Obama’s Transgender Tyranny

By: American Decency Staff

News broke late last night that the Obama administration is issuing an edict today requiring every public school in the nation to allow students who identify as transgender to use the bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers of their choice.  Schools that refuse to comply have been threatened with the loss of federal funding and/or face discrimination lawsuits. 

This is tyranny, my friends.

The administration states this directive doesn’t have the force of law behind it; yet when schools are being virtually blackmailed to fall in line – it may not be law, but it is extortion. 

As dictatorial edicts are issued by an out of control executive branch, it proves we have lost the authority of the Constitution and the balance of powers. Where is the outrage from the legislative branch which is having their authority to make law undermined as President Obama instead creates it out of thin air? 

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement:

"Once again the Obama administration is going beyond the limits of their constitutional authority to rewrite laws legally adopted by Congress. Under the guise of 'protecting students from discrimination,' these federal agencies are using the bully pulpit to strip parents and local school districts of the right to provide a safe learning environment for their children.

"Parents should demand that school boards not sacrifice the safety of the children out of fear of losing federal funding, which on average only amounts to about nine cents of every educational dollar. It is also time for the Republican leadership in Congress to act and rein in this administration. Bottom line, the president's decree should be resisted with every legal and moral instrument we have available to us in this country.

"If the American people do not speak up now on an issue like this, there's no limit to what President Obama's administration, or future liberal presidents, will be emboldened to do."

Today letters are being sent to every public school district signed by officials from the Department of Justice and the Department of Education issuing this decree.

The letter states in part:  “A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so.”

It goes on to inform school officials that “to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex requires schools to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities even in circumstances in which other students, parents, or community members raise objections or concerns.  As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”

Not only does this letter create a “civil right” and a new “class” of persons that does not exist under law, it negates not just the discomfort, but also the safety, of girls (and boys) who will be forced to shower and change with those of the opposite sex.

In addition to a direct attack upon the privacy, modesty, and safety of students, it also usurps the authority of local communities and states to set educational policies as they see fit.

Already some state officials are speaking out against this directive.  Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, had this to say:

“President Obama, in the dark of the night – without consulting Congress, without consulting educators, without consulting parents – decides to issue an executive order … forcing transgender policies on schools and on parents who clearly don’t want it.”

And some school officials have already voiced their opinion of the letter being sent.  Rodney Canvass, superintendent of Port Neches-Groves, Texas made it clear where the president’s letter was going – “straight to the paper shredder,” he stated.

Lt. Gov. Patrick went on to predict:  “This will be the beginning of the end of the public school system as we know it.”  Indeed, as parents are already crying foul, they are also vowing to pull their kids from public school and choose home school or private schools as educational options.

Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) strongly stated:  “I believe the Obama administration is now directly responsible for endangering our students,” and encouraged Tennessee school officials “to continue following their consciences.”  Black also stated that:  “States like Tennessee should be able to make these decisions for themselves without fear of reprisal from a heavy-handed federal government. …”

The Obama administration is counting on the masses to acquiesce.  This is how culture wars are lost – as we individually and corporately keep quiet and conform.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote as those around him kept silent as another tyrannical regime had its way:  “Not to speak is to speak.  Not to act is to act.” 

How does a culture lose its moral courage?  Al Mohler, president of the Southern Theological Seminary, explains:

“This is where Christians also have to understand that a loss of moral courage points to a more fundamental loss of theological courage and of conviction, because the Christian worldview tells us that it is that conviction that produces courage. Courage means literally to take heart. It means that the heart is emboldened to do the right thing, to act where otherwise it would not act, to speak where otherwise it would not speak. Courage in the Bible is described as acting and thinking rightly, but it is the acting rightly that follows the thinking rightly. And for the Christian that means understanding that theological conviction produces what the Christian would understand to be courage in a biblical sense. But that also points to the opposite. Where there is no such theological conviction, you can’t expect the courage to survive.”

Will this attack upon the privacy and safety of our children ‘embolden us to do the right thing, to act where otherwise we would not act’– or will we roll over and accept this transgender decree?  We have seen where moral cowardice has led.  It’s past time for some moral courage.

Todd Starnes states better than I can what our choice entails:

“But now the country stands at the edge of a great moral abyss. And we must ask ourselves — do we defy the president and save the nation or do we keep the peace and sacrifice our children?”

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