This week, the Supreme Court rightly held that Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” violated the First Amendment by dictating what counselors can say in therapy sessions. However, the therapist who sued Colorado isn’t the only winner—gender-confused kids arguably came out ahead, too. Colorado’s law didn’t just aim to force therapists to endorse transgender orthodoxy—it also aimed to prevent kids from receiving the best kind of treatment for gender dysphoria (the painful and persistent identification with the gender opposite one’s sex). Transgender activists push an extremely cruel agenda, dressed up as “gender-affirming care.” When a boy claims he suffers from a persistent and painful sense that he is “really” a girl, they say society should “affirm” his identity as a girl and that he should take experimental interventions to make his male body appear female. Activists claim this is the only path, and that kids will commit suicide without “affirmation.” Some scientific studies, however, suggest that suicidal thoughts actually increase when minors take drugs to “block” puberty. Even hormones alter body chemistry and make patients dependent on doctors for constant injections, and surgeries often require gruesome forms of maintenance. If the patient later decides to detransition, care becomes even more complicated. By contrast, studies have found that if kids are allowed to develop on their own without social “affirmation” of a transgender identity, between 65% and 94% of them will resolve their gender dysphoria and end up at peace with their sexed bodies. Not only will these kids actually have their gender confusion resolved, but they won’t have undergone invasive sex-rejecting procedures that would have left them stunted, scarred, and often infertile. Rather than “gender-affirming care,” boys and girls need reassurance in their own sex. If a boy suffers from the sense that he is “really” a girl, he needs counseling to realize that he is still a boy, and there’s nothing wrong with that. With time and appropriate counseling, he can resolve the underlying psychological issues that make him suspect he may “really” be a girl. Colorado sought to outlaw this kind of counseling, and in doing so, it would have cut kids off from what they really needed. The Supreme Court’s ruling opens the door for what may be termed “sex-reaffirming therapy,” counseling to help gender-confused people find peace with their bodies. In doing so, it offers hope for true resolution of gender dysphoria, not the false resolution of “gender-affirming care.” So, how did transgender activists convince Colorado to ban it in the first place? Historically, some therapists used unethical methods to “cure” patients of same-sex attraction. Some engaged in electroshock therapy to train men not to feel sexual attraction to other men. Since many of these therapists aimed to help patients live by traditional Christian sexual morality, opponents of these therapists branded these efforts “conversion therapy.” Therapists today nearly universally condemn these methods, and mental health counselor Kaley Chiles, who challenged Colorado’s law, supported Colorado’s attempt to ban them. Yet Colorado also sought to ban “talk therapy”—the mainstream practice of asking questions and guiding a person to resolve psychological issues merely through speech. Perhaps ironically, some feminists have warned that “gender-affirming care” is itself a form of “conversion therapy,” because many of the gender-confused men and women would otherwise identify as gay or lesbian, if they did not identify as transgender. Yet transgender activists suggest that transgender identity is innate and unchangeable—such that therapies attempting to resolve it are unnatural and doomed to failure. For this reason, many activists lump in sex-reaffirming therapy alongside electroshock therapy as a form of “conversion therapy.” Colorado’s law would have allowed talk therapy if it affirmed same-sex attraction or a transgender identity, but not if it might lead a patient away from such identities. Of course, such a legal invasion of the therapy space is unwarranted because the best therapy aims to help patients resolve underlying trauma, not to shape patients into one kind of person or another. The data suggest the best solution for gender dysphoria isn’t experimental drugs and surgeries but talk therapy to address the root cause of gender confusion—whatever that may be. It is cruel, and arguably evil, to try to fix a psychological issue with invasive drugs and surgeries. But now, kids in Colorado have hope for a better path. I pray that therapists are brave enough to follow in Chiles’ footsteps and offer the sex reaffirmation these kids so desperately need. The post Gender-Confused Kids Are the Real Winners of the Supreme Court’s ‘Conversion Therapy’ Ruling appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Did “the Jews” kill Jesus? Are the Jewish people as a whole responsible for the death of Christ? I was horrified recently to see this claim—which I thought was a fringe position—on a prominent conservative website, and I feel compelled to respond. The claim traces back to Matthew 27, during the trial of Jesus, when the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate washed his hands, proclaiming, “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” before turning Jesus over to be crucified. The crowd replied, “His blood be on us and on our children!” Before I delve more deeply into the spiritual meaning of this passage, I feel compelled to note that—perhaps contrary to