Since I believe dialogue with those who hold views different from mine is important in this diverse culture, I often respond to comments on IFI’s Facebook page from dissenters. Here is a recent conversation I had with two women, Melanie Silver and Keely Wells. Since their comments represent commonly held beliefs, it behooves conservatives not merely to be aware of them but to know how to respond to them.
In the service of helping equip IFI readers in that task, here is our conversation (all errors were in the original FB conversation):
Melanie Silver: I was just reading the agenda on your page. So how does the LGBTQ “agenda ” hurt everyone?
Laurie Higgins: The “LGBTQ” agenda harms everyone in many ways.
It promotes the false assumption that homoeroticism is morally and ontologically equivalent to heterosexuality.
It was responsible for the destruction of marriage through the imposition by five Justices of the view that marriage has no intrinsic connection to sexual differentiation.
Many homosexual men do not believe that sexual monogamy is a necessary or good part of marriage, and even many homosexuals believe that their view of sexual monogamy will eventually transform even heterosexual marriages.
The “LGBTQ” agenda has led to the commodification of children as homosexuals in intrinsically sterile unions believe they are entitled to procure children.
The “LGBTQ” agenda has led to co-ed restrooms, locker rooms and shelters. The “LGBTQ” agenda has led to the homosexualization of government schools, including even kindergartens in which government employees teach other people’s children to affirm homosexuality and gender confusion.
The “LGBTQ” agenda has resulted in minors being given sterility-inducing cross-sex hormones and having their bodies surgically mutilated in a futile attempt to become the other sex. So while minors can access medical help to mutilate their bodies in an effort to reject their unwanted biological sex, laws in several states prohibit minors from accessing medical help in rejecting their unwanted “sexual orientation.”
The “LGBTQ” agenda has led to the most dramatic erosion of First Amendment protections in the history of this country.
Keely Wells: Where’s YOUR sense of live and let live?
Laurie: Who is it that demands that Christian bakers, florists, and photographers make products and provide services for a type of event that violates their deeply held beliefs? It’s not conservatives, and such imperial commands do not reflect a “live and let live” philosophy.
Who insisted on jettisoning sexual differentiation from the legal definition of marriage, thereby imposing on all of the country, their belief that sexual differentiation is irrelevant to marriage. Yep, it’s the “live and let live” crowd.
And what about women who want to share private spaces with only women? Will Leftists allow them to “live and let live,” or will they force them to share restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, and showers with persons of the opposite sex?
Who is coming into public schools insisting that all children be taught Leftist assumptions about homoeroticism and gender dysphoria? These indoctrinators hold a life philosophy about as far from “live and let live” as one can get.
And where is the “live and let live” philosophy when it comes to “unwanted” humans in the womb? Do liberals advocate that society should let live these humans?
Melanie Silver: gee, i dont know where you get your info, but i have never encountered any of this. iam a straight woman, married with 2 sons. schools teach nothing about gay sex in sex ed. if you have a business you deal with the public, therefore that means everyone, if you dont like it dont go into business. they arent forcing people to share any space with the opposite sex. if you mean transgender then you are way off. as far as abortion, if you dont have a vagina, you have no business legislating anything about it and if you do have one and are for laws against womens healthcare, you are a hypocrite. you care for the unborn, but what about after they are born and need food, clothing and shelter. thats when people like you disappear. just about everything you said is what the alt right is doing so dont go preaching to me this bullsh*t about LBGTQ AGENDA. you go look in the mirror
Laurie: In many schools, sex education does discuss homosexuality, as do many bullying-prevention programs. And health classes discuss homosexuality under “social and emotional learning.” High school English classes teach any number of novels and plays that affirm homosexuality. And social studies classes study resources that affirm homosexuality.
The business owners who have been sued do, indeed, serve everyone, but they have no moral obligation to provide goods and services for types of events that violate their consciences. The bakers and florists and now calligraphers who have been sued serve homosexuals. What they refuse to do is provide their goods and services for a type of event they have never provided goods and services for: same-sex faux-marriages, which are the antithesis of actual marriages.
