This is one that you will likely have to see to believe. So I encourage you to watch the video above. In short, here’s what the report says. Yvette Cormier was in the dressing room at her exercise club “Planet Fitness” last month when she saw a man enter the women’s locker room. Cormier was unsettled about this, so she immediately informed management. After hearing her concerns, Planet Fitness explained that the man is transgender and identifies as a woman. They told her that Planet Fitness allows any man who sincerely self-identifies as a woman to make use of the women’s locker room.
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Our deepest cultural problems are spiritual, not political
David Brooks’s column in The New York Times today is a must-read. Brooks grapples with the ubiquity of broken families in our culture. The stats on the number of children living without fathers or mothers is a cultural calamity that cannot be solved by any government program. Brooks writes: The first response to these stats and to these profiles should be intense sympathy. We now have multiple generations of people caught in recurring feedback loops of economic stress and family breakdown, often leading to something approaching an anarchy of the intimate life. But it’s increasingly clear that sympathy is not enough. It’s not only money and better policy that are…
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Do Liberals Stifle Intellectual Diversity on Campus?
NPR hosted a fascinating debate at George Washington University on this proposition: “Liberals are stifling intellectual diversity on campus.” All four debaters were liberal, but two of them argued in favor of the proposition (Greg Lukianoff, Kirsten Powers) and two of them against (Angus Johnston, Jeremy Mayer). Students in the audience were polled before and after the debate about their agreement with the proposition. This allows everyone to see what people’s views were coming in and whether they were persuaded to adopt a different view as a result of the debate. Here are the results:
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How has “The Breakfast Club” aged after 30 years?
John Hughes’ classic “The Breakfast Club” turned 30 this year. To put this in perspective, we are as far removed now from “The Breakfast Club” as the “The Breakfast Club” was from James Dean’s “Rebel Without a Cause” (let that one sink-in, GenXers). Daniel Drezner asks in The Washington Post how “The Breakfast Club” has held up after three decades. Drezner says that he watched “Rebel Without a Cause” in 1985 and found it completely outdated and unrelatable as a teen-angst drama. He wondered if that’s how teens would view “The Breakfast Club” now. So he decided to watch “The Breakfast Club” with his 14-year old son to gauge whether…
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Researchers claim same-sex couples may soon be able to produce biological children together.
This seems kind of important. PhillyMag.com has the story: Researchers at Cambridge University and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science say they have discovered a way to “create human egg and sperm cells from the stem cells in the skin of two adults.” Which means, for instance, an egg can be created from the stem cells of two men, and sperm cells can be created from the stem cells of two women… Researchers in the study say that we could be seeing same-sex couples producing children together in as little as two years. Read the rest here.
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If everyone consents, why not “50 Shades” or incest?
At this point in our culture’s sexual devolution, the only recognized boundary on sexual expression is consent. If two or more persons are of age and if all parties agree to a given sexual activity, then that activity is deemed acceptable—no matter what it is. Any attempt to suggest moral obligation beyond consent is treated as repressive and as a throwback to puritanical austerity. That’s simply where we are right now as a people. Certainly Christians would agree with our secular counterparts that consent is a necessary moral condition for sexual expression. No one disagrees with that. The problem we have is with the suggestion that consent is the only…
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Why “50 Shades” is not the same as biblical submission
I hadn’t planned on contributing anything to the 50 Shades meme that appears to be taking over the internet. In fact, I was studiously avoiding it. I changed my mind this morning after watching a CBS News package that deals with female “submission” in relationships (see it here). The report compares the sado-masochism of 50 Shades of Grey to the submissive roles of two well-known wives, Candace Cameron Bure and Gabby Reece. By the end of the piece, the CBS journalists seem scandalized by Bure and Reece, but it is not clear whether they are equally troubled by 50 Shades of Grey.
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A Klansman with liberal admirers
“This American Life” recently featured the little-known backstory of Forrest Carter, author of the book The Education of Little Tree. The book has become a modern classic and is read in high school literature classes across the country. “The American Life” traces the genesis of this book through the dark past of its author Forrest Carter. The result is a riveting piece of Southern history. But it is also a story about hermeneutics. Perhaps what it illustrates above all is the central role that authorial intent plays in our interpretation of texts. Is The Education of Little Tree a story of humanity and conservation, or is it a thinly veiled…
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A tough critique of transgenderism
Okay, readers. Time to buckle-up your chin-strap and get ready for a stiff dose of common sense. The author is Carlos Flores, and the article is titled “The Absurdity of Transgenderism: A Stern but Necessary Critique.” This is sharp argument for sharp minds. No emoting, just exposing the illogic of embracing a psychological identity at odds with one’s bodily identity. In short, it’s a well-crafted contention that transgender identities inhibit human flourishing and happiness.
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Former racist calls in to the Paul Finebaum Show
Paul Finebaum talks to a former racist who calls in to the radio program to tell his story. Amazing, classic episode. You can listen below or download here. (HT: Brian Payne)