I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. For eighteen years, I’ve been playing singles tennis. But, recently, I decided to switch to doubles in an effort to attenuate some back and knee pain I’ve been experiencing on the hard courts. So my friend Gary Faulkner and I decided to sign up to play doubles for the local tennis club. Gary, being somewhat effeminate, decided we should sign up for mixed doubles. Although technically a male, Gary likes to occasionally play the role of a female.
Unfortunately, the Wilmington Tennis Foundation (WTF) rejected our request to play mixed doubles. They insisted that the definition of mixed doubles requires a man and a woman. They further insisted that the terms “man” and “woman” are determined objectively. In other words, it isn’t enough that someone plays the role of a woman. She actually has to be a woman to qualify as a woman. In the wake of the WTF reaction, Gary plans to file a complaint with the Obama Department of Justice.
For those who are not Swift enough to detect satire, Gary Faulkner is not really my friend. To the contrary, he is a gay rights activist who is deeply distraught over North Carolina’s recent passage of Amendment One limiting the definition of mixed doubles – oops!, I mean marriage – to unions involving one man and one woman.
Gary Faulkner’s strong emotional reaction to the vote is perplexing for two reasons: 1) He insisted that Amendment One was “unnecessary” prior to its passage, and 2) He was already married before the amendment came up for a vote. Both of these points are important and deserve separate treatment below.
First, anyone following the Amendment One controversy in North Carolina knows that it was necessary to pass in order to keep judicial activists from redefining marriage by judicial fiat. Gay rights activists like Gary Faulkner know that blocking the judiciary with a constitutional amendment was the only way to preserve the institution of marriage from Marxist social engineers who want government, not family, to be the foundation of society. Were the amendment unnecessary, Faulkner would not be so emotionally distraught in the wake of its passage. In fact, Gary Faulkner hasn’t been this upset since Victor Willis of the Village People married a woman.
Second, heterosexual gay rights activists like Gary Faulkner do not lead the march for same-sex marriage out of a love for gay people. Most do it out of a hatred of Christians. Faulkner, who has a well-documented history of making hate-filled and defamatory statements about Christians, has a political motive for supporting same-sex marriage. He wants marriage re-defined. Then he wants to see churches that refuse to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies stripped of their tax-exempt status. Finally, he wants to see churches that refuse to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies shut down in the name of “equality” and “tolerance.” The result would be a nation in which the only Christian churches remaining would be those that have abandoned basic Christian principles.
It’s been a hard few weeks for Gary Faulkner. But he holds out hope for the future by referencing the fact that young people are more supportive of same-sex marriage than older people. That’s because Gary and his Marxist contemporaries have gained the kind of control over the schools that they have not yet gained over the churches.
Of course, the fatal flaw (and I mean that literally) in Gary Faulkner’s grand vision for America is that he and his Marxist contemporaries have been pushing abortion as steadfastly as they have been pushing same-sex marriage. The problem with abortion is that it produces an aging population that does not replenish itself. As people age, they have a tendency to discard silly emotionally-driven ideas – like the idea that 96-98% of society’s conformists should re-arrange themselves on behalf of 2-4% of its deviants.
If Gary Faulkner were not such a champion of abortion rights, 53 million more people would have been born since 1973. About two million of them would have been homosexuals eligible to marry someone of the same sex. And, who knows, some of them might have played mixed doubles in their spare time.
Much has been said about the bullying history of both of the presumed presidential nominees for 2012.
Last week a North Carolina teacher was put on paid suspension because she got caught bullying her own classroom on the topic of which candidate had been the worse bully years previous.
Bullies--we are told--are the cause of everything from eating disorders to teen suicide.
The Trayvon Martin case had originally been sold through the media as a case in which an older vigilante wanted to bully a young child.
Bullying as a subject itself has even been bullied a great deal. Specifically, the man who started an all out effort to encourage people not to bully sexually confused children, then himself bullied children who shared a different view of faith than he did.
Yet no one seems to be noticing that those who claim to be against the worst forms of bullying are the very ones now exploiting their role in the federal government to bully others.
Hence is the battle before the University of Arkansas Fort Smith.
To be specific, the Department of Justice issued an "advisement" to the university earlier this month. And after having their attorneys review it the university acted on the "advice of counsel" and are following the advisement.
What was the great injustice that the University of Arkansas Fort Smith was committing?
They had refused to allow a 38-year-old male student to use any and all female facilities on campus. So per the communication from the administration, Eric Holder, Barack Obama and company, and acting on the hopes the DOJ would play nice, they caved.
And now the 38-year-old anatomically male student, who goes by the name Jennifer Braly, and refers to himself as a "transgender" (instead of transvestite) has been given campus wide permission to enter any and all female facilities.
Since the university had initially denied the access, I'm sure you're pondering how the DOJ got mixed up in this to begin with. According to Mark Horn, the Vice President of university relations it was pretty simple.
"Because of the stance we took, the individual (Braly) filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights at the DOJ. We tried to make reasonable accommodation to find 'common' ground, converting a number of bathrooms on campus to gender neutral (single user). But in the eyes of the law (DOJ) (Braly) is entitled to use the bathrooms that she identifies with."
So let me understand properly…
Under threat of legal action, point of gun, or whatever authority the executive branch cites, a state-run university must force the visible discomfort of the female students on campus, so that a 38-year-old male, with his male parts intact, can feel "ok" about himself, while putting on women's clothing? (Or in the case of the female locker rooms on campus--taking it off?)
Please also note the undercurrent of this action taken by the Department of Justice. The implication is that if the university doesn't comply the action they take will be based on the withholding of "civil" rights.
Practical question here: what's to keep any number of other men from donning female duds, claiming they feel feminine that day, and hang in locker rooms for say non-"identity"-related rationale?
Understand that this case doesn't involve any claim to sex change. Which from a medical standpoint shouldn't matter either. The human genome and DNA footprint of someone who undergoes a sex change operation still registers as their original gender for the rest of history regardless of what parts they had taken off or put on.
But Braly prefers to live--pretending to be female--while keeping his male parts.
Is it honestly the responsibility of the University of Arkansas to look into whatever dysfunction is being played out in Braly's mind, emotions, and heart and to attempt to re-order their universe to pander to it?
Does the Department of Justice--by turning this into a question of civil rights--and bullying the university into conformity--have any concern in their hearts for the women on campus who are already expressing their discomfort at the idea of a 38 year old member suddenly appearing before them in the locker rooms or bathrooms across campus?
Or would the Department of Justice label those women "unreasonable, hateful, or transgenderphobic?" Worse yet would DOJ seek to punish the women on campus for the natural shock and displeasure that the majority of them will feel at such a revelation?
Certainly the university could dare the DOJ to take them to the judicial branch to attempt objective voices to be heard in the matter. But depending on which circuit, and how long it takes, the university might have to pour millions of dollars to marshal a defense of something that only a generation ago was commonly understood to be ludicrous.
People like Braly are deeply injured and need a vast amount of empathy and compassion. But neither the university campus, nor the public dime should be used as resources to put innocent people at risk at best, or at worst further the dysfunction by allowing the behavior to be encouraged and duplicated.
And people… if they can force the University of Arkansas Fort Smith into conformity, what's to stop them from trying it on Ohio State, the University of Texas, or say you're local parochial private school?
At the end of the day, some of the best people to end bullying were parents who said "Stop… Because I said so!"
In this case, since "We The People" sit in authority over the DOJ, Eric Holder and even President Obama, perhaps it's time we serve as their parent and put an end to the true foolishness of such folly.
Especially since most bullies will only respond to an even stronger authority, an articulate instruction, and a firmer will.
