One of the awkward things about bathrooms in China is that there is less privacy than we Westerners tend to like. Floor to ceiling windows may be next to urinals. There may not be a door where we would normally have one. In some areas, cleaning ladies may roam in and out of men’s bathrooms. But there does seem to be the widespread, common-sense recognition that men do not wander into women’s bathrooms. There is a basic understanding that male pedophiles and perverts in women’s bathrooms or locker rooms would put women and girls at risk. That level of sanity does not seem to exist among certain extremists in American politics. All those folks who say they want to “keep the government out of our bedrooms” seem quite happy to have the troops march into our bathrooms and compel us to accept new norms.
I woke to the news that the head of the ever-swelling Executive Branch of the US government issued a decree, wielding usurped power that is nowhere present in the US Constitution, telling America’s schools (in effect) that they must not “discriminate” against certain males who want to walk into girl’s bathrooms and locker rooms (provided they claim that they identify with the gender they wish to target–there is no way to easily verify the sincerity of someone’s claim). The child safety issue has properly been raised over the related controversy in North Carolina and needs to be front and center here as well. What kind of perverse insanity is this? Various extremist groups have already applauded this move. Millions of Americans will now be browbeaten into silently accepting this setback in privacy, morality, and child safety as “progressive,” with resistance being decried as bigotry, intolerance, or even racism.
Whether you are concerned or not about the risk of pedophiles or perverts in bathrooms and locker rooms, to me a bigger question is whether we are concerned about the ability of one man to issue decrees that overturn state or federal laws? The US Constitution is based on limitation of powers. Power is supposed to be retained by the States or the people unless expressly given to the federal government, and then those federal powers are limited, specific, and divided. It is Congress, not the President, that passes laws. To forget this, to give the Party a pass, is to enable a future, more outrageous decree. What’s next? A decree that since his year’s presidential campaign has become too divisive, that we now need to bring the nation together by postponing elections indefinitely and making our leader Commander for Life? This has happened in pother nations. What makes you think it cannot happen here? If a Presidential decree can override Parenting 101 (potty training basics), why not everything else?
Bathroom policies are just the kind of thing that should be left in the hands of local people, not the federal government. But if it is a federal issue, then it’s Congress who should act. Does anybody remember this anymore? Are we that far gone?
Those parents who have been homeschooling their kids over concerns about the lack of moral sanity in the schools are looking a lot smarter now. (For most of them, their kids have been looking a lot smarter already, based on what I’ve seen of their academic performance.) Recent concerns about the safety of children in an “anything goes” environment are looking a lot less paranoid. I salute you homeschoolers for your prescient concern for your children and mourn the failure of public education. I mourn its failure in America to provide a safe place for children to actually learn, without having to suffer at the whims of completely out-of-touch politicians who seem to value progressive theory and political paybacks more than child safety.
All hail to the Chief: the Predator in Chief.
Parenting 101 is not just potty training basics, it's child safety. Keep kids safe. Keep kids away from predators. Keep girls away from boys who could molest them. If the boys can walk into the girl's bathroom unchallenged, it's unsafe. Obviously. Obama has betrayed the families and children of this nation once again. Ugly.
The need to accommodate some special needs should not justify abandonment of common sense and opening new doors for sex offenders and sex abusers. There are predators and real risks to be avoided.
The need to accommodate some special needs should not justify abandonment of common sense and opening new doors for sex offenders and sex abusers. There are predators and real risks to be avoided.
Perhaps we should read the thoughts of a former Governor of North Carolina on the matter (the issue that started in NC and progressed to this). Sometimes we need understanding and moderation from all sides.
When I was in elementary school, in the same parts of the country that are passing "bathroom bills" segregation was enforced and justified to protect white women and girls. The end of segregation at the time was complete with governors on TV (albeit black and white) claiming that this was a local issue and the president had abandoned the constitution.
Talking is a great idea, but the trampling of state and individual rights is being done without any respect of those being talked down to. We are in a situation where one ruler or one judge routinely feels their view should trump those of millions. Where was the chance for conversation?
