Tolerance is a great word
that has fallen on bad times. For many of our grandparents, the word
meant respecting people and treating them kindly even if they were
believed to be wrong. In contrast, today’s notion of tolerance means
that we must never regard anyone else’s opinion as wrong. Commenting
on this cultural atmosphere, Oxford University Professor Alistar
McGrath indicates rightly that we live in a time when “openness and
relevance are more important than truth. This however, is
intellectual shallowness and moral irresponsibility.”
The mantra for many in
handling the transgender issue in our community is “tolerance.” On
the one hand this is very understandable. This is a sensitive and difficult
struggle that one teacher in our high school is going through. It is
natural and normal to exhibit care and compassion to any troubled
person. Yet, when does discernment of error ever enter into the
assessment of circumstances? For many, the greatest fear that
stifles critique is the fear of being labeled “narrow minded,” or
even worse, “judgmental.” Consequently, the seemingly high and noble
road of tolerance is a very comfortable path.
When you do a little
homework you can soon discover for yourself that the parents and
high school student body of the Batavia City School District were
taught an extreme position in this highly debated issue of Gender
Identity Disorder. What I did not realize in the parent meeting of
August 28 was that there is serious disagreement within the medical
and legal community regarding the appropriate response to GID. This
fact has not been accurately portrayed by the district to the
students and parents.
While there are many talking
points to address with this disorder, one basic premise taught to
the parents and student body, was that a person with GID is trapped
in the “wrong body” and is justified in seeking sex-change surgery.
Applying “tolerance” to this terrible dilemma would naturally lead
one to conclude that if a person truly is “trapped in the wrong
body,” then transgendering would be a viable and even necessary
option. Yet, in a blunt assessment of this self diagnosis, Dr.
Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins draws the comparison of how, “this
patient's feeling that he is a woman trapped in a man's body” is
similar to the “feeling of a patient with anorexia nervosa that she
is obese despite her emaciated…state.” He concludes, “We don't do
liposuction on anorexics. Why amputate the genitals of these poor
men? Surely, the fault is in the mind not the member.”
On August 28 and September
12, the parents were shown the hired medical experts very convincing
“before and after” pictures of some transgendered people in an
attempt to normalize this procedure. A mind simply isolated on the
“need to be tolerant and open” could easily begin to see the merits
of this procedure. However, what was not shared with Batavia’s
parents and students was the multitude of not only unsuccessful
procedures, but also heartbreaking testimonies of wreaked lives and
families due to what could very well be nothing more than a
distortion of self identity begun in childhood, reinforced many
times through life circumstances and then finally entrenched in the
mind by adulthood. For starters, I invite you to read of this
reality on www.help4families.com
It is my growing assessment
that the Batavia City School District has misapplied the call for
tolerance in this public issue. Whether they willingly chose this
position or their legal counsel hired the medical expert to support
their case, I do not know. But what I do know is that as Paul Harvey
says, “…the rest of the story” is that there is credible research
that seriously undermines the present social experiment utilizing
our communities minors.
To be fair, I accept and
acknowledge how the law has come into play in the Board of
Educations position in this situation (Google: doe v. bell).
However, even in the court of law, there is an insistence on “the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth.” The whole truth encompasses another side
to this debate that rejects the psychiatric misdirection the school
district is currently following. Rather, the emotion of tolerance is
dominating the discussion and is turning a blind eye to the need for
comprehensive intellectual honesty.
Consequently,
I continue to contend that having minors indoctrinated in the
normalization of a seriously troubled abnormal lifestyle is not the
morally right thing to do. Rather, it is the morally wrong thing to
do.
©
Copyright 2006 Donald A.
Shirk
Batavia, NY High School
Parent
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Related
Articles:
http://www.debrajmsmith.com/batavia3.html (Includes news audio of Donald
Shirk)
http://www.debrajmsmith.com/batavia2.html
http://www.debrajmsmith.com/batavia.html
More Related
Articles:
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/9/132006b.asp
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/sep/06090805.html
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11508/CWA/family/index.htm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1697699/posts
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/9/afa/132006b.asp
Allied Sites Onboard This
Fight:
Ameircan Family
Association
ACLJ
Family Life
Network
Concerned Women For
American
Free
Republic
Americans For
Truth
Culture and Family
Institute
Life
Site
Agape
Press
The
above sites, along with InformingChristians are all in this fight. Batavians are not alone.
As
more sites join in, they will be added. Please
contact this site of those missed. Thank you.
