Post 214--Parent 1 / Parent 2: Christie vs Justiin

In Post 212 I promised I would treat you to a dish of Christie--Christie Blatchford, that is, a Postmedia columnist.  212 dealt with that amazing issue of public bathrooms and transgender. Well, this one today also deals with a trans issue. And of all the luck, would you believe it? This particular column of Christie is crossed out and does not appear on the internet, which means I either keyboard it in myself or summarize--or break my promise, something that many many moons ago I pledged not to do too often. 

Remember those posts way back when? I promised I would try not to break too many promises, but that it is hard to avoid all the time. Just for the record, in the case of 212, I did not break any promise; I just postponed one.  Hope you'll accept subtle distinctions. We writers thrive on them!

Back to Christie. Her heading:  "Can we put the Liberals on mute?"  Her subtitle: "Government's social engineering going way too far."  The "Government" she's talking about is Canada's Fed. Though in this article she applies this to gender terminology, her subtitle can be applied to a wide range of things that all lead to a desire on my part to mute the beast, period.

I should be more moderate with my language. Referring to one's Government as "the beast" is a bit much and harsh. Being a Christian, the admonition in Scripture to respect, obey and pray for government is important. For a moment I forgot, which is not difficult to do, given the kind of "leadership" oozing out of Ottawa these days. 

I hope you remember my statement in 212 that I am fully in favour of giving our transgender friends full scope and freedom. I resist any unnecessary restriction on their freedom as well as on mine. I added to that that I do oppose and resent the agenda(s) of the extreme among them, as I do any extreme apart from those extreme in genuine Christian love. Well, the extremist(s) in this case are Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, whom Christie refers to as "that self-described proud feminist," and his hangers on.     

It is so absurd that the only way I can describe the issue for you is through Christie's nimble fingers. "Service Canada bosses have been given a directive telling them to use gender-neutral language to avoid 'portraying a perceived bias toward a particular sex or gender.'  Instead of using the tried-and-true Mr., Mrs. or Ms., for instance, employees were told to either use a client's full name or to ask how they'd prefer to be addressed. Similarly...workers were also told to avoid such gender-specific terms a 'father' and 'mother', and to use 'parent' instead."  

Not surprisingly, it's "already causing employees grief, having to inquire of bewildered patrons if he/she is 'parent 1' or 'parent 2." Nor is it surprising that "Families Minister Duclos was furiously back-pedaling, tweeting that Service Canada would of course'continue to use Mr/Ms....  We are only confirming how people want to be addressed as a matter of respect."  Christie asks, "Then why did he tell his people to stop using those particular honorifics?" She states, "This government's insistence on viewing the world through an 'equity lens' is pervasive and exhausting, not to mention distorting."    

With reference to a related issue in another section of the article, Christie writes, "I quote directly from the government's press release of the day, because I've no real idea what on earth it actually means. Towards the end of her article, "This may not be a perfect country, but for women, it comes close enough that evolution, not revolution, is all that's needed. Most of us muddle along just fine.... The last thing...the rest of us need or want is more gendered language instruction or social engineering from this strangely obsessed government."  Hear! Hear!