States have the right to do whatever they like in regards to education. The problem lies when they accept federal funding. The federal government has already done to states what it is currently trying to do to individuals (I believe un-consciously–I'm not a conspiracy theorist), which is make them dependent on government funding, allowing the federal government to have the ultimate moral authority on all matters. BYU is a great example of how to buck this trend. They have managed to maintain their moral and intellectual autonomy by maintaining financial autonomy. If states want to wrestle back authority from the federal government, they need to plan a way to make due without federal funds. I see no way of accomplishing this however, with the current federal tax structure. At some point something has to give. . .
SHAME ON YOU!
You are deliberately equating a small vulnerable percentage of the population who were born with a disability with pedophiles. Shall we conflate this blog entry with the Jim Crow laws?
This entry contributes NOTHING to a complicated situation which, given your unkind, unfeeling, Neanderthal approach, offers as the alternative a life of humiliation and emotional scarring to affected kids of confused gender and a path toward bullying for kids of cis genders.
If this is more of the backward unsympathetic legacy the LDS has brought to voting rights, women's rights and gay rights you can have your church and the rest of us will continue trying to achieve equity and compassion regardless of what difficulties and challenges may be.
Who are the people most contributing to gender confusion and the pain that comes from it? I submit it's those who promote the lie that sex change is possible.
Almost everyone on earth is born with XX or XY chromosomes, and as puberty approaches, their bodies start getting pumped with the hormones that differentiate the sexes. But not everyone gets the same levels of the same hormones because we all have different mutations. Society now tells them that while sexual attraction is immutable, actual sex is not. (The logical inconsistency of this is extreme.) Doctors promise surgeries and synthetic hormones to help them "change" sex. But they can't really change their sex. They end up a man with more estrogen and different underwear needs or a woman with more testosterone and really short hair. They might change their hairstyle and clothes and mannerisms, but it's literally impossible to change the XX or XY makeup of every cell their bodies will make for the rest of their life. They're destined to a chemistry-dependent existence and unable to engage in typical reproduction.
Wouldn't it be easier for the world to say, boys, you can wear skirts and enjoy dance and interior decorating. Girls, you can play football and be in the Marines (but you had better be able to lift enough because lives depend on your strength). Almost everything that we consider "male" or "female" bleeds over into the other sex, and gender stereotypes are of limited usefulness. But sex chromosomes are binary; they don't come on a spectrum. Except for a tiny percentage of genetic errors, everyone is either XX or XY and will be that until they die.
I can't voice a lie no matter how much you want me to. A person can't transition from one sex to another. That's just not how biology works.
Anonymous at 2:37, you may have completely misunderstood my point, and the point of most Americans who are concerned about allowing males to walk into girls' shower rooms. We do not equate transgender individuals with pedophiles. We equate child molesters with pedophiles, and they are almost always NOT transgender individuals. Concerns over Obama's sweeping bathroom edict has nothing to do with an irrational fear of rather rare transgender individuals, but with a legitimate fear of much more common pedophiles and of even more common sex-crazed porn-addled young men who can now be given a pass to walk into a girl's locker room or bathroom unopposed by just claiming that they happen to have the feeling that they now identify with the targeted gender. (To be fair, there are some females who may have a similarly perverse desire to do the same in areas normally exclusively for boys.) People ought to be able to understand that there are potential risks. Serious risks. And we ought to be able to discuss the problems without being shouted down by hysterical shamers.
Your extreme response is helpful in nicely illustrating how "dialog" on these kind of social issues tend to go:
Parent: "I am concerned about the new bathroom policy because it would let male pedophiles declare they identify with the female gender, so they can then walk into the girls' shower room at school. This poses a threat to my daughter, wouldn't you agree?"
Progressive: "Yes, I think I can see your point. Hmmm, that does raise some difficult issues. Tell me a little more about the concerns you have."
