Millennials say misgendering someone should be a crime; Let’s talk about why this is a bad (not to mention unconstitutional) idea.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoathas always been a favorite at our house.
Like fans worldwide, I applaud the creative way that Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber brought to life the Biblical tale of Joseph and his multi-colored coat (c.f., Genesis 37-45). But in the prologue, there is a lyric that still makes me cringe though I’ve heard it hundreds of times:
“We all dream a lot – some are lucky, some are not
But if you think it, want it, dream it — then it’s real,
You are what you feel. . .”
That last line may as well be the summa fides for millennials and younger. The belief that “what I feel” constitutes reality and is therefore “my truth”— is now being coupled with the assumption that you must believe it, too.
Is it true that, “We are what we feel?” Of course not. A child may pretend that a bedsheet is an invisibility cloak or that their cousin is Barbie. But somewhere along the journey through childhood, the stages of adolescence, and then into adulthood, rational people come to terms with their actual identity.
Today, people well beyond the protean years of childhood may now identify as any number of “selves,” and with growing momentum are insisting that everyone else affirm and agree. But must the public necessarily acquiesce, or be compelled to affirm things they know aren’t true? Is the law on the side of those who insist others agree with their subjective “gender identification”? Surprisingly, and dangerously, this question is up for debate.
“Natural rights”–as opposed to “Gay,” “transgender,” or “abortion” rights
Before having a discussion of what “rights” our Constitution actually protects, let me say this as emphatically as ink on paper can convey: People may do or think whatever they wish (within the bounds of civil law). Those who desire to engage in homosexual acts may do so and those who believe that fidelity to their “true self” mandates cross-dressing may do so. No atheist should be “forced” to acknowledge God, and no woman who wishes to remain childless should be forced to become impregnated.
Our unique Constitution was framed on the assumption that humans exist as an objective category of being. “Male” and “female” are not arbitrary social constructs, and knowledge of moral truth is embossed in the psyche of all rational people. Our “rights,” therefore, are not unlimited. “Liberty” does not mean (or, it did not originally mean), “militant autonomy.”
Every American was blessed to live in an America that made a promise something virtually no other country did: The government would recognize the penumbra (grouping) of rights imparted to you by . . . God. The list of “natural rights” guaranteed protection by law is wonderfully broad (life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness)— but it is not unlimited.
You may identify as a furry in your off-time, but your employer does not have to make concessions for such role playing in the workplace. To try and shoehorn recently codified, “manufactured” rights into a frame work that assumed timeless, universal rights jeopardizes the future of our once-stable Republic.
While it is troubling that nearly half of young adults support whatever “special rights” advocacy groups dream up, it is (sadly) understandable that they do. So many people have not been taught much about America, except that it is (allegedly) “bad, bad, bad!” The time to mature-up and defend out natural rights-based government is now.
Despite what hundreds of professors and thousands of students insist in telling me on university campuses, America is not purely a democracy (but a representative republic based on natural law). Nevertheless, Churchill’s famous quote is helpful to this discussion: “Democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”
Is America perfect? Certainly not. Will our Constitution affirm (and the culture at large celebrate) every kink and whim insisted upon by narcissistic sinners? No, and thank God for it.
But if you want liberty, stability, and prosperity unlike anything humans have experienced previously over thousands of years of recorded history . . . our natural law Republic has got you covered! Let’s not lose it. Enforced acquiescence to the increasingly militant demands of LGBTQ+ ideologues can only come about if the U.S. Constitution (and its philosophical foundations) are erased from the public consciousness. And to think that we may replace our Constitution and not have it supplanted by a totalitarian form of government . . . well, that is simply make-believe.
