On Monday evening, a conservative town hall was held in Baldwin County to discuss Title XI and immigration several weeks before the general election.

The event was held by the Baldwin County chapter of Moms for Liberty at Fairhope First Baptist Church. Panelists included Attorney General Steve Marshall, U.S. House Rep. Barry Moore, R-AL, State House Rep. Susan Dubose, R-Hoover.

Rebecca Watson, the Baldwin County chapter lead of Moms for Liberty, said that she invited all of the mayors in Baldwin County and several elected officials in Fairhope. Watson said only Orange Beach mayor Tony Kennon showed up.

Title XI Discussion

The town hall started with a discussion about Title XI which is a federal civil rights law initially enacted in 1972 to prevent sex-based discrimination. Under the Biden Administration, new amendments to the law provide protections for LGBTQ+ students which conservatives decry for numerous reasons.

The panel included Dubose, Marshall, Moore and Matt Sharp an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Much of the discussion revolved around utilizing the law or legal challenges to combat provisions that provide protections and safety for trans-people or a person’s chosen gender identity. Amendments to Title XI allow students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity and have to be referred to with appropriate pronouns.

There are also provisions to allow athletes to play sports that align with their gender identity, but they have been held up in court.

The reason for stopping this “agenda” is to protect girls and children and was repeated several times throughout the town hall.

Dubose stated that she has three bills she will be filing in the legislature related to questions of sex and gender identity. Dubose will be bringing back her “What is a Woman” bill which attempts to codify definitions of male and female into Alabama law.

“It states that sex is fixed, and there’s only two sexes, male and female,” Dubose said.

“Because we all know, sex is determined at birth and is determined by God. It’s actually determined at conception. So, you cannot change your sex. You can choose to identify however you want to but that does not change your sex, and that’s what we’re talking about in this legislation.”

The other two bills would protect “women’s spaces” and raise the age for minors to consent to medical decisions without a parent from 14 to 18.

Marshall mentioned ongoing efforts on his part in challenging the Biden administration’s Title XI reforms and the gender affirming care case sought against Alabama by families of trans-youth.

He also said that the reforms, which are intended to cease discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, are affecting the religious liberty of individuals or religion-based agencies.

“We saw the city of Philadelphia come after the Catholic adoption agency that said it’s against our fundamental beliefs to be able to adopt to a same sex couple,” Marshall said.

“And so again, it’s a little bit of the theme I told you earlier, while we get focused on the very specific issue, this is a broader attack on religious liberty issues by this administration.”

Moore was asked if he thinks there is momentum to work on protecting women‘s sports and defining sexes. Moore said he felt like the problem was the Biden administration and their policies.

The congressman added that he introduced a bill to abolish the Department of Education previously because they restrict federal funding from states that do not abide by their “ideologies.”

“I think it’s important that we just we have to hold the line,” Moore said. “And granted, I say often the fight is not in Washington D.C. it is with Washington D.C.”

Immigration

During the immigration portion, Dubose and Sharpe stepped down as Angelo Fermo became a panelist. Fermo is a retired Department of Homeland Security agent.

Fermo, Moore and Marshall all expressed that the current immigration situation in the country was abysmal and that it would get better under Trump.

Much of the conversation was about immigration in a national sense but one local example was raised concerning children in schools that do not speak English.

According to data from the Baldwin County Public School System, students that were English Language Learners made up 8.1 percent of the student population.

Immigrant population in the county accounted for 3.01 percent of the total population.

Recently, Fairhope city officials said that there was misinformation fueling a panic over an alleged influx of migrants into the area.

Marshall said that he blamed the current immigration policy for those children being placed in that position and further harming schools that do not have the necessary resources to properly accommodate the ELL students.

The Cuba, Haiti Nicaragua and Venezuela Parole program was also mentioned and Moore stated that the program was just a way for the Biden administration to appear like it is doing good on immigration when it is not.

Moore said that immigrants were being flown into the country for “political reasons” and that Biden’s policies were creating “slaves” because people become indentured servants of the cartel.

“So the Biden administration is doing two things with their policies,” Moore said. “They’re creating slaves and they’re creating drugs, and they’re killing American kids in the process. This fentanyl is killing over 100,000 a year, right? And so they don’t have the intention of fixing the border.”