May 1
To Luke Griffo and his blog article on his claims that the Transgendered Movement has a disdain for women. This article was posted on the blog of the Redeemer Church of South Hills.
The above article attempts to portray the Transgender part of LGBT movement as being monolithic. History shows that sometimes attempts to so describe a group are efforts to make a scapegoat of that given group. The above article does attempt to paint the LGBT movement as a monolith and it does so with a combination of wholly inadequate documentation and a misunderstanding of the thinking involved.
The following quote comes from the LGBT Foundation website. It challenges the claim made above that says that a key part of transgenderism is a 'disdain' for women (see https://lgbt.foundation/whatisawoman ):
'A woman is someone who identifies as a woman. Many women are cisgender (often written as cis), and this means the gender they were assigned at birth matches their gender identity. Some women are transgender (often written as trans), and this means that the gender they were assigned at birth didn't match their gender identity.
Cis women and trans women are women – it’s as simple as that.'
Thus the problem with the quote from the above article is that it takes a single quote from one source and generalizes from that quote a view of women by the whole group.
That is not to say that there are no problems with what the source, cited by the article, says. For example, one page says:
'Acknowledging the existence of female biology is transphobic or cissexist'
That statement has its mirror image held by many conservatives. That mirror image says that the only factor that is involved in gender identity is the biological factors that can be observed. The problem with that view is that sometimes,, even what is observed can be indeterminate regarding a person's biological sex.. Another problem is that the biology on the outside does not always match the messages that the biology on the inside is giving a person. Also, there are social and psychological factors that contribute to one's gender identity.
Citing Genesis 1:27 has a limited effect here because nature, along with man, fell and became corrupted when Adam sinned. And so Genesis 1:27 gives Christians a partial view of people. In addition, society also consists of unbelievers and Church history does not always reflect kindly on how Christians, including Christian leaders, have treated women.
The above article overstates the Christian objections to transgenderism. And if we want to present a credible witness to the world, including the LGBT Movement, we need to be fair and accurate in describing groups that we oppose. The above article fails in both ways in describing the Transgender part of the LGBT Movement.
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To Heidelblog and Mary Harrington and the portion of her article quoted by Heidelblog on the assertion that there are only 2 genders.
Mary Harrington's full article can be found at:
https://compactmag.com/article/i-was-canceled-for-saying-sex-is-real
What is missing in the above quote are the details. When it says children are having their reproductive organs removed, which children is she referring to? How many? What are their ages? And why, since surgery for those under 18 is done under special review, was the surgery seen as necessary?
In addition, gender affirming care often includes medical treatments that are reversible as well as care that is neither surgical nor medical. So why paint gender affirming care with a broad brush and suggest that some things happen more often than they do? And why not also reference the times where gender affirming care relieves depression which, because of its ties to suicide, could be life saving? Why not give a more complete picture of gender dysphoria?
The title of the article might suggest why. In order to fit within the confines of Genesis 1:27, we Christians can only admit to two biological sexes, and genders because genders are often conflated with biological sex by both us religiously conservative Christians and the LGBT movement. Regarding biological sex, there are 3 sexes: male, female, and intersex. Note that irreversible surgery must be performed on many who are intersex to conform them to either the male or female sex. However, regarding gender identity, which deals with the psychological, some Native American tribes recognized up to 5 genders. My guess is that Harrington recognizes only two genders: male and female.
See, it is one thing for the Church to hold to Biblical standards on sex and gender. We must do that. But to impose those standards on society should be considered an overreach especially since we religiously conservative Christians ignore the newest revelations that medical science provides about gender dysphoria. As with homosexuality, we simply do not know all of the biological contributors to gender identity and dysphoria. And so we run the risk of repeating the Church's historical mistake when it first adamantly rejected Heliocentrism.
We should note that while many religiously conservative Christian leaders and influencers looked at the 2015 SCOTUS Obergefell decision on same-sex marriage as a sign that we Christians have lost the Culture Wars, almost the opposite took place. That SCOTUS decision has only provided a spark for some of us to renew the fighting of those wars. Such a decision will not serve the reputation of the Gospel well. That is because we are trying too hard to say too much in order to turn the tide of the Culture Wars. And trying too hard to win, as most athletes can tell us, produces mistakes some of which can cost one the game. And perhaps this is a game that we even shouldn't be playing because, in a democratic society, the playing this game and fighting of such wars strongly indicates, if not implies, that one is against democracy because fighting culture wars is a sure sign that one opposes pluralism.