HA! Just kidding. It goes more like this:
Parent: "I am concerned about the new bathroom policy because it would let male pedophiles—-"
Progressive: "SHAME ON YOU! And shut up! You are deliberately equating a small vulnerable percentage of the population who were born with a disability with pedophiles. Remember Jim Crow laws? Shame on your unkind, unfeeling, Neanderthal approach. You offer others a life of humiliation and emotional scarring and promote bullying for kids of cis genders."
And of course, it's only a few seconds after that before we are told that opposing males in girls' locker rooms is racist (oh, the Jim Crow laws reference did that) and akin to the Nazis and HITLER.
"Dialog" in the mind of some means denouncing and slandering anyone who disagrees. It means you agree or face the consequences.
The browbeating and scolding has begun. Shame on me for questioning the decree.
Interesting that BYU has propriety rest rooms and yet BYU women do not find themselves safer because of it. And, when raped by BYU men, they find themselves defending themselves from the men AND the BYU Honor Code office.
So I guess you advocate the policies of the LDS that denied that there were gay Mormons and then subjected them to brutal and pointless tortures that have been roundly discredited. And, when suicide became an epidemic among gay LDS youth, the church's policy became excommunicating them and forcing their children to disavow them.
Better, you say, to beat young girls with the idea that they are responsible for male libidos because they didn't cover their shoulders in the heat of summer or swam in a (gasp) bathing suit instead of a T-shirt size burka.
These are the "enlighten" approaches to the complications of human sexuality that you prefer to allowing the US Constitution of doing its job of defending the vulnerable? This is not shouting HITLER. This is taking an honest and unflinching look at the LDS response to human sexuality and anyone who doesn't fit the unrealistic one-size-fits-all Mormon persona.
I would have posted two efficient and effective responses to your article here… but!… your arbitrarily delimiting of my comments, by way of a "character restriction", made my would-be responses of no force or effect!
As a Christian, I find the need to "hamstring" God's words by such a restriction, evidence of a need to DELIMIT GOD!… and!… by a group that professes belief in God! Simply put, your trading pixels, for God's testimony!… IS AN ILLOGICAL EXCHANGE! And… if your need to reduce pixels is about one's limited physical capacity to receive more detailed text… pray harder! And… if your need to reduce pixels is about not wanting to bore readers by way of perceived elaborate blogs… pray that your readers, will become more patient!
Please!… no emails!
The anon's here apparently believe that if the LDS church said "Don't drink poison–it will kill you!" then the first order of the day is to drink as much poison as possible and then blame the LDS church for their health issues. Newsflash: transgenderism is a mental disorder; pedophiles and perverts absolutely will take advantage of Obama's new dictatorial decree, and when the honor code is followed, you have a much greater chance of remaining safe.
Only leftists think that a girl who goes to a party dressed in a fishnet top, takes drugs and drinks 12 cans of beer, and then passes out for several hours is safer than the girl who stays sober, comes home at a reasonable time, never is alone with a man, and doesn't invite any males into her room.
Anon, you're saying that wanting privacy for girls in bathrooms, and protecting them from genuine predators, as intelligent societies still try to do all over the world, is somehow the same as blaming girls for men's libidos? And the same as torturing gays? And blaming rape victims? Where do you pick up these kind of views? I'm interested in knowing what reading materials, movies, or lyrics most shape your worldview.
To the anon who is flabbergasted that his or her 40-page masterpiece was not accepted as a comment here, the conspiracy against lengthy comments is not mine at all. It's all from Master Google, who allows no more than 4,096 characters per comment. I'm sorry you feel mistreated by that system, though I'm also surprised that you feel a limit on comment length is an attempt to "delimit God." Must have been quite an important post! But I also suspect that Google's policy may have just made life a little easier on some of us today.
Vance, I'm not quite sure I follow your point, but I do agree that there are great ironies in the treatment of women in our age. One of those ironies is that some people can contemplate the horror of violently and painfully dismembering a very young female body and proudly proclaim that as a huge advance in women's rights. Obama's extremist and callous stance on late-term abortions still horrifies me (e.g., in 1997, Obama voted in the Illinois Senate against SB 230, a bill designed to prevent partial-birth abortions). May God forgive us a nation for the inhumanity we have not only tolerated, but actively promoted.
