A proposed bill recently picked up again in California could end up fining retailers $1,000 for having separate girls and boys toy and apparel sections.

If passed into law, larger brick-and-mortar stores would be required to have unisex sections for toys like these wood story blocks and clothes for youth – legislation that was introduced last year by Democratic California Assembly Members Evan Low and Cristina Garcia.

“Stores would be able to sell the same products they do now as long as they maintain some areas where shoppers can find all toys or clothes, regardless of gender-based marketing, under CA AB2826 (19R) from Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell),” Politico reported last February. “It would apply to department stores with 500 or more employees beginning in 2023.”

‘Inclusion’ singling out businesses

Making toy shopping more “inclusive” was the motivation behind the bill, as expressed by homosexual activist Low, who serves as the chair of the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus in the California State Legislature. He told Politico that “This is an issue of children being able to express themselves without bias.”

It was recently divulged that the COVID-19 pandemic was the reasoning behind the year-long delay to review the proposed transformation of toy aisles, but Low attempted to make the bill look like an urgent civil rights issue.

“[T]he policy behind this bill is not only important in regards to addressing perceived societal norms but also ensuring that prejudice and judgment does not play a prominent role in our children’s lives,” Low said last May, according to Reason. “I look forward to working on this issue in the future.”

In the wake of the pandemic – with aggressive lockdowns and restrictions enforced by far-left Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) still in effect – businesses are striving to stay afloat to compete with Amazon and other online retailers, and Low’s proposed law would make climbing back even more difficult if stores are forced to reconfigure their sales floors or face $1,000 fines for not eliminating gender norms for customers.

It was pointed out by Reason that stores in California are only permitted to operate at 25% capacity one year into the pandemic. However, it appears that reviving the deep-blue state’s economy is on the backburner as legislators seek to tout a radical left agenda that ignores many pressing issues.

“There are, of course, numerous issues more pressing than where Barbie dolls and Nerf guns are placed in businesses that are already being frequented by shoppers less and less,” The Western Journal pointed out. “Homelessness in major cities, budget deficits, illegal immigrant crime and a rise in overall violent crimes in some areas come to mind.”

The left’s “attack on business, biology and families” through the proposed gender identity fines were argued to go hand-in-hand with the science-defying COVID lockdowns that have tragically put a large proportion of retailers out of business.

“Given the abundance of high-tech toys aimed at children, we should consider ourselves lucky, as a society, that some children even seek out playing with tangible toys,” the Journal added. “Tablets, game consoles and other electronics too often replace traditional toys, but in California – where public policy defies logic in preference of virtue signaling – the toy sections must be reined in and many rather choosing classic 2yr old musical toys.”

Genderless society in the making …

Retailers are not the only ones that are called to bow down to gender politics, with Mr. Potato Head being just one of the casualties witnessed in the left’s cancel culture onslaught on America.

“The news that California’s lawmakers intend to police toys but not criminals, of course, comes as toymaker Hasbro has announced the iconic Mr. Potato Head will no longer be a mister,” the Journal noted. “The potato will now simply be known as Potato Head after spending nearly seven decades as a mustached spud. The company confirmed Thursday that the beloved toy will be rebranded completely this year …”

And much more is expected to come as the Biden administration’s far-left agenda sets in.

“The country’s southern border is now a national security threat under the leadership of President Joe Biden, the country’s capital is still occupied by armed soldiers and a 63-year-old man who is now known as Rachel Levine could soon be confirmed as the assistant health secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,” the conservative daily added.

In fact, recent headlines revealed that Lavine was recently blasted by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for believing there is nothing wrong in encouraging children to have sex changes at the age of 14 – a view that is considered by many to be equivalent to child abuse – and the left is even pressing for such procedures to be administered without parental consent or knowledge.

It is argued that the cancel culture movement to ban anything resembling traditional Judeo-Christian values is in full effect in California – and will only get worse with a president who caters to the far-left and its destructive ideologies.

“In Sacramento, it’s business as usual as woke lawmakers seek to take down gender norms and punish those who don’t get on board with the insanity,” the Journal concluded. “The endgame seems to be pushing the country toward a financially destitute, morally bankrupt and gender-neutral future where everything is purchased on Amazon – which bans books that are critical of junk gender science.”

A laughing matter?

California Family Council’s Greg Bert says the California Assembly’s bill is giving federal judges something to laugh about.

“The stores should be able to display their products the way they think their customers like and if that’s by gender that should be up to them,” Bert expressed in an interview with One News Now. “It’s quite hubris for legislators to think that they should be able to dictate how products are displayed on the shelves simply based on their own preferences.”

He mused that he can envision the U.S. Supreme Court laughing at the bill and its author in the Assembly.

“He’s introducing it as if the First Amendment doesn’t even exist,” Bert added. “If the government allows this, there is no limit to what legislators would dictate to stores. We’ve got to be able to discuss these things without banning the speech we disagree with. How did that become something we’re teaching our kids?”

Bert pondered that if the government has the right to ban speech that offends someone, “what country is that?”

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Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.

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