the suspicions of my fellow Protestants—the Catholic Church does not use this passage to blame the Jews for Jesus’ death. The declaration “Nostra Aetate,” promulgated by Pope Paul VI at the Second Vatican Council, states that Jesus’ death “cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.” That’s only logical. After all, the historical record only mentions a specific group of people at a specific point in time making this statement. To blame all Jews everywhere for the death of Jesus would be tantamount to blaming all British people everywhere for the execution of Joan of Arc or all Greek people everywhere for the death of Socrates. The notion of corporate guilt does play a role in the death of Jesus, but it has nothing to do with blaming the Jews, who remain God’s chosen people. The Passion Narrative If this verse does not implicate the Jewish people in Jesus’ death, whom does it implicate? This passage appears in the narrative of Jesus’ “passion” (from the Latin word for “suffering”). After Jesus eats the Last Supper with his disciples and prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas leads a group of guards to Jesus, handing him over to the Jewish religious leaders. The leaders hold an early-morning trial and use false testimony to find Jesus guilty, and they hand him over to Pilate because only the Romans can execute someone. Pilate wants to release Jesus, but the crowd won’t have it. The crowd demands the release of a murderer and rebel by the name of Barabbas instead, and Pilate fears a revolt, so he goes along with it. So, who is the guilty party? The clearest answer is Judas, who had Jesus arrested in the first place. Behind him come the Jewish leaders. Caiaphas, the high priest, prophesied that one man should die for the people (John 11:50), and the religious leaders repeatedly schemed to kill Jesus. The Bible presents the crowd as a catspaw for these leaders. Despite Pilate’s symbolism of washing his hands of the guilt for Jesus’ death, the Roman leader did order Jesus’ execution, and the Roman authorities carried it out. Yet Jesus didn’t blame Pilate. When Pilate asks Jesus, “Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answers, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.” (John 19:10-11). Jesus, who had been dodging previous attempts to execute him, ultimately made the key decision to sacrifice himself. “For this reason, the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again,” Jesus taught. “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:17-18). While Pilate, the crowd, the religious leaders, and Judas share some responsibility for Jesus’ death, the savior has the ultimate agency—he gave his life to redeem sinners. What of Corporate Guilt? This has led some Christians to place the ultimate blame not on a historical figure nor on an ethnic group but on all of us who accept Jesus’ gift of forgiveness. In a sense, all the sinners who are redeemed by Jesus’ sacrifice share some guilt in his death. It is for our sake he died. That is the real reason why, traditionally, when churches have a public reading of the Passion narratives, with separate speaking roles for Jesus, Pilate, a narrator, and others, the entire congregation reads the part of the crowd. When I have said, “His blood be on us and on our children” in that context, I have understood this to be an echo of what the crowd then said—not as an attempt to blame the Jewish people for the death of Christ, but as an invitation for me to reflect on my own sins and the unfathomable love of God. I believe the Passion narratives are faithful history, but they also bear the weight of heavy spiritual meaning. The theme of Jesus taking the place of another to save sinners runs through the entire narrative in subtle ways, from Caiaphas’ prophecy to Barabbas’ release at the crowd’s demand. Historically, the crowd said those wicked words. But when it comes to corporate worship and our commemoration of Jesus’ Passion, those words are an invitation for us to examine our hearts and to repent of sin—not an excuse to indulge in sin by hating other people. The post Are the Jews Responsible for Jesus’ Death? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Trump administration has a plan to block Planned Parenthood from receiving federal family planning funding, sources familiar with the matter tell The Daily Signal. The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it was extending Biden-era family planning grant awards to Planned Parenthood, sparking criticism from pro-lifers. However, the White House has another option to cut the abortion giant’s cash flow.  The Department of Health and Human Services is developing a restored “Protect Life Rule,” an HHS official confirmed to The Daily Signal. The rule prohibits Title X family planning funds from going to organizations that perform abortions. “The Title X Notice of Proposed Rulemaking has been noticed on the Unified Agenda and remains on it,” HHS spokeswoman Emily Hilliard told The Daily Signal. “HHS continues to develop a draft proposed rule.” Once in effect, the rule would likely cause Planned Parenthood to turn down the funds to continue performing abortions. In 2020, Planned Parenthood announced it would drop out of the Title X program and forgo nearly $60 million rather than comply with the rule. The Protect Life Rule, promulgated during the president’s first term and rescinded by the Biden administration, provides that a counselor in a Title X-funded project could “neither refer for, nor encourage, abortion.”  