Who is human?
When I was reading the St. Petersburg edition of the Tampa Tribune on November 30, 2015, I was eager to read the article on page 8 headed, “Wis. School nixes book on transgender girl.” I wanted to read the rationale given for taking this action. According to the article: “The Mount Horeb Area School District (in Wisconsin) released a statement Wednesday saying it will not proceed with its planned reading of the book, ‘I am Jazz’…Last week, the principal of Mount Horeb Primary Center sent a letter to parents saying the book would be read and discussed because the school has a student who identified as a girl but was born with male anatomy…. We believe all students deserve respect and support regardless of their gender identify and expression, and the best way to foster that respect and support is through educating students about the issue of being transgender,” the letter said.
“The Florida-based Liberty Counsel group threatened to sue, saying it was contacted by concerned parents…. the group contended that reading the book would violate parental rights.”
Oh my I thought. Who is this Liberty Counsel? According to their web page:
“Natural laws are laws that transcend time, cultures and political institutions. The Declaration of Independence recognizes those laws as “laws of nature and of nature’s God."
The first rights recognized by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution are the freedom of religion and speech. Liberty Counsel advances these liberties on behalf of students, teachers, parents, pastors, churches and individuals in their homes, at work, and in public spaces.
Liberty Counsel advocates for students who want to pray and thank God in their schools and help Christians gain equal access to host events in public facilities. We protect the right of ministers to speak the truth without fear of government censors and fight for those who are at risk of losing their religious freedom. (lc.org)
As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit “grassroots” lobbying organization, Liberty Counsel Action advances religious and civil liberties, the sanctity of human life, the family, limited and responsible government, national security, and support for Israel. In other words, Liberty Counsel Action adheres to the original four tenets of The Moral Majority, which are: Pro-America, Pro-Life, Pro-Family and Pro-Moral. These tenets also include recognizing and upholding the special bond that has always existed between the United States and Israel.
Today Liberty Counsel Action is breaking new ground as a part of the Freedom Federation, joining forces with other pro-family organizations to bring together millions of Americans across racial, ethnic and generational lines united around our core values. (Libertycounselaction.org)
Although I was not familiar with Liberty Counsel by that name I am certainly familiar with the parent organization, The Moral Majority, that was started by The Reverend Jerry Falwell.
It is always interesting to me that under the guise of religious liberty a group of people believe that it is their right to limit the education of children to those issues and/or “facts’ which support their beliefs. It is also interesting to me that one of their moral concerns is allowing their children to be educated about diverse members of their community. As stated above, the members of the Liberty Counsel support the “sanctity of human life, the family, limited and responsible government, national security, and support for Israel. “
Apparently religious liberty does not extend to those who do not believe the same as those who adhere to the very limited and particular beliefs of this group of people. Despite the fact that there are a great many concepts of a divine being and even within the Christian church there are many different understandings of what is moral or Christian, only this group of people have a direct line to a God who in their mind is “ the only God” who apparently is on the side of Israel and condones their violent behavior while condemning that of the Palestinians; a God who thinks only heterosexual, conservative Christians are sacred; a God who only recognizes marriage as between a male and a female; a God who very clearly defines what is a responsible government and who supports the security of the United States no matter what their behavior.
Perhaps I am misunderstand them, but their action with regard to the children in the Wisconsin school being taught not to mistreat kids different than them certainly seems to validate my fears. If the student born with male anatomy but knows that she is female is not one of the sacred ones then it seems to follow that they have no rights at all. Apparently this child is a mistake created by the devil. If, in fact, the child is created by a God of one who understands, then that child would be sacred and, thus, must be treated as sacred – not as we wish that child to be but as they are.
If I follow the laws of basic logic, which I remember from my college class, the following should be true:
· Human life is sacred.
· Only heterosexual, Christian children are human.
· GLBT children are not Christian or heterosexual.
· GLBT children are not human.
· GLBT children are not sacred.
· Only Sacred children are under the protection or even care of God.
· GLBT children are not under the protection of God.
· Since God does not protect GLBT children, they are not human or sacred and they do not have to be treated as such.
We have previously heard this logic. According to my memory (we know it can be faulty) at some point in The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels the term human is redefined. Historically Mr. Marx was an advocate for those who were mistreated or in Christian terms, “the least of these.” How then does one use that base to justify millions of people? The answer is simple - redefine what constitutes being human. If we assume that it is only at a certain point in development that people attain the human status then it is not immoral or amoral to destroy those who may appear human but who are not. In Mein Kamp we see a similar logic. In fact, many including physicians who had sworn to the Hippocratic Oath found a way to justify killing all those who are designated as less than human. This included not only the Jews but also many others:
“Jews in the camps were identified by a yellow star sewn onto their prison uniforms, a perversion of the Jewish Star of David symbol. After 1939 and with some variation from camp to camp, the categories of prisoners were easily identified by a marking system combining a colored inverted triangle with lettering. The badges sewn onto prisoner uniforms enabled SS guards to identify the alleged grounds for incarceration.
