The Times Picayune: Melissa Flournoy: Backward-looking leadership drives our children from Louisiana

BY MELISSA S. FLOURNOY | Jun 18, 2023

Do you want to know why young people are leaving Louisiana and moving to more progressive cities? They want to plan for the future, not cling to the past; they want rights to health care, education and respect for all people and races.

They want good paying jobs and a high quality of life. They want to embrace the future.

Louisiana needs a vision for 2050, and not the Legislature’s focus on a culture war to take Louisiana back to 1950 — to keep women barefoot and pregnant and African Americans in poverty and to force the LGBTQ community back into the closet. Louisiana is in trouble when “Christian values” are used as a stick to hurt women, poor people, LGBTQ people and children.

Louisiana wants to drag women to the days of back-alley abortions. Criminalizing doctors and denying health care to women will not help Louisiana families have healthy babies. If we value families and are the most pro-life state, then respect women and doctors, support efforts to improve quality birth outcomes for all women, expand access to health care and support new mothers.

People are so desperate that stores have to lock up baby formula and diapers, because people are so poor that they can’t afford necessities. Our poorest mothers are forced to go back to work immediately, because we do not have a safety net to support new parents with paid family medical leave.

Business groups are determined to keep people poor and depress wages by refusing to raise the minimum wage. Louisiana businesses continue to profit off poverty, to disinvest in neighborhoods and to treat people as expendable.

The Legislature has failed to fully fund early childhood education and provide quality childcare for working families. We need to invest in health care and education to help our children and families succeed. Don’t just mandate more testing; pay teachers and invest in educational innovation and programs.

Legislators obsessed with parental rights to protect children from vaccine mandates see no hypocrisy in denying parents of transgender youth any access to health care.

The “Don’ t Say Gay Bill” by Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton, frightens teachers and school staff from being kind, empathetic and engaged in supporting all students.

Too many elected officials act as if there is a conspiracy to make everyone gay — objecting to teaching social emotional expectations, kindness and empathy to children to encourage collaboration, sharing and skills needed for success. Teachers are not making kids gay by being kind, thoughtful and concerned about students.

In order for Louisiana to move forward, we need to open our hearts and minds and understand a rapidly changing world.

When some elected officials push an agenda based on fear and their faith, we are missing out on building a better future for all Louisiana citizens.

And those are some of the reasons why our young people are moving away: because we won’t embrace the future.

Melissa S. Flournoy is board chairman of 10,000 Women Louisiana.