“Finding her own path”

Starting in kindergarten, California schools are required by law to teach the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people.
− News report

California lesbian couple giving drug to their 11–year-old son to delay puberty, so he can decide which gender he prefers when he is 14 or 15.
− News report

ACLU official resigns after her two primary-school-age daughters are frightened by three six-feet-tall “transgenders” in women’s rest room. She asks, “How can we ask these kinds of questions without being called a homophobe?”
– News report

California leads the nation in population and in many other respects, including its destructive liberal agenda. The former Golden State has an unemployment rate that is above the national average, and its anti-business climate is notorious. Yet Democrats − who control both houses of the legislature and all state-wide offices − persist in their “tax the rich” and “blame corporations” agenda, as if it were religious dogma.
We call this anti-free-enterprise agenda “leftist.” But real leftists − Soviet communists, for example − were puritanical when it came to sex. Current leftists are quite the opposite. In effect, they are heterophobic − they view with disdain male-female sex within marriage, especially if it is for the purpose of procreation.
If you want to discover their position on economic issues, read Marx. Yes, he published “The Communist Manifesto” in 1848. The world has changed enormously since 1848, but leftist thought remains stuck in the past. And where do you go to discover the leftist position on non-economic issues? You go to the Bible − and take the exact opposite. Leftists want to overthrow the social order. Not just free enterprise, but the entire social order, starting with its basic building block, the nuclear family, and continuing up to God Himself.
But what happens when you overthrow the social order? What happened after the Russian, Chinese, Cambodian, and Cuban revolutions? At least 100 million died in massacres, manufactured famines, and labor camps. Lenin is said to have remarked that in order to make an omelet, you have to break eggs. But why did they break 100 million eggs and make so few omelets? Why emulate such wasteful, destructive cooks?
Not satisfied with undermining the basic relationship between people – marriage – leftists went further. Not satisfied with undermining the distinction between the productive and the nonproductive, they went further. They are undermining the distinction between male and female.

● The first words most babies say are mama and dada, but what do babies know?

● The first chapter of the Bible describes how God created human beings, male and female, but who reads the Bible?

● The first chapter of biology texts describes how primitive organisms developed two sexes. Leftists, who claim to respect evolution, should admire this advance, but instead they ignore it − and even try to undo it.

California, seizing the lead in the race downhill, passed a law requiring public schools from kindergarten to grade 12 to emphasize the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people.
Most music historians agree that Tchaikovsky was gay. But how does this affect our enjoyment of the “1812 Overture” on July Fourth? Art historians suspect that Michelangelo was gay. How does this affect our opinion of the Sistine ceiling? Once you classify people by race, religion, class, sexual orientation, or other irrelevant qualities, you lose sight of what they did − for good or ill.
But what is age-appropriate? I believe that nothing about sex is age-appropriate in kindergarten or the early grades. What will the teacher say when a first-grader asks her to explain what “bisexual” means, or what gays do? But now the schools must decide what is appropriate. And whatever they decide, they are sure to be criticized by the Right for going too far, and by the Left for not going far enough.
Don’t you envy public-school teachers in California? English? Mathematics? History? Less time for all that − the lesson plan on the role of bisexuals in science is due. Yes, Isaac Newton was a preeminent scientist, but why did he never marry − was he a party animal? That’s what’s really important for middle-school kids to learn.
Leftists claim to respect nature (sometimes spelled Nature), but their respect ends where gender begins. Take the case of the 11-year-old son of a lesbian couple. Reportedly he had a learning disability, but from an early age indicated he wanted to be a girl. Why? Because he had gender-identity disorder? Or merely because he wanted to be like his two mommies?
When I was two or three, I had curly, blond hair like my father, but I said I wanted straight, dark hair like my mother. I didn’t have “hair-identity disorder.” I didn’t need to have my hair dyed and straightened. I was just expressing love for my mother in a childish way.
Some children grow out of gender confusion, but this child did not. At age seven he threatened to mutilate his genitals. Why? Because he had gender-identity disorder? Or because his two mothers went around nude, so he thought he was abnormal? I have no way of knowing this. But if people no longer read the Bible, why should they respect it when it forbids going nude before one’s close relatives? Modesty, like so many traditional values, is so yesterday.
Gender-identity disorder is real. This boy may have had the same problem if he had been raised by a woman married to a man. But we cannot know this. To say that a child is not better off being raised by a traditional married couple is to state something that goes against all of human history.
The boy’s mothers decided to delay his puberty, so that when he is older, he can decide what gender he wants to be. The mothers found a doctor willing to administer a drug that inhibits the hormone that stimulates the testes to make androgens. It is used to treat precocious puberty, but its use to delay normal puberty is unapproved.
In addition to preventing normal maturation of the sex organs, the development of body and facial hair, and deepening of the voice, the drug also inhibits the increase in muscle and bone mass that normally accompanies puberty. It is not known whether this will lead to osteoporosis later in life, or what the effect on fertility will be. This is an experiment for which the child is too young to give informed consent.
Parents or guardians can consent to experimental treatment for their child’s disease. But what disease? What was called “gender-identity disorder” in the DSM IV is now called “gender dysphoria” in the DSM V. Should normal physical and emotional development be blocked to treat “dysphoria” – that is, feeling bad? Instead, should we use psychotherapy in an attempt to help the child to feel less bad? Instead of altering reality, should we help the child to accept reality? After all, that’s what adults have to do all their lives.
Is the objective here to benefit the child, or to help him become a her to suit the mothers? We cannot know the answer. But if we even ask the question, we risk being called “homophobic” or “heterosexist.”
What would you say if his parents allowed the child to decide whether to smoke cigarettes, or drink alcohol, or eat candy for supper, or go to bed past midnight? You would say they were bad parents for not ensuring that their child had a healthful environment in which to grow. But removing all warning signs along the road of life, leaving the child to find his own path? Is that not a form of abuse and neglect? The road of life is a winding road, with sharp curves and steep grades. Those who remove the warning signs and guard rails may see themselves as pro-child, but they risk being just the opposite.
Remember John Walker Lindh? He grew up in an affluent family in the progressive San Francisco area. His father was a lapsed Catholic; his mother dabbled in Buddhism. When he was in high school, his father ran off with a gay boyfriend. Imagine the teasing John endured. Repelled by the tepid, watered-down liberalism his parents and teachers offered, John sought something to believe in. Uninspired by the emptiness around him, John sought meaning for his life.
If John had been raised as a Christian, he might have volunteered at a homeless shelter or a school for special-needs children. If John had been brought up as an American, he might have gone into public service or joined the military.
But his parents left John to “find his own path.” So he did. He went to Afghanistan, joined the Taliban, was responsible for the death of an American, and is spending 20 years in federal prison. “His own path” led over a cliff.

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