The Patriot Post® · We Must Defy Obama's Transgender Decree — No Matter the Cost

By Todd Starnes ·
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/42572-we-must-defy-obamas-transgender-decree-no-matter-the-cost-2016-05-15

The Obama administration declared on May 9th that forcing people to use bathroom facilities based on their God-given plumbing was state-sponsored discrimination.

Four days later they dropped an even bigger cultural bombshell.

The president issued a directive requiring every public school in the nation to accommodate transgender students under Title IX guidelines.

Boys who identify as girls and vice versa must be allowed to use the bathrooms and locker rooms and shower stalls of their choosing. They must also be allowed to play on the sports teams of their choosing.

School districts that dare defy the administration’s directives could face lawsuits and lose millions of dollars in federal funding. Resistance, in other words, is futile.

“There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.

I warned you in my book, “God Less America,” that the fight over transgenderism would be the next battleground. And here we are — a nation where boys who identify as girls have more rights than girls who were born biological girls.

“It’s an outrageous attack on our Creator Himself, upon human sexuality and morality and a further advancement of the flagrant attack on religious freedom in our culture,” Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd told me.

The leader of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination said the president’s decree is an extreme overreach by the federal government and he called on Christians to speak out.

“Sooner or later we have to determine that enough is enough,” he said. “It’s not going to change until Christians get involved in this battle.”

Donald Trump was asked to weigh in on “Fox & Friends” — should boys use the boy’s room?

“Right now I just don’t have an opinion,” he told the morning show hosts. “I would like the state’s to make that decision.”

You don’t have an opinion? How about some moral clarity, Mr. Trump? How about standing up for the privacy and safety of women and children?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott vowed to fight the Obama administration’s decree, telling a gathering of Republicans, “Obama is turning bathrooms into courtroom issues.”

“Our country is in crisis and Texas must lead the way forward,” he said.

Abbott said he is working alongside the embattled governor of North Carolina “and we are going to fight back.”

One of the most forceful rebukes came from Tennessee Congresswoman Diane Black.

“I believe the Obama administration is now directly responsible for endangering our students,” she said. “It is worth nothing that this directive does not carry the force of law — and I would encourage Tennessee school officials to continue following their consciences.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told me Congress must intervene to stop what he called an imperial president.

“If the president chooses to go forward with this outrageous order, then congress should begin impeachment proceedings,” he said.

Perkins said the decree should be “resisted with ever legal and moral instrument we have available to us in this country.”

“Every parent, every school board in America should absolutely refuse to sacrifice the safety of their children for the threat of taking away nine federal pennies that make up every educational dollar,” he said.

Resist! That’s the message from Penny Young Nance, president of Concerned Women for America.

“The left always uses children to accomplish its goals of social reengineering,” she said. “The adults closest to these children should decide what’s best for all the children in the school. Safety and kindness should be the guiding principles, not threats from the bullies in Washington.”

The time has come for all Americans to stand up and defy this president’s immoral agenda. If losing federal funding is the price we must pay to protect women and children, then so be it.

We will not betray what we know to be true for the government’s 30 pieces of silver.

The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned us about a time such as this. Not to speak is to speak, he once said. Not to act is to act.

Far too long American pulpits have remained silent on controversial cultural issues. Preachers don’t want to rock the boat. Parishioners don’t want to cause trouble. Far too long society has turned a blind eye as President Obama fundamentally transformed our nation.

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?