Anon's info may come from the SL Tribune. See http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peculiarpeople/2016/05/mormonism-doesnt-have-a-monopoly-on-rape-culture-its-just-an-easy-target/ (Emily Belanger).
Jeff, perhaps you're not aware that predators will predate. They don't need to go into the restrooms and locker rooms of middle and high schools to do it. OTOH, there are vulnerable populations of kids with physical and mental disability who do need support and protection. Not so very many of them, perhaps. Most middle and high school won't find themselves called on to provide accommodation. But it's the very fact that they are such marginal parts of the population that will make them susceptible to bullying, humiliation, despair and suicide.
The rest is an inventory of the backward and rigid responses of the institutional and cultural LDS that make it unresponsive to the needs of people who don't conform and to sexuality in general. You may want to characterize my concerns as made up or the product of reading sensationalized material but the plain facts are that the church, in it's person as BYU, has failed to keep Mormon women safe. They have created a rape culture in the interest of preserving a PR image. And, they have persecuted at least one victim of rape and intimidated a number of other victims. They have as you put it "blah[ed]girls for men's libidos." You don't have to go to fringe literature to find this. It's been in the major newspapers and media of the Western world.
Likewise, the ridiculous and unhealthy focus on "modest" dress that shames elementary school children for exposed shoulders distorts their perception of their healthy bodies and nascent sexuality.
You may care to forget Evergreen but there are gay Mormon men who have committed suicide under the onslaught of messages that they were disordered and could and had an obligation to live straight lives. There are men who are still emotionally scarred by their experiences there. There are families what were shattered because gay Mormon men and women were pushed into straight marriages they couldn't sustain. There are states reeling from intrusion of the LDS into interfering with the civil rights of gay Americans.
All of these are things that have been explored in major media and on any number of faithful LDS blogs. They are part of the history and the practice of the institutional LDS. That much is beyond question, my friend.
The LDS culture surrounding sex in general and non-normative sex in particular is warped and unhealthy. Regardless of the fact that it doesn't fit the construct of the church and the church is inadequately prepared to deal with it. Right now iIn every single Mormon community, in every Mormon extended family, dozens and hundreds of people are hurting from LDS policies and mythologies. Parents and relatives are mourning people who took their lives needlessly. And you choose to wave the flag of the religious and political right that President Obama, in applying the protections of the US Constitution to protect a few hundred kids across the country, is the one showing misguided priorities.
If you want to protect women from predators empower them. Provide them with adequate numbers of first responders. Listen to them and support them when they've been victimized. Stop hyperventilating about what is NOT happening in high school and middle school bathrooms and locker rooms.
First, this is a post about government ignoring the Constitution to tell us how to run our bathrooms and locker rooms. It is not about your reasons for disagreeing with LDS moral codes or possible mistakes in dealing with victims at BYU. The safety of girls issue is the connection, I see, but your comments don't really fit the topic well. I prefer more engagement with the topic, and thus was surprised to see allegations of blaming girls and torturing gays when I am taking about bathroom privacy and the Constitution.
That said, the anti-Mormon ploy to cast BYU as having a rape culture is outrageous and vile. If you want your son to be taught to respect women and oppose the callous attitudes taught by porn, send him to BYU. If you want to decrease the odds of your daughter being pressured into sex at parties, in her co-ed sleeping quarters, etc., and want to decrease the odds of being intoxicated and exploited, or don't want her to feel like a loser if she isn't having sex like all the others on her floor, send her to BYU.
Sensitivity to victims is needed at all levels and every group will have gaps. But LDS bishops are given serious training on dealing with victims of abuse and it is based on compassion and helping them to not blame themselves. Whatever errors have happened, the teachings of the Church give young women real empowerment to say no and to have reasons to say no. The Church gives men reasons to respect women and control themselves. Parents can recognize BYU as one of the safest environments to send their children. How outrageous to slander it as a rape culture!
