After Obama's Transgender Bathroom Letter, Felons Have More Privacy Protections Than Students, Legal Expert Says
WASHINGTON – Prisoners now have more privacy rights than students, after President Barack Obama's letter directing public schools to allow bathroom use based upon gender identity, rather than biological sex, a legal expert argued at a Family Research Council event.
Courts have ruled that the privacy of prisoners while showering overrides the need to provide equality for women as prison guards, explained Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Matt Sharp Wednesday on a panel called, "Title IX: The Law of Unintended Consequences"
The privacy rights of inmates always trumped "equal opportunity" provisions for women in settled cases, he said.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
In one such instance when male prisoners complained that a female guard had been assigned to patrol near the male showering area or bathroom, the prison responded that they had to provide equal opportunities for women. But every time the prisoners took such cases to court, the judges ruled in their favor.
Under the new federal guidelines, students have no legitimate ground to stand on if they are uncomfortable, for example, undressing or seeing someone of the opposite sex undress in front of them in a school locker room.
"So my question is: if a convicted murderer has the right of privacy, how much more so does a 10-year-old girl at school?" Sharp asked.
Sharp further noted that the language of Title IX, the 1972 statute forbidding discrimination in education, explicitly assumes the biological view of sex as male and female.
Fellow panelist Congresswoman Vicki Hartzler of Missouri is herself a former public school teacher and track coach, called the federal governments overreach "egregious."
"If this isn't a violation of people's basic right to privacy, I don't know what is," Hartzler said, "it is not up to a few bureaucrats here in Washington, D.C., to dictate to the schools what the policy should be." Hartzler further indicated that she and several of her colleagues were working to defund the rule.
Also joining the discussion via Skype was Oklahoma Wesleyan University President Dr. Everett Piper who argues that the rule change requires them to reject what it means to be made in God's image as male and female, and his university is suing the federal government.
The Christian Post asked the panel what larger motives the Obama administration might have.
"This is a cultural move toward ideological fascism rather than intellectual freedom," Piper said, adding that the administration's approach amounts to "if do you don't comply we will expel you and remove you from the cultural discussion, we will remove you from the academy, from the college and the university, we will remove you from the public square."
"If you don't agree with this sexual fluidity rather than a biological fact of sex, if you don't agree with the postmodern deconstruction of what it means to be a man and woman and agree with the reconstruction of what the elites are defining as male and female you will be expelled."
This is the antithesis of the liberal arts academy and stands in direct contradiction of John 8:32 where Jesus says, "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free," Piper continued.
"We are never free when we are held bondage to the opinions of power and politics and people. We are only free within the boundaries within of God's revelation and God's truth." Piper said.
