Column for Dec. 15, 2011

Recently my wife and I went to an American Heritage Girls ceremony for our niece. We had never heard of that organization prior to being at the meeting, so I did a little research. My first source online is usually Wikipedia, since from there I can usually find links to other sources. It said, “Christian Scouting organization founded in 1995 by...parents...who were unhappy that the Girl Scouts accepted lesbians as troop leaders, allowed girls to substitute another word more applicable to their belief for "God" in the promise, and allegedly banned prayer at meetings.” I found no local area troops, however.

This was particularly disturbing since I am involved in Cub Scouts with our oldest boy, have a two year old who may get involved in scouting, and we have another baby on the way and if it was a girl, we would have encouraged her to get into scouting, as well.

Shortly thereafter, I found a news article that had just been published and Tweeted (put on my Twitter feed) “I am done buying cookies, if our baby is a girl, she won't be allowed to join. "Girl Scouts Of USA Says It Will Accept Transgender Youth"”. I mean that. We have bought our last Girl Scout Cookie. The Girl Scouts have abandoned their core values and I will not contribute financially to their existence. (We have since found out that we are having another boy, so the Girl Scout thing is out for now, anyway.)

After my Tweet, I was accosted by a person claiming to be “transgender woman...atheist bordering on anti-theist” and an activist. He was obviously scouring the internet, looking for someone with whom to be offended and wanted to pick a fight. I was chastised repeatedly in increments of 140 characters or less on how I just don’t understand transgender people, how I am a religious bigot, how being transgender is not a choice, and that I must think that someone like him is outside the norm and therefore sinful or evil, and that that is ridiculous. I was called a hate filled religious bigot and, well...the final end of the digestive tract.

Since I have opinions and am willing to put them out there for public consumption, I tend to attract a lot of hate mail, whether from column readers or internet readers. I lamented the departure of the Girl Scouts from their core values, so I must be some Bible Belt, Bible thumping religious fanatic, right? Well, I had not even gotten into the religious implications before I was accused of using religion to pick on people for being transgender. Just as a matter of ontological makeup, I was lamenting the decisions by the Girl Scouts.

Personally, I find transgender people to be whiny, emotional individuals who can't accept reality and are looking for attention. They demand that the world accept their deviant behavior as normal, and claim that everyone else is the problem for their lack of acceptance. So far I have only run across Chaz Bono wannabes who can’t accept the fact that they either have XX or XY chromosomes and blame either nature or God for some colossal, cosmic mistake of trapping them inside the body of a sex with which they can not internally identify. Instead of being mature about it and accepting the hand they were dealt with in life, these people basically want to garner negative attention, giving themselves “victim” status. That seems to be a miserable existence to me.

I was told that people like I just described are not malevolent but rather just ordinary people feeling their way through life. No, they are deviants from societal norms screaming for acceptance. I have compassion for them, I truly do. I also have no problem letting them know the error and sinful nature of their ways. I have been praying for this “man” and will continue to do so.

I truly don’t care what someone does in the privacy of their own homes, whether it be opining and dressing as the opposite sex or the practice of homosexuality. I will treat people I meet with respect even if I strongly disagree with their lifestyle choices. I don’t debase those in my family or circle of friends who are homosexuals. At least they are honest about who they are and for the most part, realize that they are not the majority of society. Of course there are those who are more rabid about their ways, even flaunting them in the face of society.

I am sure that some transgender people are very nice folks who just want to get along in life. I have not run across any in all of my dealings thus far, though. I have mostly run across whiny deviants who scream for me to accept their decisions about life. Thankfully I have the freedom, nay the responsibility, to decline either my acceptance or support of such lifestyles and influence upon my children and society. If my wife and I ever have a little girl, I might just have to help found a local American Heritage Girls troop.