The official statement from BYU on the controversy you mention is worth considering. I believe there will be a genuine effort to understand how to improve HCO policies and training to better protect victims of abuse. This kind of review is healthy for all organizations.
Daniel Peterson's response is also worth noting.
Anon, could you tell me what you mean when you say Obama's unauthorized decree on bathrooms and locker rooms is about defending Constitutional rights? Which rights, and where in the Constitution? And where does it give the President such power, when all non-enumerated powers are to be left in the hands of the people or the States? Is it possible that by ignoring or side-stepping the Constitution to do something you and he think is good, that the actual Constitutional rights of others are being violated? Or does the rule of law not matter when there's something you want to achieve?
I'm also curious to know how you would explain to someone like James Madison or George Washington, if they came here to visit and check up on the latest news, exactly how it is that the document they took such pains to give us, with such efforta to limit the power of any one man or group, now, in your mind, justifies a unilateral decree from just one man, independent of the will of the legislative body and contrary to the will of many states and certainly most citizens, that overturns centuries of what used to be called "common sense"? Can you please explain how you read the Constitution, and how you would explain your methodology to its authors?
I'll expand a bit, Jeff. And thank you for the interesting topic!
You may or may not be aware, but right now there's a huge push to strip men of all their rights on college campuses. The "yes means yes" movement is an attempt to criminalize any attempt by men to have sex. (Funny, isn't it, how hysterical shrieking about Christians being in people's bedrooms has given way to demands for, well, the government to be in your bedroom, bathroom, and everywhere else). The "Yes means yes" law basically says that you are raping the girl unless you get her consent…. repeatedly. And she can revoke it at any time, including up to a year later, and you are then guilty of rape. In short, the male is guilty until proven innocent. And there are lots of women who are lying in wait, as it were, and have successfully destroyed men. The accusation alone is proof, and the college campuses have stripped men of the right to defend themselves, to speak, or even to know of the charges placed against them. It is star chamber territory.
This of course demonstrates the clear wisdom of BYU's honor code. When followed, it protects everyone. Now, there are lots of people who want to destroy BYU too, and despise the Honor Code precisely because it helps people keep their morals. We can see several of our Anon's are in that group. They genuinely seem to believe that women should be sluts without consequence, that men are guilty if accused, and that women are incapable of making decisions on their own.
Consider: We are told that college campuses are full of rape and racism and bigotry (the claim is that 1 in 5 women are raped at college); and that we need to protect women. And how do we protect women, who are being raped and assaulted at these stunning scales? Why, by demanding that they allow men to use their restrooms, showers, and so forth. Further, consider the left's argument: Women are being raped and assaulted at horrific levels of violence, allegedly, but we must all go to college for free. Well, maybe leftist run colleges are these places where women are treated so badly, but at BYU and other places with an effective honor code, women are respected. That means that they are smart enough to take responsibility for their own actions.
The whole "amnesty" idea is clearly an attempt to turn BYU into, say, Harvard. Consider: if an amnesty provision is in place, then there is no honor code anymore. A girl can do whatever she wants, and then claim, if caught, that the guy was assaulting her. She gets off scott free by merely making the accusation, the guy now faces legal charges that he has a strong chance of losing, and justice is destroyed. Once "amnesty" is in place, no doubt the amount of reported sexual assaults will skyrocket. Curious, though, how honor code investigations of girls will drop dramatically as well when they have a "blame men and get away with it" card.
The President is the chief law enforcement officer of the country for all of the country. The US Constitution is entirely about protecting the safety and persons of citizens and vulnerable people need that protection more than normative groups.
We have seen over the course of US history how willing states are to violate the civil rights of Americans on a number of pretexts. Most recently, the LDS was implicated in bringing huge resources of money and organization into denying basic civil rights to gay Americans. No doubt states like NC will want to behave emotionally to frighten people about the rights of transexual people. Eventually the Supreme Court will weigh in as it did in the case of CA's Prop 8 but, at the moment, the chief law enforcement officer of the country has stood up.