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May 4
To Auguste Meyrat and his article that favorably compares Tucker Carlson to G.K. Chesterton because of how Carlson's criticisms or Romney's view of Capitalism reminds him of the Distributism that Chesterton proposed. Heyrat, along with Chesterton and Carlson, also sees progressivism and radical feminism as a threat to society because they are against the kind of faith, family, and community establishment that conservatives favor. This was posted on the Imaginative Conservative website.
The above article is divided into 2 parts neither of which supports the title. There is the part of the article that deals with what Tucker Carlson said and then the part that advocates for a G.K. Chesterton idea of Distributism.
As for Carlson, what he has going for his case is that he uses criticisms of the status quo some of which have been provided by the Left. Or I should say that Carlson plagiarizes those particular criticisms because he doesn't acknowledge the source of those criticisms. And that is because he has to condemn Socialism, without defining it. But a major weakness of his commentary is that he seems to be saying that all of our problems are caused by outside influences. Not only that, he proposal that out leaders should care about our happiness forgets that what makes people happy varies greatly from person to person. And what makes some people happy is what hurts others. Also how people define a family varies. Yes, our leaders are more concerned with their own personal profits than our happiness. But as George Carlin tells us that selfish, ignorant people are going to elect selfish, ignorant leaders. That is because those leader come from the people. Btw, we should note that Carlson never proposes a solution to the problem so why does his observation here merit him a comparison with Chesterton?
As for Distributism, it might be partially good for a rural setting, but it works on a simple absolute premise that says that small is always beautiful. And what isn't small is corrupting. In fact, we can attribute all of the problems that we have in this nation, and possibly the world, to any large institution and/or any ism that supports what is large. What is implied by that is that if one was to supply the right setting, people would not be corrupted. And so we should strive to make everything small and every family independent. That is the ticket to human happiness. That is the conservative utopia.
And so there are three questions surrounding Distributism. First, are the claims being made about Distributism true? Second, is Distributism feasible in today's world with such large populations and large population centers? Finally, is Distributism enforceable? The last question is necessary because not only would we have to implement Distributism, we would have to maintain it too.
Distributism is marketed as providing what makes human flourishing possible: faith, family, and community. But what isn't in Distributism's advertising is the conformity that would be necessary in each area. Given the history of religious wars, there would have to be some degree in the conformity of faith. And such a conformity would lead to a segregation of communities. Then one would have to wonder what would tie together those diverse communities so that any conflicts that arise from their differences would be effectively minimized.
The same goes with families. We are emerging from a time when our nation had a singular definition of what a family is. Now, the cat is out of the bag. And what Distributism might get wrong is whether or not feminism emerged out of dissatisfaction with that definition. Was the source of that dissatisfaction caused by outside alien influences or from people who were dissatisfied with that status quo definition. And now, are all people willing to live with the differences or will there be attempts to force compliance with the old status quo definition?
Also, how will community be established where every family is as independent as possible? Won't communities then be based on similarities? And how can there be enough similarities between the families in a community to hold a community together without segregating out those families that are too different for the rest? How strong will the sense of community be if community is primarily based on similarities? What if a family becomes significantly less independent than the other families? Will that family be eventually expelled from the community?
In other words, does Distributism account for the differences between people and the number of people have? It isn't that Distributism has nothing to teach us. But is Distributism sufficient in and of itself to even initially provide the goods it is being advertised as providing let alone be maintained from generation to generation?
What it seems to me is that Distributism relies on a significant degree of conformity that threatens our rights, especially those rights that involve being or saying things that are different from the proposed status quo. In addition there is both an intolerance stemming from the degree of conformity required in Distributism and a concern with how dependent one's neighbors could be be that either fosters or indicates a significant degree of selfishness in those who are comfortable with Distributism. And isn't selfishness in our leaders one of the complaints that Carlson makes. And if our way of life naturally produces a selfishness, does Distributism really change the status quo that we experience now?
And conformity needed for Distrubutism along with the intolerance that comes with it along with minimizing dependency between people and family units seems to be the common link between Distributism and Tucker Carlson. So is that what qualifies Carlson to be compared to Chesterton?
