regarding freedoms and protections in a changing world.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation has always held to its standards of promoting liberty, preserving and protecting rights, resisting government growth, fighting Marxism, and advancing free markets. In 2014, IFF developed the Idaho Freedom Index to hold legislators to those standards by measuring and publishing how their votes on rated bills meet those ideals. For a decade, the Index used the same 12 metrics of freedom to rate bills, and legislators earned grades based on their votes.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation stands with parents, leaders, and children. For the first time since its inception, the Idaho Freedom Foundation is amending the Index by adding a new criterion for such protections. The new measure reads,
Does [the bill] promote the breakdown of the traditional family or the deconstruction of societal norms? Examples include promoting or incentivizing degeneracy, violating parental rights, and compromising the innocence of children. Conversely, does it protect or uphold the structure, tenets, and traditional values of Western society?
On a side note, while we were at it, we decided to discontinue the Education Freedom Index due to the lack of a sufficient quantity of bills touching that topic. Instead, we added the education freedom metric to our Freedom Index to capture those bills. This new metric reads,
Does [the bill] expand the government's bureaucratic monopoly on education, reduce family and student choice, or finance education based on an institution or system? Conversely, does it reduce government coercion in education, expand education choice, or finance education based on the student rather than the institution?
These new metrics for the Freedom Index, combined with the existing ones, maintain our Freedom Index as the gold standard for assessing legislators’ votes and how they measure up to the principles of freedom, limited government, and protecting our children, traditional family values, and our very way of life. The index goes hand-in-hand with our plans to keep Idaho at the forefront of promoting both freedom and family values.
Earlier this year, the Idaho Freedom Foundation, in conjunction with its sister organization, Idaho Freedom Action, announced the 2025 Idaho Freedom and Family Agenda. The Agenda is the list of conservative objectives the IFF is working with lawmakers to accomplish in the 2025 legislative session.
The Idaho Freedom & Family Agenda includes the following policy priorities:
The Idaho Freedom Foundation continues its work with lawmakers to educate them on how each policy point aids families and small businesses here in the state. Idaho Freedom Action rallies the grassroots around the agenda and partners with tens of thousands of Idahoans to make their conservative demands clear to state lawmakers. Along with our new and improved Idaho Freedom Index, the Idaho Freedom and Family Agenda gives Idaho the greatest opportunity to thrive, prosper, serve, and enjoy the blessings of goodness and happiness.
Follow the Idaho Freedom Index here, and find the Idaho Freedom and Family Agenda here.
