[Blog/Commentary] [USA] That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Stephanie Stevens]

Daily Kos, USA


Wed May 27, 2015 at 04:00 PM PDT

That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

by rserven for TransAction


Apparently we're getting out of control.  Yes...control.  I believe that's the key word.

Focus on the Family and Family Research Council are upset.  Transgender people are winning more acceptance and inclusion as time passes.  In schools, in organizations like the Girl Scouts, and in American society, those conservative religious organizations are seeing us tyrannically force our way into every corner of American life.

This marks a welcome change for civil-rights minded people and a likely nightmare for Colorado Springs evangelical machine Focus on the Family, which has been condemning the growing trend of transgender inclusion in Colorado Girl Scouts’ troops for years.

--Kyle Harris, The Colorado Independent

Tyranny:  arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority; absolute power or control.

In education and the political arena, we should advocate — with all respect, truth and kindness — for curriculum and laws that acknowledge male-female distinctions, which are not just rooted in Scripture, but in biology and human experience.

--Jeff Johnston, Focus on the Family, 2012

In that screed, Johnston attacked our Marxist, communist roots.

I find it amazing that we can exercise this power which we do not possess.  There are no transgender political leaders in this country.  The country has not yet advanced sufficiently to vote for one of us.

Ex-gay Johnston didn't even understand what gender identity was.  He just knows he's against it.

[Gender Identity Disorder] is a label usually given to children with same-sex attractions, but it can be given to adults.

--Johnston

What did Johnston suggest as the best way to support transgender kids?  Reparative therapy, of course.

Gender Identity Disorder is treatable. There are therapists who work with kids to help them accept the body they were born into and to embrace it as a good thing. This kind of therapy helps children to stop hating their bodies and to embrace their gender.

--Johnston

As Christians, of course, we’d say it’s not healthy to encourage or promote recognition of a group based on their behaviors or based on something that’s problematic psychologically. That’s not the same as recognizing people because of their religion or the color of their skin, or things like this. At the same time we want Christians to reach out with love and treat people with respect. That has always been our goal.

--Johnston

In the words of Zack Ford of ThinkProgress,

Blatant rejection and stigmatization is not love or respect — quite the opposite.

--Ford

Now comes FRC's Rev. Pierrre Bynum.  I expect that Rev. Bynum sees Johnston's pseudo-love as too wishy-washy.  Bynum attacked President Obama for our "transgender tyranny" and called for school boards to be dominated by anti-transgender fervor.

A nationwide strategic initiative is now underway, coming to your community soon. Believers across America need to select godly people to serve on school boards and strengthen the backbones of their existing members to prepare them for this onslaught. They should be willing to protect children’s safety and moral innocence at whatever cost.

Rev. Franklin Graham, who exhorted pastors to stand boldly for truth in the public square and to cast off all “cowardice” at last year’s Watchmen on the Wall Pastor’s Briefing, wrote of his concern about “fluid transgenderism,” saying “they want to brainwash our children” and that such policies are simply “wicked.”

Bynum assured reporters that "at whatever cost" does not include physical violence...but I doubt that very many of his followers heard that part.

There is no call or justification for anybody to harm anybody; neither is there call for those threatened by wrongful, immoral, irrational policies that are potentially harmful to their children, to submit to such policies.  If they cannot successfully effect their correction, they should either remove their children from the threat, and, if necessary, move their family from the community or state to a community or state where those in authority take their trust to teach and protect the children within their jurisdiction seriously.

I guess when they move to places that reject any trace of transgender support or acceptance, they can blame our tyrannical existence.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/27/1388263/-That-word-I-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means