The “language is written, has been seen by relevant eyes, and should be a slam dunk considering they did it around this time in the first administration,” Tom McClusky, director of government affairs at CatholicVote, told The Daily Signal.  The rule would force Planned Parenthood to forgo Title X grants, according to Jamie Dangers, director of government affairs at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.  “The Protect Life Rule would basically give Planned Parenthood and other Title X grantees a choice to either separate from abortion and stay eligible for Title X grants or choose abortion and disqualify themselves from the grants—that happened in the first term,” Dangers told The Daily Signal. Planned Parenthood shouldn’t be allowed to use federal funds for abortion, said Jennie Bradley Lichter, March for Life president and former deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. “This is a ‘rule of law’ matter—holding your grantees accountable for complying with what should be clearly stated in their grant terms,” she told The Daily Signal.  Many pro-lifers have decried the White House’s decision to allow Title X funds to go to Planned Parenthood as a “betrayal.” However, the White House faced “significant legal challenges” in stopping funds from going to Planned parenthood, spokesman Kush Desai told media outlets. Desai said the administration issued its “fifth and final year of Title X grants that were locked in place during the Biden presidency.”  Other pro-lifers say the current administration seems to operate out of a similar playbook for defunding abortion as that of the first administration.  “They’re still on track to do a similar policy as they did the first time, a year and a half into their administration,” one pro-life operative said. The first Trump administration continued giving Obama-era grants to abortion clinics through 2017. In 2018, it issued a short bridge award until 2019, similar to the one-year funding extension awarded to Planned Parenthood on Tuesday. In May 2018, the administration issued the Protect Life Rule. To stay on the same timeline, the administration needs to take action on the rule by June, the operative said. Some pro-lifers told The Daily Signal they were frustrated that the rule and the grant extensions for Planned Parenthood were not announced on the same day. “We wish that the Trump administration had introduced the Protect Life Rule before extending the Title X grants, but they have the opportunity to introduce it now,” Americans United for Life’s Gavin Oxley told The Daily Signal.  “By introducing the Protect Life Rule, it will once again protect taxpayer dollars from funding elective abortion providers,” he said. The pro-life movement urges the Trump administration to reinstate the Protect Life Rule “as soon as possible” to ensure taxpayer dollars are not funding abortion, Oxley said. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., and nine colleagues recently penned a letter to President Donald Trump, asking him to reinstate the Protect Life Rule. After the administration proposes the rule, HHS would begin a public comment period of 30, 60, or 90 days. It would then have to respond to substantive comments and prepare to defend the rule in court.  Pro-life operatives hope the administration will select the shortest public comment period so the final rule can be published within a few months. Litigation will likely be brought forward the same day the rule is introduced, according to Valerie Huber, president of the Institute for Women’s Health and special representative for women’s health in Trump’s first term. Huber helped shape the Protect Life Rule under Trump 45. The state of California sued the first Trump administration over the Protect Life Rule, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it, declaring that plaintiffs “will not prevail on the merits of their legal claims.” “I hope they [the administration] are expecting that there is going to be litigation on the day that it is finalized,” Huber told The Daily Signal. “Be prepared for that, and be aggressive in the timing for release, putting that in the timetable.” The post SCOOP: Inside the Trump Admin’s Strategy to Defund Planned Parenthood After Pro-Life Setback appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’ve talked about the opposition to the Iran War that we are witnessing, but it’s a little bit more than opposition. I would call it the “hysterics.” What do I mean by that? I haven’t seen a—since I was a student—protests, as we saw in New York, where people are proudly waving communist flags with, you know, anti-war sentiment.  That used to be kind of a taboo. You were a communist or a socialist, but you didn’t wave the hammer and sickle, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union and, kind of, the articulation of the Communist Party in China to market capitalism. But here we have a stronghold of communism who are proudly in New York and said, are they in enthused by the opposition to the war. Is it Mayor [Zohran] Mamdani? I don’t know, but it’s unusual. I’ve never seen an anti-war protest like we just witnessed in Philadelphia, where most of the people seem to be either from the Middle East or hardcore socialist, communist, and the speaker, many of them had their identities masked, which is, kind of, ironic because the Left has told us that ICE, which has a real fear of being doxed as federal employees, were Gestapo-like for being masked. The speaker was masked. He called for the defeat of America and Iran, but even more chilling, he cheered on coffins that came home with American dead.  