President utters the 'T' word; press, activists rejoice
Lincoln didn't do it. FDR didn't do it. Kennedy and Reagan didn't do it.
Ah, but those worthies were not made of the same stuff as our President Obama. Lincoln never mentioned the word "transgender" in a State of the Union, which is historical, or something.
And we know how much our president loves to get his name in the history books.
President Barack Obama became the first president to use the words "lesbian," "bisexual" and "transgender" in a State of the Union on Tuesday night, issuing an historic call for protections for individuals of any sexual orientation.
"As Americans, we respect human dignity, even when we're threatened, which is why I've prohibited torture, and worked to make sure our use of new technology like drones is properly constrained," Obama said. "That's why we defend free speech, and advocate for political prisoners, and condemn the persecution of women, or religious minorities, or people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. We do these things not only because they're right, but because they make us safer."
The remarks were a surprise, but not entirely unexpected for a president who has made GLBTQ rights a quiet but consistent focus of his tenure in office.
Obama was also the first president to mention transgender individuals in any speech, and last year signed an executive order extending protection against discrimination in the workplace for gay and transgender workers in the federal government.
And he also called gay marriage a "civil right," in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to take up the issue once and for all.
If marriage is a "civil right," then it stands to reason that government must create a Department of Matrimony. No American who wants to get married but can't find a suitable partner should have to be lonely. The government will be able to regulate dating and approve any match – or perhaps order any match – that fulfills the department's mandate of guaranteeing the civil right of marriage.
Note also that "GLBTQ" (Gay, lesbian, bi, transgender, and queer) is an acronym getting longer and longer. It began as GBL, added the "T" a few years ago, and now recognizes "queer" – the definition of which is apparently whatever someone who identifies as "queer" says it is – as a "sexual orientation."
By the time they're done, the acronym will probably look something like this: GLBTQRLHCVIWJFZ. They are discovering new "sexual orientations" all the time. Why stop at the Big 5?
The fact is, science tells us that true transgenderism is very rare, and many self-identified transgenders don't meet the mental health qualifications to get a sex-change operation. Simply calling yourself a woman even though you are biologically a man doesn't make you a transgender person. That's nonsense, and to give civil protections to people like that makes a mockery of the Constitution and the law.
The ever-burgeoning lobby of sexual preferences and orientations is a joke. Seeing neuroticism as normal only makes the gay/lesbian/bi community look ridiculous.