musings

 Musings

        It occurred to me the other day that just about every time I hear someone start a sentence with "Well, I'm a Christian, and.....!" I should be prepared to hear something either inane, venal, ignorant or any combination of those.

        Most recently, it was a woman weighing in on the (trans) gender associated bathroom controversy in a nearby county's schools. She opened her mouth and what came out was "Well, I'm a Christian and I believe that we are what we are born as." Of course, she was stating her opinion in opposition to allowing persons to use the bathroom appropriate to their gender identity, vice their plumbing.  As I weighed the varieties of ignorance evidenced by her pronouncement, delivered , of course in a typically morally upright, judgmental. and frankly snotty  tone, it came to me that she doesn't even know what she doesn't know.

        First off, let's be clear. Any pseudo-Biblical justification, which one would  think would be her basis for discrimination , is non-existent. The Bible is moot on transgender issues. That leaves the rash of transgender rapes in rest rooms. Oh wait...that never happens.  Finally, we come down to the real Leviticus driven fallacy  that for some reason permeates the brains of Christian (and other) fundamentalists. In the minds of most unwashed born agains,  any person whose gender identity, style of dress, sexual  preference, or whatever, are not main stream missionary position with the lights off oriented , is surely not only "homosexshull" but a pedophile as well.  Both assumptions are, of course, well and exhaustively documented as totally fallacious. This (factual information) of course bounces off the cast iron skull of many Christians like Johnny Manzeil recoiling from reason.

        It is disappointing how many otherwise reasonable  humans cannot overcome this disability. I once had a principal, a man whose judgment I respected in matters of educational leadership,  prove this point.  I was on the Orange County Classroom Teachers' association contract negotiating team for years, and when asked how negotiations were proceeding, I mentioned that  we had (again) been rebuffed by the district in our attempts to insert gender preference language in the County's mission statement along with other non-discrimination protection language. The reason, of course, is that if such language existed, then an aggrieved and discriminated against employee would have EEOC support. 

       The response from this man was "Well, what if their preference is children?" This was a person, just short of a PhD, equating  being gay with being a pedophile.  I then pointed out that I was aware of every charge brought against every member over the previous ten years or so, and that while there had been, regrettably, instances of inappropriate behavior by teachers of one sex against students of another, there had never, over that same period,  been any charge leveled against a gay teacher for any inappropriate contact or dialogue with a student. None. Period.  The discussion ended abruptly when I opined that if we wanted to really safeguard children, we should only hire gay teachers. Cue the crickets!