Yes, gender-dysphoric people who are attempting to masquerade as the sex they wish they were are attempting to force their way into opposite-sex restrooms, locker rooms, and shelters.
Men have just as much right to speak out against feticide as women do, just as men have as much right to speak out against female genital mutilation as women do. Slaughtering unborn humans is a human rights issue. And slaughtering unborn humans is the antithesis of “healthcare.”
Do Leftists actually know what goes on in crisis pregnancy centers? These centers provide adoption services for those women who feel unable or unwilling to care for a child. They provide for the physical needs of new mothers, including providing cribs, strollers, sheets, diapers and clothing. They provide parenting classes for new parents–all free of charge. So the tiresome Leftist claim that abortion opponents “disappear” after babies are born is either a profoundly ignorant claim or a bald-faced lie.
Melanie Silver: A transgender child is not interested in anything in a bathroom except going pee. Restrooms have stalls so no one sees anything. All genders share bathrooms at home. how will you know if the person in the stall next to you is transgender, unless you look which make you the pervert. its people like you who are so against anything that doesnt conform to their own twisted view of the world that they try to push it on everyone. and if you tell me god said so, i have a mental hospital i can recommend because you are delusional sex and gender are 2 different things. several societies subscribe to more than 2 genders. there are female to male transgendered people who share these spaces with cis people as well. the only reason you are getting your knickers in a twist over this is because of a fictional book [i.e., the Bible] that has a bunch of stories that contradict each other. only when the parents brainwash their kids into hating is when the problems start
Laurie: At home, bathrooms are shared by close family members. They are co-ed only until later elementary school. By about 3rd or 4th grade, sisters and brothers no longer want to share bathrooms except for teeth-brushing or hair-combing.
You asked how will I know if the person in the stall next to me is “transgender.” I think what you mean is how will I know if the person in the stall next to me is a man or a woman? Well, women used to be able to trust that everyone in restrooms or locker rooms with them or their daughters were persons of the same sex. But no more.
How will you know if the man in the restroom or locker room with you is gender dysphoric or not, and what possible difference should it make to women if the man walking through their locker rooms likes his penis or not? You do know that those who choose to identify as “trans” don’t need to cross-dress, cross-sex hormone-dope, or be surgically mutilated in order to access women’s private spaces.
If objective sex is irrelevant when it comes to spaces in which humans engage in intimate bodily activities, then why not make all restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, and semi-private hospital rooms co-ed for everyone? Why allow only gender-dysphoric men into women’s restrooms and locker rooms? Why not allow “cisgender” men in as well? Doesn’t allowing gender-dysphoric men to use women’s restrooms while prohibiting “cisgender” men from doing likewise constitute discrimination based on “gender identity”?
So, if sex and gender are two different things, with sex being an immutable objective phenomenon and gender being a subjective (often fluid phenomenon), why should restroom, locker room, shelter, and semi-private hospital rooms correspond to “gender identity” as opposed to objective, immutable sex?
If separate stalls provide sufficient privacy to separate objective boys from objective girls, then why don’t separate stalls provide sufficient privacy to separate objective boys from objective boys who wish they were girls?
If gender-dysphoric boys should not be required to use restrooms with those who don’t share their “gender identity,” why should “cisgender” girls or boys be forced to use restrooms with those whose sex they don’t share?
The reality is most women don’t want to do their business in a stall next to an unfamiliar, unrelated man doing his. This natural and good feeling of modesty and desire for privacy derives from sexual differentiation and is the reason we have single-sex multiple occupancy restrooms virtually everywhere.
Neither Keely Wells nor Melanie Silver responded to my questions, but I’m used to that.
Read more recent articles from Laurie:
New Trier High School Avoids Diversity Like the Plague
Highlights Magazine for Children Affirms Homoeroticism
Cub Scouts Reject Girl Who Wishes She Were a Boy
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