Three months ago, I told you about a new law in Montgomery County, Maryland, that demands co-ed locker rooms and restrooms in all public accommodations. The law was intended to accommodate “transgendered people”—that is, men who say they perceive themselves to be women, and women who claim they consider themselves men. I said, at the time, that we would see extremists in other jurisdictions attempting to pass similar laws. And that is exactly what is happening.
Last week, Colorado’s legislature passed—and Gov. Bill Ritter signed—a law that will open all public accommodations, including public restrooms, to anyone who wants to use them. That means men may use a women’s restroom, and women may enter men’s rooms. The rationale for Senate Bill 200 is that transgenders should be able to use the restroom they feel most comfortable using. Apparently, it is not important if others feel uncomfortable having their privacy violated every time they use public facilities.
The lack of privacy is not the only problem. Nobody is going to ask a man if he is trangendered before allowing him into the ladies’ room. This means any man—including a child molester—could simply follow a little girl into the privacy of a public restroom. And, if a man decided to expose himself to a young girl there, who is she going to complain to? After all, restrooms, by definition, are places where one exposes the private parts of one’s body.
Men will have even less privacy, because they often do not use stalls.
Appalling as this law is, it gets worse. Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family points out, in the Denver Post, that the law also threatens religious liberty: Colorado’s “public accommodations” law includes not only hotels and restaurants, but also any small or home-based business that offers “goods or services” to the public.
And, as we have seen before, radicals go out of their way to target Christian businesses. As Minnery notes, in Albuquerque, a Christian couple who operate a photography studio politely declined, on religious grounds, to photograph a lesbian “commitment ceremony.” For this exercise of their First Amendment rights, the couple were forced to appear before New Mexico’s human rights commission and fined more than $6,600. Now, if you dare to deny a transgendered “man” access to the women’s room, you can be prosecuted under criminal laws and spend up to a year in jail. It is an outrage.
The American people are not asking for new bathroom laws. The truth is, this is an effort—by a small but radical minority—to use the force of law to punish anyone backward enough to believe there are only two sexes: male and female. The true goal behind the law is the radical remaking of our society—one in which faithful Christians, Muslims, and Jews will be punished for their beliefs.
Are you disgusted enough? Good. If you live in Colorado, get to work putting an initiative on the November ballot. That is what citizens of Montgomery County, Maryland, did. And the rest of us better stay on our guard, keeping an eye on our own lawmakers.
In a free country, nobody has the right to tell us what to believe—or to punish us for putting our First Amendment rights into practice. And, yes, there are men and women who deserve privacy, no matter who tells us there are no differences between the sexes.
_________________________________________________
From BreakPoint®, June 6, 2008, Copyright 2008, Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with the permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. “BreakPoint®” and “Prison Fellowship Ministries®” are registered trademarks of Prison Fellowship
RSS
Comments
Mr Colson, once again with the fear mongering. You know very well that none of those negative consequences will come to pass. California, with almost 40 million people, has had such a law for almost a decade without a single incident that I'm aware of. And you also know full well that these laws have exemptions for religious institutions. So your only goal seems to be to create unnecessary fear and panic and to elevate yourself. Shame on you.
And another thing transgender/transsexual people go both ways:
Male-to-female aka trans women
Female-to-male aka trans men
I don't hear you complaining about the trans men who are going to use your bathroom. Hmm. Since you don't have anything against "women" who want to be men, maybe the problem is misogyny. The thought of a "man" wanting to be a woman is detestable to you because you believe women to be inferior. How sad Mr Colson. This is the 21st century, men and women may be different, but they are EQUAL. Maybe you need to speak with a counselor about your gender biases. Maybe they can figure out why you harbor misogynistic feelings.
Wish you well.
mr colson. you of all people should understand forgiveness and acceptance. to blatantly throw all transgendered people into a waste basket and label it extremists or pedophiles is ungodly wrong. a large portion of transgendered persons are parents and we would not want anything to happen to our children, why do you think we would do something ot other peoples children? if anything we would be the ones most likely to protect them. if i saw a male exposing himself to a child in a restroom you can bet your last bible im going to beat the hell out of him before the law gets him. you seem to single out transgendered women more than men in your article. is there a fear that i detect. you should be more worried about whats in your restroom. you also state a "radical remaking of our society" didn't you and mr nixon try this in the 60S, it failed then to. before we are christians, or jews or muslims we are all gods children, no matter what god you choose to pray to we are first," people". should peoples be punished for who THEY ARE? and lastly mr colson please remember, more people have died in the name of religion than from any other cause know to man. WHEN WILL "YOU" PEOPLE STOP YOUR SENSELESS SLAUGHTER OF EACH OTHER.
