Russell Moore says that if anyone had suggested in 2009 that the Obama Administration would do this, they would have been called paranoid. From the NYT:
The Obama administration is planning to issue a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.
A letter to school districts will go out Friday, fueling a highly charged debate over transgender rights in the middle of the administration’s legal fight with North Carolina over the issue. The declaration — signed by Justice and Education Department officials — will describe what schools should do to ensure that none of their students are discriminated against.
It does not have the force of law, but it contains an implicit threat: Schools that do not abide by the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid.
Defy this cretin. Make him sue. You watch: if Congress and the states lie down and accept this ukase from the White House, it will tell social and religious conservatives all we need to know about what is coming. Because here’s the thing: it won’t stop with bathrooms and locker rooms. The federal government is going to mandate the teaching of gender theory, at the risk of having federal funds cut off.
Make no mistake: if Obama gets away with forcing this on public schools, social and religious conservatives will have to leave the public education system — not necessarily because transgender boys will be changing with girls, but because it is the first step — a major step — in redefining by state mandate what it means to be male and female, and a human being. Christians, Jews, Muslims and others who hold to tradition will be stigmatized as bigots.
It’s happening so fast. But it’s happening. If you believe that these radicals are reasonable in any way, shape, or form, you are a fool. We now see what they will do. It won’t stop with this. And Hillary will bring it even harder.
UPDATE: A reader writes:
My wife and I had been contemplating which schooling option we thought would be best for our kids and our family. I was public schooled K-12, private Christian school for college. She did everything: public, private and homeschool. We met at a college in which one-third was private-schooled, one-third was homeschooled, and one-third was public-schooled. Our oldest kid just turned 5 a couple weeks ago and is ready to start school in the fall (he’s already writing a bit and doing basic arithmetic). We decided just before he turned 5 that we would homeschool.
If we hadn’t decided by now, this made the decision for us.
We have had the talk with him and our 3-year-old about inappropriate touch. We have taught them, when they’ve seen something in passing or heard their mother and me discussing the news, about boys not kissing boys, girls not kissing girls, etc. We are orthodox Christians. Conservative Presbyterians. But I still feel a small degree of shame even in explaining these things to my kids — not because I don’t believe it with every fiber of my being, but because I know I’m setting them up to be ostracized, criticized, and regarded as bigots (like the KKK) if they hold on to the faith we’re teaching them. We believe what we tell them; we believe what we believe. But when my kids are my age, there will be little space for them in to operate in the public square with the values our entire country had up until half a generation ago.
I have prayed a lot over this election and mulled the options throughout the primaries. I vowed from the start that I would not vote for Trump. My pick for president was out early, so I had been planning a write-in vote for a while (I cannot vote Hillary). But if Trump came out swinging against this edict from the Obama administration, I might well vote for him. This has come to our doorstep so fast, I’m willing to consider voting for someone as slimy, untrustworthy, and sickening as Trump if it gives us a chance to fight this. This will go all the way to the Supreme Court after the districts who want to fight decide to do so. I don’t know if I’m alone in my less-than-an-hour-old sentiments. But I doubt it.
So, #NeverTrump Christians, what now?
UPDATE.2: Oh. Didn’t know this. We really are screwed, then:
Donald Trump says transgender people should be able to “use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate.” On NBC’s Today show Thursday morning, the GOP front-runner said he opposes North Carolina’s “very strong” bathroom bill, which allows businesses to prohibit transgender people from doing just that.
“North Carolina did something that was very strong and they’re paying a big price. And there’s a lot of problems.” Trump said. “Leave it the way it is. North Carolina, what they’re going through, with all of the business and all of the strife — and that’s on both sides — you leave it the way it is. There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble. And the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the economic punishment they’re taking.”
UPDATE.3: Whaddaya know, Trump flip-flopped the next day. So I guess we don’t know what he’ll do. We do know that he has no principles. And we know on the matter of religious freedom and moral sanity, Hillary Clinton has the wrong principles. Come what may, we are still really screwed.