Today’s paragraphs come to us from David Harsanyi, senior editor at thefederalist.com. They provide a very compelling position on North Carolina’s HB2 (bathroom) legislation and the Obama administration’s iron-handed reaction to it:
North Carolina and other states have preemptively moved forward with these kinds to bills to head off the state redefining gender. Too late. The fact is that the federal government can simply announce that a man can be a woman and vice versa if they choose. It then compels everyone in country to accept this reality. Yet there is no government definition of what transgendered means, other self-identification, which can mean anything. “Civil Rights” Division Chief Vanita Gupta says: “Transgender men are men. … Transgender women are women.” So sayeth Vanita Gupta, so sayeth we all. Or else. And now 300 million people have (to) adhere to the Obama administration’s relativistic notions about nature and gender.
Under North Carolina’s law no one was stopping a private company or coffee shop or big box store from having any kind of bathroom set-up they desire.
Now, from what I can gather the central anxiety of many people is not that the transgendered will take advantage of their children, but that any man can simply declare himself a woman, put on a wig, and go into a public bathroom. Maybe it’s an irrational fear, maybe it’s not. As a father who’s had to send young daughters into busy public bathrooms, I know one thing for sure: I could not care less what Vanita Gupta has to say on the topic.
In a broader sense, the suit is symbolic of the federal government’s eight-year crusade to decimate any semblance of federalism and streamline progressive morality. The administration ignores state laws that conflict with federal policy when it approves and it sues states when it does not. States that pass law enforcement bills President Obama finds unsatisfactory will see the full force of the Justice Department come down on them. Those with drug legalization laws and immigration laws he does like, even if they conflict with federal law, have nothing to worry about. Whether one agrees in theory with these moves—and I am liberal on drug legalization and immigration—allowing Washington to selectively enforce law conflicts with the kind of republicanism that allows us to be diverse and deal with unique problems locally.
So, what do you make of this? Is Mr. Harsanyi accurately, persuasively, outlining the problem with Obama & Co. going after this law…as it simultaneously picks and chooses which other laws it feels like enforcing?
I think so. And that is why David Harsanyi wins today’s Paragraphs Of The Day honors.
I believe the conflict is not replumbed individuals using the wash room of their newly acquired gender.
Rather, it is the easy opportunity for Predators, Perverts and Hormone-Driven Teenagers to intrude upon and attack the vulnerable of the opposite sex.
Merely stating “I feel like I am a woman today” gets a 250 lb stalker into the woman’s room.
Locker rooms and showers in gyms, schools, pools, beaches offer little privacy from oglers, lechers, and teen boys wanting to see some female flesh.
However, having heard the reasoning on this issue by the US Attorney General . . . . . I am completely against LYNCHING as this nation’s policy.