And, Vance, it's a little silly to bleat about the persecution of men in this case because transsexual people include people born with the genitals of males and females who identify as men and as women. Many of them who are adults have been living and dressing as the gender that makes sense to them for years. It's very possible you use rest rooms with such individuals and don't even realize it.
I have used a public restroom with someone who was, very obviously, cross dressing. I don't know if that person was transsexual or simply cross dressing. In any case, it was really no big deal. There were several women waiting for a stall and I didn't see anyone who was bent out of shape about it. We simply all waited for a stall, did our business and left with a story to tell.
Laws in this regard should not be changed precipitously but in the Constitutional way and after careful study. This has certainly not happened. There has been a rush to judgment. Temporary self-identification is problematic and subject to exploitation. Different viewpoints should be considered, like authorized amending of birth certificates, but the way Obama has gone about the matter through his surrogates is tyrannical. It can't be soon enough for the sake of the citizenry for this despot to leave office. How would you like it, Anon 1104 et al, if a right-wing POTUS you despise uses the power of the purse to change laws at the national level that you heartily disagree with? That is what is going on here, terrible dictatorial precedent (in a general sense), yet you ignore it because the tyranny is in the direction you prefer. But it won't always be that way, and tyranny will eventually crush some of your cherished beliefs too. Wake up and adhere to the full Constitution and not a perverted version of it, or your beliefs will also end up trampled one day.
Yes, when someone is being bullied or physically attacked, let's let the full process of the law play out.
In the recent case of Prop 8, passed in 2008, it took 5 years for the US Supreme Court to rule on it's constitutionality. Last year Kim Davis in KY was still defying the ruling and asking for a new one. So if there's an 8 or a 10 or a 12 year old kid whose whole psyche is developing and who is being bullied or attacked, let's spend 5 or 7 years getting a ruling on where they can go to the bathroom every blinking day of their life. And perhaps by the time that ruling comes they won't be so damaged that they're another suicide statistic. And I would hope that would resound with Mormons because the LDS youth contribution to suicide statistics exceeds the norm already.
I am pretty conservative on things like this–but there is also a need for compassion.
In a congregation I have been a part of is a brother who sincerely thinks he is a sister. S/he attends church periodically, and is trying to become more faithful. Good for her/him!
In all my years (a lot of them) s/he is the first. Admittedly, if there have been others, either they were invisible (hiding from church activity) or I was ignorant (perfectly possible). Still, this one case makes me want to be a tad more cautious.
Because of this single example (in my limited experience), I'm so grateful that there is an inspired and loving bishop who can advise this person. To the degree possible, I think that should probably be the approach for a school with a genuinely "transgendered" individual.
It doesn't take a lot of forethought to see that blanket statements (such as a nation-wide diktat) whose effect will be to open all restrooms to anyone, are clearly a really bad idea. In spite of some comments above to the contrary, this dictum enables *anyone* being able to CLAIM they are "transgendered" in to make it easier to get into the girls bathroom (or vice versa), or to defend their presence there after the fact. So, how will the legal system differentiate those who truly think they belong to the "wrong" sex from those that are "faking" it? If identity politics holds sway, there will be no recourse. None.
That is why this is such a source of concern for parents trying to protect their children. It is true that molesters will molest, but why create a venue for them to do so?
There are real, genuine cases of individuals with this challenge, and they should be handled with compassion. It is obvious to me that this dictum is not based in compassion, but in something else entirely–though its defenders will tell you otherwise.
There's a sick mania for the "noble" minority, for poor victims, a lunacy that thinks it's good that the feds are now blackmailing schools to change discriminatory bathroom policies to feelz policies. Sometime in the future… "Hey, I'm gonna commit suicide if I get a failing grade." Well then, we'd better get rid of discriminatory grading policies. Everyone passes. No grades because someone with a fragile psyche might kill themselves.
