SBF: Children have rights Mr. Perkins

The Slowly Boiled Frog is biting commentary from David Cary Hart reflecting upon issues affecting the LGBT community.

Tony Perkins will argue vociferously that a fetus has rights. Mr. Perkins doesn’t seem to think that a teenager has any rights at all. A child, Mr. Perkins, is entitled to quality medical care provided by competent and qualified practitioners.

Perkins has decided to comment on a case in Ohio where a transgender boy has been terribly abused by his parents. His father deliberately uses his birth name and incorrect pronouns. To make matters worse, the parents insisted that the teen attend a Catholic school which also refuses to treat the child as he deserves to be treated. The school makes a point of using the teen’s wrong name. Each time they do that, it is a stab in the heart to a kid with gender dysphoria. According to the complaint, the boy’s father told him to kill himself because he was going to Hell anyway.

The boy is now living with his maternal grandparents. They are accepting. Apparently, they are a great deal smarter than their daughter and her disgusting husband.

Perkins writes Court: Accept Your Child’s New Gender or Lose Custody:

… an Ohio teenager who was removed from her parents’ home by authorities. Why? Because they didn’t support their daughter’s decision to identify as a boy and declined to authorize hormone therapy to facilitate her gender “transition.” Today, the story broke that Juvenile Court Judge Sylvia Hendon has permanently removed the child from her parents’ custody (despite the fact that the child is already 17 and would be able to make medical decisions for herself in less than a year).

First of all, the teen was already living apart from his home. Secondly, he did not make a decision to identify as a boy. Gender identity is not a choice. Perhaps if Perkins obtained some education he would not look like an ignorant fool all of the time. This is tantamount to the same BS that Perkins spreads about gay people claiming that sexual orientation is a choice. Another year — if the child survived — would only make matters worse.

As is, this boy was probably not on puberty blockers and probably should have started hormones a year ago as he might have developed breast tissue; creating even more despair. So, yeah, based on sound medical advice from people who do know what they are talking about, the judge took immediate action.

What’s especially alarming is that a lawyer representing the child — as well as Donald Clancy of the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office — cited the parents’ religious beliefs as an argument for robbing them of their rights! The mom and dad are being criticized for seeking out a Christian therapist for their daughter and for daring to send her to Catholic school.

Oh my! Imagine that. Someone allowed their religious beliefs to become superstitious lunacy and we shouldn’t take notice. A so-called Christian therapist is, by definition, a crackpot. He or she is trying to mix religious beliefs, based on faith, with science which is based on evidence. And, yes, attending a Catholic school is clearly not in the teen’s best interests. How much more abuse is this kid supposed to endure at the hands of religious zealots?

After all, they pointed out, they’d had lengthy consultations with medical professions and did hours of research on their own. Only then did they come to the conclusion that “this is not in their child’s best interest.” (The American College of Pediatricians — not to be confused with the more “politically correct” American Academy of Pediatrics — agrees.)

No one should confuse the American College of Pediatricians with the American Academy of Pediatrics. ACPeds is a Christian organization designated a hate group by Southern Poverty Law Center. The American Academy of Pediatrics is a professional organization.

Perkins is also misstating the record. They (the parents) did not point anything out. Their lawyer, Karen Riestenberg Brinkman, claimed that they “have done their due diligence contacting medical professionals, collecting thousands of hours of research and relying on … their observation of their own child.” That doesn’t say anything about “lengthy conversations with medical professionals.” Perkins is full of crap. It has become a habit of the self-righteous Christian to tell whoppers. Apparently, that “bearing false witness” thing no longer counts.

For years, LGBT activists have scoffed at warnings from FRC and others that the radical LGBT movement poses a threat to personal and religious freedom. In the past, the Left directed most of its attacks on religious expression in the public square, doing everything it could to restrict faith to the four walls of your house or church. Now, even that tolerance is tumbling down.

Does Perkins even know what the hell he is talking about? Does he even care? Everyone who ever thought that LGBT people should have a measure of dignity and equality is a “radical” in Perkins-world. More importantly, this has absolutely nothing to do with religious freedom. Perkins is a professional victim. This is about one thing and only one thing: The best interests of a minor child. The child is in the care of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and is receiving proper medical care in spite of ignoramus parents.

I wrote yesterday about the shocking attack by two Michigan state legislators against a church in metropolitan Detroit that offered an “Unashamed Identity Workshop” for teen girls struggling with their sexual orientation or gender identity. It’s becoming ever clearer that if we don’t fight to defend our liberties everywhere, they will not be safe from attack anywhere — not even in your church or your home.

You want to talk about conversion therapy (which is what this is really about)? These are just some of the groups that consider it pseudoscience which is neither safe nor effective: The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the Pan American Health Organization, the American School Counselor Association, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), the American College of Physicians, the American Medical Association, the World Psychiatric Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Finally, Mr. Perkins, courts throughout the United States have traditionally recognized parental rights but those rights are not absolute. They are offset by a parental duty to ensure the health, safety, and well-being of their children. If, for example, a Jehovah’s witness denies their child a necessary transfusion and the child dies, the parent can be held criminally responsible. The same is true for all manner of practices; from faith healers to snake handlers. No sane person substitutes these for real medical care. Not for themselves and certainly not for their children.

This is a case where parents put their perceived religious duty above their real obligations as parents and they have endangered their child. They might have caused lasting damage as well. When faith alters proper medical care then it becomes superstition. These parents deserved to lose their parental rights because that is what was in the child’s best interests. Children also have a right to be happy and this kid has been made miserable by the people who are supposed to care for him. And for what? Interpretations of ancient texts by Vatican eunuchs?

What does "transphobia" mean to you?

Crosspost by David Cary Hart, a retired CEO, and resident of South Beach @davidcaryhart.