Election Day is less than a week away. Around a couple hundred thousand voters will have already engaged in early voting, which began on October 5.
If you haven’t already been thinking about voting and how you will vote, there’s no time like the present. Archbishop Paul Coakley, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, put it well: “For citizens in a representative democracy such as our own, participation in public life—including voting—is both a right and a responsibility.” Please take time this election cycle to vote, and to vote as a Catholic with an informed conscience on the critical issues and candidates on your ballot.
In last week’s column, I discussed two ballot initiatives related to online sports gambling (Initiatives 440 and 441), which the Nebraska Catholic Conference opposes.
This week, I want to discuss Initiative 442, which would provide protections for girls’ and women’s sports in our state constitution.
We have been asked about our position on this measure. As I mentioned last week, ballot measures take significant resources and—until just the other day—we largely avoided working on them this election cycle. This allowed us to focus on other critical efforts, such as preparation for the upcoming legislative session and events we host. This doesn’t mean Initiative 442 isn’t worth supporting; it just means we didn’t take an “official” stance.
That said, we have supported nearly identical legislation to what Initiative 442 seeks to achieve. And I’d like to share and reiterate that legislative position for you.
In the 2025 legislative session, Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Millard introduced LB89 (the Stand with Women Act). This legislative bill, which ultimately was adopted into law, was a simple, commonsense bill. While such a commonsense bill like this should not have needed introduction or passage, the sad fact is we find ourselves in a confused culture where basic realities about sex and human sexuality are muddled and undermined. This leaves us in a position where we find ourselves as a culture needing to define very basic realities, such as what it means to be “male” and “female”.
Sen. Kauth’s bill—now statutory law—ensures that girls and women are guaranteed fair competition in sports and are not forced to compete against men. It does this by providing a clear, consistent, and scientific definition of the terms “male” and “female”, basing these realities on biological sex and not politically driven notions of gender or gender identity. And ensures “males” are not allowed into “female” sports.
The need for LB89—again, now law—has been the proliferation around our country of men competing in girls’ and women’s sports. This has led to females being displaced at the podium by men, which undermines their opportunity for success and the honors that are due to them when they excel in competition. It has also led to significant safety issues for females. When men—who are physiologically different—compete against females, it can put them in serious physical danger.
Even though the forces of opposition were strong against LB89, the Nebraska Legislature had the common sense to pass LB89 into law. Proponents of Initiative 442 now seek to place these statutory protections into the state constitution.
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to define these terms like we did in LB89. But we don’t live in the Garden of Eden. We live East of Eden, in a broken world, riddled by sin and confusion. As the late Pope Francis stated: “The ugliest danger facing our world today is gender ideology.” It is a radical political ideology that seeks to “cancel out differences” between men and women, to undermine God’s design for the human person, and to strike at the very notion that we are “beautifully and wonderfully made,” as the Good Book reminds us.
As you make your way to the ballot this election cycle—whether that is at the polling place or through last-minute early voting—please keep in mind Catholic social teaching on human sexuality. Take those principles and apply them appropriately to the issues and candidates you will vote on. God bless your faithfulness as disciples who “bear the light of Christ in the public square.”
Tom Venzor is the executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, headquartered in Lincoln. Contact him at tvenzor@necatholic.org.
Commentary
Protecting Girls Sports
October 26, 2026
Election Day is less than a week away. Around a couple hundred thousand voters will have already engaged in early voting, which began on October 5.
If you haven’t already been thinking about voting and how you will vote, there’s no time like the present. Archbishop Paul Coakley, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, put it well: “For citizens in a representative democracy such as our own, participation in public life—including voting—is both a right and a responsibility.” Please take time this election cycle to vote, and to vote as a Catholic with an informed conscience on the critical issues and candidates on your ballot.
In last week’s column, I discussed two ballot initiatives related to online sports gambling (Initiatives 440 and 441), which the Nebraska Catholic Conference opposes.
This week, I want to discuss Initiative 442, which would provide protections for girls’ and women’s sports in our state constitution.
We have been asked about our position on this measure. As I mentioned last week, ballot measures take significant resources and—until just the other day—we largely avoided working on them this election cycle. This allowed us to focus on other critical efforts, such as preparation for the upcoming legislative session and events we host. This doesn’t mean Initiative 442 isn’t worth supporting; it just means we didn’t take an “official” stance.
That said, we have supported nearly identical legislation to what Initiative 442 seeks to achieve. And I’d like to share and reiterate that legislative position for you.
In the 2025 legislative session, Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Millard introduced LB89 (the Stand with Women Act). This legislative bill, which ultimately was adopted into law, was a simple, commonsense bill. While such a commonsense bill like this should not have needed introduction or passage, the sad fact is we find ourselves in a confused culture where basic realities about sex and human sexuality are muddled and undermined. This leaves us in a position where we find ourselves as a culture needing to define very basic realities, such as what it means to be “male” and “female”.
Sen. Kauth’s bill—now statutory law—ensures that girls and women are guaranteed fair competition in sports and are not forced to compete against men. It does this by providing a clear, consistent, and scientific definition of the terms “male” and “female”, basing these realities on biological sex and not politically driven notions of gender or gender identity. And ensures “males” are not allowed into “female” sports.
The need for LB89—again, now law—has been the proliferation around our country of men competing in girls’ and women’s sports. This has led to females being displaced at the podium by men, which undermines their opportunity for success and the honors that are due to them when they excel in competition. It has also led to significant safety issues for females. When men—who are physiologically different—compete against females, it can put them in serious physical danger.
Even though the forces of opposition were strong against LB89, the Nebraska Legislature had the common sense to pass LB89 into law. Proponents of Initiative 442 now seek to place these statutory protections into the state constitution.
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to define these terms like we did in LB89. But we don’t live in the Garden of Eden. We live East of Eden, in a broken world, riddled by sin and confusion. As the late Pope Francis stated: “The ugliest danger facing our world today is gender ideology.” It is a radical political ideology that seeks to “cancel out differences” between men and women, to undermine God’s design for the human person, and to strike at the very notion that we are “beautifully and wonderfully made,” as the Good Book reminds us.
As you make your way to the ballot this election cycle—whether that is at the polling place or through last-minute early voting—please keep in mind Catholic social teaching on human sexuality. Take those principles and apply them appropriately to the issues and candidates you will vote on. God bless your faithfulness as disciples who “bear the light of Christ in the public square.”
Tom Venzor is the executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, headquartered in Lincoln. Contact him at tvenzor@necatholic.org.