Sunday: It Was a Pretty Good Week

On Sunday mornings, WPFW tends to play religious and gospel music before nine. I get up, usually, before the rest of the family, make a pot of coffee and listen to the radio while I take some time to write something for the blog, sitting at the kitchen table. Now a soprano is singing "Ave Maria" with piano accompaniment. It sounds pure and undisappointed in a way I'll never be.

A couple of things happened this week that we should be glad about, things having to do with the sex-ed curriculum here in Montgomery County. First of all, it was great to get the report from the school district about the classes that have been implemented. Both eighth and tenth grade classes have been taught. Ninety-seven percent attendance in the high schools -- that's wonderful. There was no controversy, no disturbance, kids went to class, took notes, thought about tolerance, respect, and empathy for a couple of hours. All the classes have been taught, everything was normal and cool.

It is so amazing to think that a group of our neighbors spent so much effort trying to stop something that is so positive and good. It is also amazing to look back at the amount of effort we put into stopping them. Across the country there are communities where people didn't stop them, people sat in their own houses grumbling but didn't get out and shine a light on the nuttiness, they let them get away with the lies and the dirty tricks. We have an election this year, but I don't know if it will be enough to undo the damage that has been done. I think individual people have to take action at the personal level, to erase the ugliness these dangerous people have created.

Another good thing was the judge's ruling in the latest appeal. It's getting a little complicated at this point, there's been so much, but the Nutty Ones asked a county court to overrule the decision by the state school board that the county school board had done the right thing in developing and implementing the new curriculum. This week the court said, no, there's no problem, the state board's decision to support the county board was just fine.

This should be the end of it. The classes have been taught, the courts have ruled a bunch of times, the opposition has no momentum, no support. They told The Post they have a month to file an appeal, I assume that's correct and that they'll probably do it. They have lost, but they keep going. It's like the ninth inning when the home team is winning, and the visitors still want to play the second half of the inning.

Of course, now they've changed their mission. They changed their name from Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum to Citizens for Responsible Government, and now the very same people are parading around trying to get a referendum on the ballot to remove gender identity from the county's nondiscrimination law. Their whole argument is that the law will lead to men going into ladies shower-rooms and bathrooms. It is a weak and disingenuous premise, and a lie. There's no law against men going into the ladies room now, and it won't change when the new law comes into effect. There are some few people who are undergoing sex reassignment surgery and have ambiguous physical features, perhaps breasts and a penis, as they transition from one sex to the other. It would be surprising to see somebody like that in a shower-room, but the fact is the number of people in that state is extremely small, especially the number of them who belong to a gym, and they are going to be shy about it, not parading around. The absurdity of the hypothetical situation is so bizarre, you wonder how the CR-Whatever are able to show their faces in public.

They need 12,501 petition signatures by tomorrow. Their latest newsletter says they have 11,500 "raw signatures in hand." They are discovering what they call "issues" with a lot of the signatures, and say they need another 4,000. We are hearing from people who encounter them at shopping malls, people who are receiving robo-calls telling them that the bill will let men go into the women's showers. They were caught staging a hoax at a local gym, where one of their men put on a dress and went into the ladies locker room, apparently to prove how "real" the threat is. We have heard of pastors telling their congregations to sign the petitions, to keep men out of the ladies room.

If they are able to turn 12,501 valid signatures in to the Board of Elections tomorrow, then they will need to get another 12,501 by the middle of the month, this is just a halfway mark that the referendum process requires them to meet. Given the trouble they are having getting the first half, I think it's pretty safe to say we won't be voting on this in November.

You just have to wonder why this is so important to them. How often do you see a transgender person? How inconvenient is it for you -- think about your own life -- to treat them fairly? I mean, really, how big of a deal is that? It doesn't make any kind of sense to invest that much energy in fighting to keep the right to discriminate against transgender people, doesn't make sense on any level. Even if you took their argument at face value, that transitioning transgender people, in particular males who are transitioning to female, are going to use the ladies locker-room -- how often do you think that is going to happen? Ever? Have you ever in your life heard of that happening? And if it did, can you explain what the danger was? They are really going to some trouble over this.

Well it's Super Bowl day. My wife made a big bowl of her special salsa yesterday and there's still some left, though it's not guaranteed that we won't have eaten it all by gametime. Ah, here I see the kids left the bag of chips open, I'm sure they'll be nice and stale -- teenagers! This seems like a good day to put a log in the fireplace and kick back around the house.