While listening to NPR yesterday as I drove home from the office, I heard that 11 states are suing the Obama administration for its directive requiring all public school districts to grant transgender students access to the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identities. I was not at all surprised that Texas’s Republican attorney general, who, by the way, is under indictment for fraud, is taking the lead in this suit. I also wasn’t surprised that Alabama, where the governor, lieutenant governor, and chief justice of the state supreme court all are under investigation, is also a plaintiff in the suit. Of course, my home state of Georgia, where the governor was once rated the most corrupt in the country, also joined.

It doesn’t surprise me that the states that are suing are very red, and mostly former Confederate states. They have been on the wrong side of almost every civil rights issue in the history of this country. It also isn’t surprising that, with the exception of Oklahoma, they all are led by white men born on the top of the heap, with the most rights, never knowing discrimination. Oklahoma’s governor is the white woman who brags of having signed eight anti-abortion bills thus far in her term, so her opposition to transgender equality isn’t shocking. She apparently is hoping to be Donald Trump’s vice-presidential nominee and the heir to Sarah Palin.

I guess I simply am trying to point out the supreme irony of all of these men “protecting” our children considering they are the very people I warned my daughters about when they were little girls. Transgender folks are not sexual predators, but every American can name politicians who have gone to jail for committing sex crimes. Statistically, politicians are the ones who should be kept away from children, not transgender people.

Let’s get a grip on reality. A person who does not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth has suffered enough. Demonstrate the compassion of Jesus, and support them for the person they are trying to be today. Let them use the restroom in peace. Using them to score political points when YOU belong to the REAL corrupt and criminal class is despicable.

Next time someone raises this issue ask them who they think has done more REAL harm: transgender people or politicians.

Blessings,

Rev. Michael Piazza