Criminals were marked with green inverted triangles, political prisoners with red, "asocials" (including Roma, nonconformists, vagrants, and other groups) with black or—in the case of Roma in some camps—brown triangles. Homosexuals were identified with pink triangles and Jehovah's Witnesses with purple ones. Non-German prisoners were identified by the first letter of the German name for their home country, which was sewn onto their badge. The two triangles forming the Jewish star badge would both be yellow unless the Jewish prisoner was included in one of the other prisoner categories. A Jewish political prisoner, for example, would be identified with a yellow triangle beneath a red triangle.(goggle Nazi Badges).”
Robert Jay Lifton in his book, The Nazi Doctors, points out that doctors were able to justify signing the death certificates in the camp by comparing the state to the body. The reasoning was that sometimes one has to amputate a limb to save a patient and people are like the limbs of the state. Thus, they are not humans. They are a diseased limb.
Of course, most of us know that the initial group who were identified as non-human was the mentally ill. In both Germany and countries such as the United States, there was increasing support for sterilizing the mentally ill. It was not many steps beyond that to think of the mentally ill as non-human. The sad truth is that much of the carnage by we humans of other humans has been justified by deciding that some are deserving of the status of humans and, thus, as children of God and some are not. Certainly religion was used to justify the mistreatment and killing of slaves in this country.
This sort of thinking is very dangerous and, yet, all of us engage in defining each other and ourselves in terms of the labels we assign. We must be very careful about doing this. Sacred human beings who sincerely believe that they have the only access to the divine and that they know who is deserving of being under the protection of the God, who orders the sanctity of humans, need to be honored as sacred. Certainly, I believe that the members of the Liberty Counsel need to be treated with love and compassion. At the same time, I do not agree to allow them to bully me into mistreating others or to redefine who is deserving of being treated as sacred.
The article in the newspaper was not particularly noticeable among the stories of we humans killing each other in cities in the United States, in Syria, Iraq, Africa, France, and many other countries. Yet, the killing of all these people always begins with labeling those we are going to kill as something less than human. Always!
Written November 30, 2015
When I was reading the St. Petersburg edition of the Tampa Tribune on November 30, 2015, I was eager to read the article on page 8 headed, “Wis. School nixes book on transgender girl.” I wanted to read the rationale given for taking this action. According to the article: “The Mount Horeb Area School District (in Wisconsin) released a statement Wednesday saying it will not proceed with its planned reading of the book, ‘I am Jazz’…Last week, the principal of Mount Horeb Primary Center sent a letter to parents saying the book would be read and discussed because the school has a student who identified as a girl but was born with male anatomy…. We believe all students deserve respect and support regardless of their gender identify and expression, and the best way to foster that respect and support is through educating students about the issue of being transgender,” the letter said.
“The Florida-based Liberty Counsel group threatened to sue, saying it was contacted by concerned parents…. the group contended that reading the book would violate parental rights.”
Oh my I thought. Who is this Liberty Counsel? According to their web page:
“Natural laws are laws that transcend time, cultures and political institutions. The Declaration of Independence recognizes those laws as “laws of nature and of nature’s God."
The first rights recognized by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution are the freedom of religion and speech. Liberty Counsel advances these liberties on behalf of students, teachers, parents, pastors, churches and individuals in their homes, at work, and in public spaces.
Liberty Counsel advocates for students who want to pray and thank God in their schools and help Christians gain equal access to host events in public facilities. We protect the right of ministers to speak the truth without fear of government censors and fight for those who are at risk of losing their religious freedom. (lc.org)
As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit “grassroots” lobbying organization, Liberty Counsel Action advances religious and civil liberties, the sanctity of human life, the family, limited and responsible government, national security, and support for Israel. In other words, Liberty Counsel Action adheres to the original four tenets of The Moral Majority, which are: Pro-America, Pro-Life, Pro-Family and Pro-Moral. These tenets also include recognizing and upholding the special bond that has always existed between the United States and Israel.
Today Liberty Counsel Action is breaking new ground as a part of the Freedom Federation, joining forces with other pro-family organizations to bring together millions of Americans across racial, ethnic and generational lines united around our core values. (Libertycounselaction.org)
Although I was not familiar with Liberty Counsel by that name I am certainly familiar with the parent organization, The Moral Majority, that was started by The Reverend Jerry Falwell.
