Tempest in a Pee Pot?

Public bathrooms have been in the news a lot lately, and the issues being discussed are not likely to dissipate soon.

One question is why they are called bathrooms in the first place. Quite clearly the issue being discussed is not places where people take baths. But for some reason, people seem to think that the word “toilet” is maybe a little uncouth, so some better-sounding word is used.

Last month on our ANA flight to Japan, the “bathrooms” were called lavatories in English and “keshōshistu” (literally “makeup rooms”) in Japanese—and, of course, there were no separate facilities for men and women.

In addition to being called “loos” in Great Britain, a toilet there is often referred to as a “water closet.” It is also common in Japan, and other Asian countries, to see a public toilet identified simply as a W.C.

The issue now in the U.S., of course, is not what the public restrooms are called but who can use what facilities. The “bathroom bill” that recently became law in North Carolina has stirred a nationwide debate, and it looks as if the dispute is far from over.

Having just been in Japan for three weeks, however, the bathroom hullabaloo in the U.S. seems to be a “tempest in a teapot”—or maybe we should say “a pee pot.”

Through the years the use of public restrooms in Japan has not been universally separated according to gender, although there are generally completely separate facilities now. Before we first went to Japan 50 years ago, though, some Americans who had lived there “warned” us about the “co-ed” public toilets—and sure enough, from time to time there would be men and women using the same W.C.

However, I never heard of “inclusive” public toilets causing harm to anyone.

During our time in Japan earlier this month, June and I had the opportunity to meet a young trans man whom we had known many years ago as a girl. He now looks very much like a man—and seems much happier than when he was a young “male trapped in a female body.”

If our young trans friend were to go to North Carolina, however, legally he would have to use public toilets labeled “Women.” The women he would see there, however, would no doubt be greatly discomforted to meet someone like him, who looks fully like a man, in their facility. 

Those with little understanding of, or sympathy for, transgender persons tend to deal with the issue in a simplistic manner. For example, this week I heard talk radio host Mark Levin pontificating about the bathroom issue, which he said shouldn’t be an issue at all.

Who uses what bathroom, Levin said, should be determined solely by what is between people’s legs, not by what is between their ears.

Recently I have seen some good and important things written by Russell Moore, the head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty. Last week, however, he wrote an opinion piece (see here) in which he intimated that the bathroom question is settled by not violating the Bible’s words as found in Genesis 1:27.

Both Levin’s and Moore’s arguments for traditional bathroom bifurcation are not only simplistic, they are also disrespectful of and insensitive to the needs of trans men and women. 

Gender identity, including how people think, look, and act, is determined by more than genitalia.

Rather than creating a tempest in a pee pot, we should acknowledge the existence of transgender people and respect their need to use public restrooms that match their identity.

“I Hate Him, and You Should Too”

I am discouraged. Specifically, I am discouraged about the political situation in the United States. A wave of discouragement hit me last Wednesday morning when I heard the results of the senatorial election in Massachusetts.

I am discouraged partly because the health care bill, which I thought would surely be passed this month, is in jeopardy. It now seems likely that millions of people will continue to be without health care. This is sad. According to the February 2010 “Harper’s Index,” the estimated number of U.S. veterans under 65 who died in 2008 because they lacked health insurance is 2,266. That is five times the number of U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan last year.

I am discouraged because of the extreme polarity and partisanship in this country, largely due, I think, to the vitriolic voices of the extreme Right. I listen to those voices very little, but coming home from Rockhurst University last Thursday evening I listened to Mark Levin’s outrageous ranting about liberal Democrats wanting to deprive citizens of the freedom of speech. As I was making some rounds the next day, the radio came on again to KMBZ “Talk Radio” and I listened some to Rush Limbaugh.

I am discouraged not just about health care for the citizens of the country but about the very health of the country itself because of people like Limbaugh. He railed on and on about the President, ending with the words, “I hate him, and you should too!”

Regardless of how much one disagrees with some politicians or their political position, it is contemptible for someone on nationwide radio to not only declare their hatred for the President but to encourage others to join in that hatred. At the end-of-the-hour station break, the announcer proclaimed, as I assume he does daily, that Limbaugh is “the man who runs America.” That’s scary!

According to The Huffington Post (1/22/10), Limbaugh receives a yearly salary of $50,000,000, and he has 12,000,000 listeners daily. That is less than 6% of the people of the nation who are over 18 years of age, but still that is a lot of people. And he is just one of many radical rightwing ranters on the radio.

For those of us who believe in civility, what are we going to do, what can we do, when a Limbaugh with twelve million listeners says of the President, “I hate him, and you should too”?

Is there any encouraging word?

The Limits of Liberty

My forthcoming book is The Limits of Liberalism, and I am happy to say that I have finished the manuscript except for some editing of the final chapters. But in this posting I am writing about the limits of liberty.

June (my wife) has long been involved with a parent education program marketed as Active Parenting, and one of their parenting principles is "freedom within limits," a significant slogan. (That is also the title of the third chapter of J. Melvin Woody's book Freedom's Embrace.) A proper emphasis on freedom or liberty always includes a concomitant emphasis on responsibility.

In my posting on September 23, I mentioned listening some to “talk radio.” Mark Levin is one of the commentators I hear for a few minutes each week on my way home from Rockhurst University where I teach on Thursday evenings. Levin is the author of Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, which has been on the bestseller lists since it publication in March of this year.

The liberty Levin writes and speaks (loudly and abrasively) about is partly freedom from what he thinks is excessive taxation. The first section of his “conservative manifesto” is about taxation—and his first appeal is for the elimination of the progressive income tax. Then under “7. Entitlements,” he admonishes: “Fight all efforts to nationalize the health-care system.”

Because of our responsibility to support the public good, we are not free not to pay taxes, including some taxes that we have problems with. For example, we are not free not to pay taxes to support war—a serious problem for those of us who are pacifists, and even for many who are not pacifists but who oppose(d) the war in Vietnam and Iraq. (I admire those who have had the courage to practice war tax resistance, but I have not been able to do that myself.)

People are not free not to pay school taxes, even though they do not have, and maybe have never had, children using the public schools. Those taxes are justified, rightfully, as being for the public good.

Here in Liberty (I like the name of this town!) where I live, people are not at liberty not to pay a library tax as part of their property tax, even though they may never set foot inside it. Again, it is for the good of the community.

If we Americans are taxed to support libraries, schools, and even wars that we oppose, why can the critics say that some taxation to help provide universal health care is a form of tyranny and a violation of liberty? Is it not for the public good that everyone in our country has access to health care? And for us Christians, isn’t helping the needy a part of our responsibility? We may not necessarily be our brother’s keeper, but we are our neighbor’s neighbor. And Jesus taught us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.