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.
U.S. Dept. of Education
The Department of Education will issue a letter today which provides guidance to schools about their understanding of prevailing civil rights laws in connection with transgender issues; the quote is from that letter.
Russell Moore, a Godly Man in desperate need of a P.R. boost, is especially livid.
Absolutely unbelievable.
Obama Administration to Issue Decree on Transgender Access to School Restrooms https://t.co/mUGAKWMv7V
— Russell Moore (@drmoore) May 13, 2016
And that's especially true if one had said it would happen, as this, by executive decree. Just a stunning misuse of power.
— Russell Moore (@drmoore) May 13, 2016
Well.
For starters, this is not an executive order. This letter is guidance from a Cabinet department, which it is supposed to provide, and that guidance is consistent with the only federal court decision addressing the questions; more and similar cases are in the pipeline. Moore et. al. can mutter darkly about the ‘Obama Administration,’ as if that explains everything, but the uncomplicated truth is that judicial scrutiny of transgender rights was inevitable.
It was probably hastened by the evangelical right’s substitution of transgenders for gays as the Locus Of All Evil following their loss in Obergefell, but it’s unlikely the outcome would have been different.
Most of these battles, and the needless pain they cause, arise directly out of the millennia-old marketing lie that the Bible is a communiqué directly from an Invisible Friend who lives in the sky, and inerrant. It is neither, and it’s time for those of us who know better to stop deferring to those who trust that childish nonsense.