It is always interesting to me that under the guise of religious liberty a group of people believe that it is their right to limit the education of children to those issues and/or “facts’ which support their beliefs. It is also interesting to me that one of their moral concerns is allowing their children to be educated about diverse members of their community. As stated above, the members of the Liberty Counsel support the “sanctity of human life, the family, limited and responsible government, national security, and support for Israel. “
Apparently religious liberty does not extend to those who do not believe the same as those who adhere to the very limited and particular beliefs of this group of people. Despite the fact that there are a great many concepts of a divine being and even within the Christian church there are many different understandings of what is moral or Christian, only this group of people have a direct line to a God who in their mind is “ the only God” who apparently is on the side of Israel and condones their violent behavior while condemning that of the Palestinians; a God who thinks only heterosexual, conservative Christians are sacred; a God who only recognizes marriage as between a male and a female; a God who very clearly defines what is a responsible government and who supports the security of the United States no matter what their behavior.
Perhaps I am misunderstand them, but their action with regard to the children in the Wisconsin school being taught not to mistreat kids different than them certainly seems to validate my fears. If the student born with male anatomy but knows that she is female is not one of the sacred ones then it seems to follow that they have no rights at all. Apparently this child is a mistake created by the devil. If, in fact, the child is created by a God of one who understands, then that child would be sacred and, thus, must be treated as sacred – not as we wish that child to be but as they are.
If I follow the laws of basic logic, which I remember from my college class, the following should be true:
· Human life is sacred.
· Only heterosexual, Christian children are human.
· GLBT children are not Christian or heterosexual.
· GLBT children are not human.
· GLBT children are not sacred.
· Only Sacred children are under the protection or even care of God.
· GLBT children are not under the protection of God.
· Since God does not protect GLBT children, they are not human or sacred and they do not have to be treated as such.
We have previously heard this logic. According to my memory (we know it can be faulty) at some point in The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels the term human is redefined. Historically Mr. Marx was an advocate for those who were mistreated or in Christian terms, “the least of these.” How then does one use that base to justify millions of people? The answer is simple - redefine what constitutes being human. If we assume that it is only at a certain point in development that people attain the human status then it is not immoral or amoral to destroy those who may appear human but who are not. In Mein Kamp we see a similar logic. In fact, many including physicians who had sworn to the Hippocratic Oath found a way to justify killing all those who are designated as less than human. This included not only the Jews but also many others:
“Jews in the camps were identified by a yellow star sewn onto their prison uniforms, a perversion of the Jewish Star of David symbol. After 1939 and with some variation from camp to camp, the categories of prisoners were easily identified by a marking system combining a colored inverted triangle with lettering. The badges sewn onto prisoner uniforms enabled SS guards to identify the alleged grounds for incarceration.
Criminals were marked with green inverted triangles, political prisoners with red, "asocials" (including Roma, nonconformists, vagrants, and other groups) with black or—in the case of Roma in some camps—brown triangles. Homosexuals were identified with pink triangles and Jehovah's Witnesses with purple ones. Non-German prisoners were identified by the first letter of the German name for their home country, which was sewn onto their badge. The two triangles forming the Jewish star badge would both be yellow unless the Jewish prisoner was included in one of the other prisoner categories. A Jewish political prisoner, for example, would be identified with a yellow triangle beneath a red triangle.(goggle Nazi Badges).”
Robert Jay Lifton in his book, The Nazi Doctors, points out that doctors were able to justify signing the death certificates in the camp by comparing the state to the body. The reasoning was that sometimes one has to amputate a limb to save a patient and people are like the limbs of the state. Thus, they are not humans. They are a diseased limb.
Of course, most of us know that the initial group who were identified as non-human was the mentally ill. In both Germany and countries such as the United States, there was increasing support for sterilizing the mentally ill. It was not many steps beyond that to think of the mentally ill as non-human. The sad truth is that much of the carnage by we humans of other humans has been justified by deciding that some are deserving of the status of humans and, thus, as children of God and some are not. Certainly religion was used to justify the mistreatment and killing of slaves in this country.
This sort of thinking is very dangerous and, yet, all of us engage in defining each other and ourselves in terms of the labels we assign. We must be very careful about doing this. Sacred human beings who sincerely believe that they have the only access to the divine and that they know who is deserving of being under the protection of the God, who orders the sanctity of humans, need to be honored as sacred. Certainly, I believe that the members of the Liberty Counsel need to be treated with love and compassion. At the same time, I do not agree to allow them to bully me into mistreating others or to redefine who is deserving of being treated as sacred.
The article in the newspaper was not particularly noticeable among the stories of we humans killing each other in cities in the United States, in Syria, Iraq, Africa, France, and many other countries. Yet, the killing of all these people always begins with labeling those we are going to kill as something less than human. Always!
Written November 30, 2015
RSS Feed