Just another example of the regurgitated right-wing slippery-slope argument. Why, if we pass a law allowing transgendered individuals to pee in bathrooms where we belong, then little children and grandmothers will be put at risk of being attacked and/or molested! Predators will be lining up outside the ladies room! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Only, they forget that 15 states (including Coloado and most recently New York), the District of Columbia, and over 100 local municipalities have already passed similar ordinances and there have been ZERO, count 'em, ZERO, occurrences of molestation/attack related to any transgender access law. Now, perhaps if you count the obvious plant in MD of the cross-dressed member of Citizens for a Reprehensible Government then you might get a count of 1 ...
So its time right-wing mis-thinkers to wise-up and quit using such weak, unsubstantiated arguments in support of their obviously un-Christ like "Christian" perspective.
Sara Law (Washington DC) ...
Regarding DES - See "Evidence for pre-natal hormonal influence on (some) Transsexuals
The Presence of Gender Dysphoria, Transsexualism, and Disorders of Sexual Differentiation in Males Prenatally Exposed to Diethylstilbestrol: Initial Evidence from a 5-Year Study"
http://www.antijen.org/transadvocate/id33.html
Ms Osaragi is not alone, and not even unusual. The result for a 46xy (M) gened foetus is (mostly) male body and (mostly) female brain and hence mind. Often there are other Intersex issues to, hence the word "mostly".
For evidence of cross-gendered neurology, see
http://www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtc0106.htm
A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality
http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/85/5/2034
Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus
Intersex - that is, neither 100% M nor 100% F - conditions have always existed, See Matthew 19:12 and Isaiah 56:4-5. We can't alter brain to match body, but we can alter body to match mind now, much as we can cure other congenital conditions such as hare lip. Such a cure causes extreme legal complications, but a mismatch between body and brain causes neurological dysfunction, and often results in death, so the treatment is by no means "cosmetic". The situation feels perverse, uncomfortable, horrible, miserable for those who have it, at least until treatment.
Then there are those with 5ARD or 17BHDD, who undergo a natural apparent sex change, ending up biologically more M than F, despite their birth certificates. The reverse happens too, but is much rarer,with only a handful rather than the thousands of F to M cases in the USA.
In 1985 I was diagnosed as a mildly Intersexed male. In 2005 that was changed to severely Intersexed female, due to tests occasioned by my natural change. My OB/GYN says I'm female, no matter what my birth certificate may say. I look boringly normal, just another rather frumpy middle aged woman.
I do try to "keep the Sabbath" in accordance with Isaiah 56:4-5, but various theologians have given conflicting advice on what that means.
So, as with Ms Osaragi's case, what would you have me do? There are hundreds of thousands like us in the USA, but until the recent passage of legislation aimed at Gays and Lesbians (and we're usually neither), we've been able to keep a low profile. No longer, and we need legislation like this just to not make waves and upset society. We assert our humanity, no matter how uncomfortable our existence makes some who are pardonably ignorant of the subject feel. We try to educate, and let individual conscience do the rest.
Hi;
May I interject a real life situation. I’d like to hear your guidance on this.
My mother was given a drug to take to lessen the chance of miscarriage and promote healthy babies — that’s what the doctor told her. The drug is Diethylstilbestrol, or DES. In male fetuses, it feminizes the brains of one in five of us ‘DES sons’.
I finally came to terms with this, and realized my choice was transition or die. So, I’m now a male-to-female transsexual who’s had ‘the operation.’ I’ve changed all my legal paperwork and although I still have a male body with XY chromosomes, it has been retrofitted to approximate female anatomy, which is good because if I ever end up in an accident, there will be no ’surprise’ for the first responders.
I ‘pass’ very well, thank you. Only rarely do strangers figure out I was not born this way. Most people have to be told, by me, or, more often, by someone else who just has to ‘drop the bomb.’
So my question to you is — knowing what you know now about me, and assuming for the moment you get absolute power to make the determination — which restroom and changing facility do you feel I, a male-to-female transsexual, should use when in public spaces?
I eagerly await your responses;
Hazumu Osaragi