Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Gavin Grimm & Transgender Issues

The Washington Post today details the transition of a young teenager who identifies as a male despite being born as a female and his choice to use bathrooms designated for males.
Suddenly, the issue goes to the Supreme Court because some people objected and the local school district accommodated the objections by ruling that students must used bathrooms for the designated biological birth gender.
Then North Carolina enacted a law declaring the same.
And counties, mainly in the South, have refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.

All these decisions have one thing in common.  The legal powers accommodate the objections of one or more individuals who do not like or approve of the choices of someone else.  The legal authorities are trying to dictate deeply personal behavior mainly on the basis of their own religious views.  These laws or actions are not preventing people from doing any action that could be considered illegal - just objectionable to their own view of propriety. 
It is no different than the old laws, again mostly in the South, that forbid interracial marriage.  The Supreme Court ended those laws long ago.

The current personal choice issues, also based in civil rights, relate to the Trump campaign.  Trump's motto, "Make American Great Again",  is code for making America Christian, as well as as white, again. 

Trump may reach a segment of voters, but that group is trapped in the past and Trump's call to them shows his pandering and lack of leadership.  The irony is that Trump knows this perfectly.

No comments:

Post a Comment