This was right in Philadelphia. We had them in LA with the “No Kings” violence and what’s going on? Well, part of it is the media-generated war. Remember, we’ve mentioned it before, and we all know that if this bombing of Iran had been conducted by [Barack] Obama or [Joe] Biden, it would’ve been cheered on by the mainstream media, the network news, NPR-PBS, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA [Times], etc.  We know that because Obama conducted 500 drone assassinations over the Pakistani and Afghan border. No one objected. They thought that was fine. Killed an American citizen or two, you know, collateral damage. He bombed Libya for seven months without congressional authority for no given reason, and the result was chaos and American dead at the consulate in the annex of the CIA.  So the media is reporting as negatively as it can. CNN, with the permission of the theocratic government of Iran, is inside Iran. That would be almost like somebody going into Nazi Germany during World War II with the permission of Hitler. So all of that information is questionable. So the media is contributing to this hysteria.  Then there’s the Trump derangement syndrome. People call George W. Bush a Nazi, a brown shirt, people as diverse as John Glenn and Al Gore. But I don’t think anybody’s ever called for the president to be killed.  We’ve had major news people joke about killing Donald Trump. You look at the placards at these anti-war protests. They’re asking, they’re literally and openly and unambiguously calling for Trump to die.  James Carville said he’ll die in office. I’ve never quite seen that from the opposition, both the street opposition and the formal Democrat Party. Again, this is a continuation of firebombing Tesla dealerships over the DOGE cuts, the “No Kings” mass protests. Nobody ever quite figured that out because Donald Trump was not only elected twice, but he was constitutionally impeached twice, and he’s had more audits, lawfare conducted against him than any president in modern memory.  So he’s hardly an autocrat or a monarch. And this is also an extension of the ICE hysteria, where ICE agents were doxed, were attacked for enforcing federal law.  It’s a continuation of the shutdowns. We’re into the third shutdown now and it’s coinciding with the bombing of Iran. And it’s kind of ironic because we have had four naturalized citizens from the Middle East who have conducted terrorist operations in the United States. We’ve had mysterious drones go in the air.  Nobody knew where they were from, they couldn’t be jammed. They were military-grade drones above the B-52 base in Louisiana. And at the very time that we’re facing these suspect challenges, what has happened? The Democrats have denied funding for the Department of Homeland Security. It doesn’t make sense unless you are hysterical, you want us to lose, and you want to destroy Donald Trump. The shutdown, we know—the second shutdown—stalled the economy and made a readjustment in fourth-quarter 2025 GDP. I think they think the same thing is going to happen if they can create the hysteria with the war. They feel very confident that the midterms are theirs. So there’s only a four- or five-seat margin in the House and they feel that if they can gin up opposition to the Iranian 30-day bombing campaign, it can do for them what their agenda cannot do because they don’t have an alternate agenda.  What the ICE raids did not do, what the “No Kings” protest did not do, what the Tesla protest did not do, this will be the final magic bullet that will take down Donald Trump.  And so is that true? Well, most presidents do in fact lose their first midterms in their first administration. This is a continuation of that. Donald Trump historically should lose the House and maybe the Senate. But when you actually look at the seats involved and you look at the gerrymandering on Left and Right, out of those 435 House races, there’s only about 17 that are actually up for a reasonable contest.  The rest are more either leaning, the Republican seats that they have in the House are either solidly Republican in November or they’re leaning Republican. So it’s a matter, can the Democrats win 15 of 17 or 18 seats that are open that will have legitimate contested elections? And I’m not sure that’s true, but more importantly, I don’t think they think it’s true.  So a lot of this opposition is paranoia that they’re expected to win the House as everybody would expect of the opposition party in a midterm, but they’re not confident they can do that.  They’re not confident bcause they don’t have the agenda. They’re not confident about the effects of the Iranian war. They’re not confident that the economy won’t boom. It may well boom even after the war.  So this shows a lot of suspicion, hysteria, anger, but mostly uncertainty that they’re not convinced they can win the midterms when they should.  And finally, there’s one other element that contributes to this hysteria. It’s more at the elite level. I don’t know how to call it, maybe envy or jealousy. What I mean by that is Donald Trump removed this communist narco dictator [Nicolas] Maduro in Venezuela at no U.S. fatalities. We had some wounded but no fatalities, and at almost no extended war.  And the government that’s in there is nothing to be proud of, but at least it’s maintaining order and it’s not shipping drugs and illegal aliens to the United States. And it’s under notice that it will not be exporting as it has been through Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia its communist message. Donald Trump did that. He flipped that and he took away a Chinese oil supplier.  