There is still time to stop these bad bills - but we can't do it alone.
We need you to contact your State Senators to object to HB 5468 and come to the Capitol next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday when the Senate is in session. See bottom for more.
https://www.votervoice.net/FICT/campaigns/136837/respond
The beginning of the end for RFRA protections?
The Connecticut House and Senate have passed a bill to “tip the scales” of a lawsuit to favor Attorney General Tong. The cost was ending religious liberty protection for a politically disfavored group: people who resist mandated vaccines.
Passed on June 29, 1993, Connecticut’s An Act Concerning Religious Freedom (PA 93-252) (RFRA) was the nation’s first state-level response to the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Employment Division v. Smith, which weakened protections for religious practices. The law prohibits state and local governments from restricting religious exercise without a compelling interest, applying a stricter legal standard than federal courts. You can read the important and interesting history of our RFRA here.
Now that law is set to be weakened for the first time. It may also be weakened in the future to disfavor other religious groups that rely on RFRA’s protection of religious liberty to resist government overreach in areas like gender, abortion, assisted suicide and more. FIC testified against this bill, asked our members to contact their legislators and now call on Governor Lamont to veto HB 5044.
You can watch Peter Wolfgang’s testimony at the 7:14 mark here. https://www.youtube.com/live/C9itLAy9If4?si=3whvu-YQQEip0j8A&t=26024
See how your Representatives and Senators voted below. To know who your legislators are, visit here. To learn more about the public service of running for office, contact Leslie Wolfgang at ppdirector@ctfamily.org and join our regular meetings on what it is like to run for office and serve in Connecticut. Bad laws like this are why we need Christians and people of good will to run for office.
HB 5374 to force families to subsidize BUYING BABIES for Self-Made Eunuchs and other Fertile Single Males.
The legislative session is coming to a close. Contact your State Senator ASAP here.
The House of Representatives also voted April 23, 2026 to change the definition of infertility in private insurance contracts to include single men who are medically healthy but choose **not** to engage in procreative sex. You can read FIC’s testimony against HB 5374 here.
By definition, this includes self-described eunuchs (an organized and growing movement of men who voluntarily have their genitalia removed to achieve a gender identity) and incels (men whose retrograde vision of male/female relationships leave them with few mating opportunities). Up to this point in history, we’ve been able to rely on the high cost of surrogacy, bans on human trafficking, and mothers to weed out men who seek newborns for their own erotic lactation or lactophilia (sexual arousal connected to breastfeeding or milk production). There has even sadly been a movement to normalize “chest-feeding/body-feeding” infants with their “man-boobs” generated by artificial female hormones in men.
While practicing lactophilia on babies is illegal and considered abuse of a minor, it does exist and buying babies for single men significantly reduces traditional barriers for protecting infants from sexual exploitation.
And, even if one stipulates that not every “trans-woman” who takes artificial hormones to nurse a baby is a lactophile (paraphilias are considered rare), the stakes for a vulnerable, bought-and-paid-for newborn, are VERY HIGH.
Connecticut is already a hot spot for surrogacy and it is 100% legal for single, moob-feeding men to hire surrogates and procure newborns here. They can and likely already do. What our members object with this bill, is forcing individual insurance premiums to rise to subsidize the cost.
Contact your State Senator ASAP here. Disappointingly, despite FIC’s testimony, many State Representatives voted in favor of the bill, see how they voted below:
Finally this week, significant victories to protect homeschooling in Connecticut, but HB 5468 still advances to the Senate.
You can read Leslie Wolfgang, Director of Public Policy’s quotes in the CT Mirror article covering the House vote on HB 5468 here.
Thanks to the work of many individuals including FIC members, grassroots and legislative allies (from both parties), some of the worst provisions of HB5468 were removed by amendment!
In particular, statements on the floor by Representatives Zupkus and Leeper should be able to secure a “grandfathering” of current homeschoolers over age 5 if they don’t move to another district or enroll/dis-enroll from school. Nefarious provisions requiring “portfolio review” cautioned by FIC Action and mastery testing were also removed along with certain in-person mandated registration.
But the fight to protect against FERPA violations, universal registration, targeting of homeschoolers, and Fourth Amendment violations remains. We need you to contact your State Senators to object to HB 5468 and come to the Capitol next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday when the Senate is in session. FIC Action cannot do this alone.
CONTINUED FERPA VIOLATIONS: a deep dive on why FERPA violations are anticipated.