I do agree that there is a need for compassion in these matters. There is always a need for compassion for victims. Those who are genuinely transgender face terrible challenges and misunderstanding. The need for compassion and kindness is great in that area also. But compassion comes in various forms. Many are fooled by powerful people and groups who cynically exploit those individuals for their own purposes (political agendas, political payback, etc.) and will gladly ignore their most fundamental rights when expedient for their own gains. A dictate, a tax break, a media moment or whatever is viewed as ultimate compassion, while the "fix" may just be creating a new class of problems.
The apparent problems being discussed at BYU are of a nature that can be readily fixed. Rules can be clarified, leaders can be trained, problems can be understood and avoided, and progress WILL occur, because the leaders there are not about exploiting groups for their own power and popularity, but sincerely seek to do good, to make the campus safe, and to help young people have a wholesome, valuable, life-changing education. This is a culture that can self-correct and keep things safe. The foundation already there offers high moral standards, avoidance of pornography, no drinking (=no getting dates drunk), respect for both women and men, respect for privacy, etc. That is a foundation that greatly reduces rape risk and makes BYU one of the safest places for college students–and brings the ire of some very misguided folks.
Other universities have much further to go, IMHO. The culture that permeates many schools is one of permissiveness, of partying, of expecting dates to have sex, of roommates having sex, of sharing living areas with the opposite sex, of binge drinking, or professors mocking moral values, some classes even encouraging people to get naked, of having open encouragement to engage in sex such as Oberlin's shameful "sex week" and its related activities. In these campuses, there don't seem to be any adults protecting the kids. Porn abounds and thus callousness toward women abounds. The overwhelming pressure there is to give consent, consent, consent, or you're a pariah, or, ouch, a Christian/Mormon/Luddite. Guys get their way far too easily, with consent, and the few who go too far can be prosecuted, but the whole group of students has already been pushed too far with the pervasively immoral culture, a culture of promiscuity and compulsive consent that in effect is far more of a "rape culture" than anything at BYU. How extremists who claim they are all about "compassion" and protection of women can see a binge-drinking party school as a safer place than BYU is beyond me. It's a sign of seriously warped priorities.
Anon has explained his/her theory of the Constitution to justify the decree: "The President is the chief law enforcement officer of the country for all of the country. The US Constitution is entirely about protecting the safety and persons of citizens and vulnerable people need that protection more than normative groups."
Thanks, that helps me understand where you are coming from. To me it seems that your view of the President, then, is essentially that of King. If he can create or change law and execute them on his own accord, even those that should be matters of state and local policy, then he's a king, unconstrained by the specific content of the Constitution? Some folks really like the idea of kingly powers in the hands of a president, as long as he's giving them what they want. Are you ready to give those kind of powers to President Trump? Or shall we say, King Trump?
How extremists who claim they are all about "compassion" and protection of women can see a binge-drinking party school as a safer place than BYU is beyond me.
Actually, from those claiming BYU has a "rape culture" I didn't see any comparison made between BYU and any other universities/colleges. I seems their only objective is to attack, not engage in reasonable, balanced discussion.
I wonder how BYU might actually compare with any other institution they may care to name in terms of stated and enforced policies in this area, if such information is available.
Other universities have much further to go, IMHO. The culture that permeates many schools is one of permissiveness, of partying, of expecting dates to have sex, of roommates having sex, of sharing living areas with the opposite sex, of binge drinking, or professors mocking moral values, some classes even encouraging people to get naked, of having open encouragement to engage in sex such as Oberlin's shameful "sex week" and its related activities. In these campuses, there don't seem to be any adults protecting the kids. Porn abounds and thus callousness toward women abounds. The overwhelming pressure there is to give consent, consent, consent, or you're a pariah, or, ouch, a Christian/Mormon/Luddite. Guys get their way far too easily, with consent, and the few who go too far can be prosecuted, but the whole group of students has already been pushed too far with the pervasively immoral culture, a culture of promiscuity and compulsive consent that in effect is far more of a "rape culture" than anything at BYU. How extremists who claim they are all about "compassion" and protection of women can see a binge-drinking party school as a safer place than BYU is beyond me. It's a sign of seriously warped priorities.
I agree Jeff. You do a great job drawing attention to a very serious, very real, and very overlooked problem.