And now that oil will be back on a free-market architecture in the world global trade. Second, it looks like Cuba. It has been so isolated by Trump, and it’s been embargoed and sanctioned that the people are restive and the government has lost control of its own narrative that communism works and there’s nobody to bail it out.  There’s not China, there’s not Russia. Now, there’s not Venezuela. Nobody in Latin America wants to bail them out. In fact, privately they despise that government as much as the people of Cuba despise that government. Does Donald Trump want to invade and have regime change? No. All he’s doing is pressuring it and pressuring it until this nut cracks.  And then what would happen? They would agree to let Cuban exiles, Americans in general, come back and invest in that island, and maybe under an autocratic government, who knows? But there would be a transition away from communism and Cuba would be open and transparent and rich again.  And then finally, there’s Iran. Every one of the last seven presidents promised to deal with Iran. None of them did. None of them, not Jimmy Carter. Even Ronald Reagan did not deal with Iran. George H.W. Bush did not. Bill Clinton did not. George W. Bush did not. Barack Obama did not. Joe Biden did not. Donald Trump did, and he may, we don’t know the complete number yet, but he may ensure that Iran is no longer on the edge or virtually a nuclear power, that it doesn’t have ballistic missile capability to hit Europe or the United States, that it is neutered, that he’s done a trillion dollars in damage to its military, and he’s going to let them stew in their own juice.  And they’re going to have a restive population who’s going to say, “You gave money to terrorists. You spent a trillion dollars on all of these weapons that are now up in smoke at our expense, and we’ve had it with you.”  If that should happen, Donald Trump would have created the greatest geo-strategic change in our lifetime. He would’ve weakened China. He would’ve weakened Russia. He would’ve weakened radical Islam. He would’ve had a convergence of moderate Arabs and Israel in the Middle East. He would punish the country that’s killed more Americans than any other terrorist entity.  He would’ve solved the problem of Cuba since 1959 that no president has, and he’d all done it in about a year. And that creates a lot of jealousy and a lot of anger, and a lot of effort to make sure it doesn’t happen. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post If Donald Trump Did What Obama Did, Media Would Cheer—So Why the Outrage Now? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Texas Senate primary bid just received a big endorsement from one of the Republican Party’s rising stars. On Thursday, Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, officially endorsed Paxton’s effort to primary Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “I am officially endorsing [Ken Paxton] to be our next senator from Texas,” Gill wrote on X. “The Senate needs serious change—people who understand what time it is and what is at stake for our country.” I am officially endorsing @KenPaxtonTX to be our next Senator from Texas.The Senate needs serious change— people who understand what time it is and what is at stake for our country.And that starts by electing conservative warriors like Ken.https://t.co/aTWmA7pm9G— Brandon Gill (@realBrandonGill) April 2, 2026 In a reply to Gill’s X post, Paxton celebrated Gill’s endorsement. The Texas attorney general said he is “honored to be endorsed by one of the most fearless and effective fighters in all of Congress.” “Brandon Gill is an absolute champion for the conservative movement and the American people. I’m proud to have his support,” Paxton continued. I'm honored to be endorsed by one of the most fearless and effective fighters in all of Congress. Brandon Gill is an absolute champion for the conservative movement and the American people.I'm proud to have his support. https://t.co/HijOE1y9eg— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) April 2, 2026 Paxton and Cornyn are heading to a runoff election for the GOP nomination on May 26 after both fell short of the 50% threshold in March. The third major candidate, Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, was eliminated from the running. Cornyn, who was first elected to the Senate in 2002, is facing a primary challenge from his right flank in Paxton because critics claim the Texas incumbent has previously pushed for firearm regulations and increases to the debt ceiling. Heritage Action, a conservative grassroots 501(c)(4) organization, has awarded Cornyn a 64% lifetime score. Paxton appears to have a slight edge in the polls. A recent 270 to Win examination of five trusted polls shows Paxton leading Cornyn by more than 5%. Most polls, however, have the two candidates locked in a tight race and within the margin of error. President Donald Trump has yet to endorse in the race. However, in March, he hinted on Truth Social that he would soon weigh in. “I cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer,” the president wrote. He later added that he “will be making [his] Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that [he doesn’t] Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!” Recent reports suggest, however, that Trump ultimately may not endorse in the Texas runoff. Cornyn was not immediately available for comment. The post Paxton Scores Major Endorsement From GOP Rising Star appeared first on The Daily Signal.