With regard to amended HB 5468 and FERPA. During debate in House chambers on April 23, it was alleged by the co-chair of the Education Committee that no personally-identifiable data will be shared with DCF by Connecticut schools (a good thing) but that information will also be shared through the “directory” exception of FERPA. And the bill now artificially designates DCF as an “educational authority” under FERPA in an attempt to disclose personally identifiable information in education records without parental consent. You can’t tell parents ‘we’re not sharing your child’s personal data’—and in the next breath say ‘we’re sharing it under FERPA exceptions.’ Those exceptions only exist because the data is personally identifiable. So which is it?”
FERPA does not permit states to redefine child welfare surveillance as an ‘education program,’ nor to rebrand personally identifiable information as harmless ‘directory data’ simply to avoid consent.
The amended version of HB 5468 raises a basic but serious legal problem under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act: the state cannot say it is not sharing personally identifiable information (PII) while also relying on FERPA exceptions that only exist to allow the sharing of PII. During House debate on April 23, it was claimed that “no data will be shared,” but in the same breath, lawmakers pointed to the “directory information” exception and a new designation of DCF as an “educational authority.” Those positions cannot all be true at the same time.
FERPA starts with a simple rule: schools cannot share a student’s personal information without parent consent unless a narrow exception applies. The law states that no federal funds go to schools that have a “policy or practice” of releasing education records without consent. 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(1). The regulations define PII broadly. It includes a student’s name, address, date of birth, and other identifying details. 34 C.F.R. § 99.3. So let’s be clear: if a child’s name or date of birth is sent to DCF, that is PII. There is no way around that.
Now consider the “directory information” claim. FERPA **does** allow schools to share certain basic information without consent—but only under strict rules. Directory information is defined as data that is “not generally considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed.” 34 C.F.R. § 99.3. But here is the key point: directory information is still PII. It is not anonymous. It is not de-identified. It is simply a limited category of PII that can sometimes be shared.
And even then, schools must first give parents notice and a real chance to opt out.
The law requires a “reasonable period of time” for parents to say no. 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(a)(5)(B); 34 C.F.R. § 99.37. Schools can also limit who gets this information and why. 34 C.F.R. § 99.37(d). So here’s the problem: sending directory information to DCF for screening or review is not a typical, harmless use. It turns a narrow exception into a surveillance tool.
Put simply: you cannot say “we are not sharing PII” and then say “we are sharing directory information.” That’s like saying, “we’re not sharing personal data—we’re just sharing names and birth dates.” Those are personal data.
Next is the claim that DCF can be treated as an “educational authority.” This is a different FERPA exception, and it has strict limits. FERPA allows PII to be shared with an authorized representative of an educational authority, but only to audit or evaluate education programs. 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(1)(C); 34 C.F.R. § 99.31(a)(3). It also requires written agreements, limits on use, and rules for destroying the data. 34 C.F.R. § 99.35(a)(3).
Here’s the problem: DCF is not an education agency. It is a child welfare agency. Its job is not to evaluate education programs. Its job is to investigate abuse and neglect. That matters. FERPA allows data sharing for education oversight—not general government screening. 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(1)(C); 34 C.F.R. §§ 99.31(a)(3), 99.3, 99.35.
Calling DCF an “educational authority” does not make it one. The law looks at function, not labels. You cannot turn a child welfare investigation into an “education audit” just by renaming it.
So now we have three claims: no PII is shared, PII is shared as directory information, and PII is shared through an educational authority. These cannot all be true. Each one requires a different legal path, and each path has its own rules. You cannot mix and match them to avoid consent.
This leads to the core legal concern: HB 5468 appears to create an end-run around FERPA. Instead of getting parental consent, it tries to fit the same disclosure into different exceptions, depending on what is most convenient at the moment.
That is not how FERPA works.
As the Supreme Court explained in Gonzaga University v. Doe, FERPA is meant to protect the privacy of student records by placing clear limits on disclosure. States cannot rewrite those limits by redefining terms or stretching exceptions beyond their purpose.
Here is the bottom line: if Connecticut schools are sending names, dates of birth, sex or other identifying information to DCF, they are sharing PII. If they are sharing PII, they must follow one valid FERPA exception. And if they cannot clearly explain which exception applies—and meet all its requirements—then the disclosure is likely unlawful.
You cannot have it both ways.
You cannot say “no data is shared” while building a system that depends on sharing it.
And you cannot turn a privacy law into a loophole by simply changing the labels.
