Congress Has Officially Gone Gender Crazy

Not to be outdone, though, House Democrats have revealed their new, “future-focused” rules, which include the following: “In clause 8(c)(3) of rule XXIII, gendered terms, such as ‘father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, half sister, grandson, or granddaughter’ will be removed.

“In their place, terms such as ‘parent, child, sibling, parent’s sibling, first cousin, sibling’s child, spouse, parent-in-law, child-in-law, sibling-in-law, stepparent, stepchild, stepsibling, half-sibling, or grandchild’ will be used, instead.”

A particular highlight of the new rules is this: “The Office of the Whistleblower Ombudsman, for instance, is renamed in the rules to the ‘Office of the Whistleblower Ombuds.’”

The best response was that of the House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy who tweeted, “This is stupid.

“Signed,

“- A father, son, and brother.”

Well said. Stupid it is.

For others, however, these were bold and commendable reforms. As expressed by Rep. Ilhan Omar (with reference to the entire rules package, in particular, with regard to Medicare), “End of Nov, the Progressive Caucus decided on a set of progressive rules reform priorities: Paygo reform and MTR reform ranked high on that list.So grateful to Chairman @RepMcGovern for helping us secure these reforms and setting the stage for us to push for bolder agenda.”

But as easy as it is to poke fun at this ridiculous proposal, it is highly significant when one of our major government institutions wants to remove all gendered language. As the saying goes, this does not end well.

Looking to Canada as a case in point, the Religious Tolerance website reported that, “The Ontario Court of Appeals issued a decision on 2003-JUN-10 requiring the province of Ontario to provide marriage licenses to, and to register the marriages of, same-sex couples. However 73 pieces of existing legislation in the province violated this court ruling by referring to wife, husband, widow, widower, and similar sex-related terms. In order to bring the legislation in synchronism with the court decision which legalized SSM [same-sex marriage], each of these laws had to be amended to include gender-neutral language.”

You might say, “So, what’s the big deal. This is just technical, legal language. It hardly affects the person on the street.”

Not so. This reflects both a mindset and a legal logic, and these things reflect where a culture is headed.

Consequently, over time, these things do trickle down, especially in the wake of the wave of transgender activism, where the war on gender-specific language becomes more pitched.

That’s why, in 2016, Canada passed Bill C-16, which critics claim was all about compelled speech, specifically with regard to charges of hate speech for failure to comply with transgender preferences.

The most famous critic was Prof. Jordan Peterson who rose to international fame when he said in an October 2016 interview, “If they fine me, I won’t pay it. If they put me in jail, I’ll go on a hunger strike. I’m not doing this. I’m not using the words that other people require me to use. Especially if they’re made up by radical left-wing ideologues.”

Having studied the methods of totalitarian regimes for many years, Peterson drew the line when it came to compelled speech. He knew all that it implied.

As to where this kind of legislation can go, in 2019, I spoke face to face with a Canadian man involved in a legal dispute over his daughter’s desire to transition to male. Not only did the court rule that he could not interfere with her getting hormone treatments, but he was forbidden to call his own daughter by her given, female name or to use female pronouns with reference to her, even in private, under penalty of immediate arrest.

And we have recently documented the new “hate speech” laws in Norway.

So, as laughable as the “Awomen” prayer might be, and as absurd as the House’s “gender-inclusive” rules might be, we should take both with complete seriousness and say, “Not on my watch.”

We can be compassionate to people in their struggles without engaging in gender madness.