OHIO — Gov. Mike DeWine’s decision to veto the SAFE Act is garnering a lot of reaction from advocacy groups on both sides of the issue.

One Ohioan that’s grateful for the governor’s decision is Deacon Nick Bates of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. As a person of faith, he said it’s his duty to stand with people struggling and in need of care. And as someone with a child who is non-binary, he knows first-hand just how important gender transition care is.

“With the governor's veto, he's going to help hopefully allow these communities to continue to support one another, medical professionals to provide the care that people need, psychologists, social workers and others to support kids the governor said today to save lives,” Bates said.

But other organizations, like the Center for Christian Virtue, are expressing their disappointment with the governor’s veto.

“Mike DeWine has failed Ohio, and it’s our children who are going to pay the price," Center for Christian Virtue president Aaron Baer said in a statement. "If the General Assembly does not override his veto, when we look back a generation from now at the thousands of kids who have been sterilized and harmed by dangerous and experimental transgender medical procedures, we will realize that those in power did nothing to stop it.”