A business associate of mine and I were discussing the upcoming presidential election when she referenced an online story regarding a retail chain spending $20 million to create single toilet bathrooms in all their stores to offset public anger over their recent policy of transgender-friendly restrooms.
She said, "I just can't comprehend the trendy change in the basic concept of one being born either male or female; anything else is simply a matter of personal opinion. Why should my children and grandchildren be subjected to someone's private opinion? And why on earth would someone risk losing their business over an opinion?"
"Give me an example," I said.
She replied, "It's just astonishing to watch a retailer the size of the Target Corporation adhere to such a policy as transgender bathrooms and ignore vast numbers of unhappy – and now lost – customers, never mind the shocking fall in their stock value, all because somebody has the harebrained idea that their warped idea of 'diversity' trumps customer satisfaction and their bottom line. My head hurts thinking about how stupid 'stupid' can really be. I sure am glad I'm not a stockholder in that company!
"Target has enjoyed incredible success, yet now they are purposely flying in the face of female customers who, believe it or not, still possess a sense of modesty and privacy and will never tolerate an invasion of males into these spaces.
"It is one thing to watch an individual here and there, or a group of individuals, attempt to impose their particular agendas, but to watch a business like Target deliberately sacrifice their reputation, customers and bottom line for the crazies who think women don't care about who's in the bathroom with them has got to be the epitome of stupid. What on earth are they thinking? There is one horror story after the other of females of all ages being videotaped on phones in Target bathrooms. Imagining the possibilities makes me shudder. Who can even comprehend this madness?"
Free Enterprise Project director Justin Danhof, in a statement regarding Target's new policy, said, "If you are offended by Target's decision to allow grown men to be in states of undress in front of young girls, and at the potential for predators to abuse Target's bathroom policy, the company is basically saying that they don't want your business."
As I considered what my associate had to say, I could not help but wonder if we are today entering into an arena where the word "normal" no longer applies to the behavior most of us take for granted. Words like "male," "female," "right," "wrong," "normal" and "abnormal" could soon be obsolete. Am I overreacting? Could be, but how about this?
An Army veteran is suing the Utah County Clerk over a rejection of his request to marry his computer. In this suit, Chris Sevier has argued "that he has a right to marry his Macbook if same-sex couples have a right to marry." Well, why not? "If gays have the right to marry their object of sexual desire, even if they lack corresponding sexual parts, then I should have the right to marry my preferred sexual object," he added. Sevier cited legal precedents from around the world, including a case where a woman married a dolphin and a Chinese man wed a cardboard cutout of himself.
And then there is this: Joseph Guiso bent down to kiss his new "bride" in a wedding ceremony with a difference – one of the parties has four legs and a tail. An Australian man staged a "marriage" to his beloved, his yellow Labrador, in an outdoor ceremony and promptly sealed the union with a kiss. Guiso and Honey were "joined in matrimony" at Toowoomba's Laurel Bank Park – and the real surprise is that 30 friends and family members turned up to witness the event.
And then: "Widow Dominque Lesbirel of the Netherlands is getting married again, after losing her husband to kidney failure. She's getting hitched to her dog. Her first husband, Doerack, was a cat.
"'Putting Doerack to sleep was horrible … but I feel lucky to have had 16 lovely years with him,' she said, according to Britain's Daily Mirror. She plans to wed Travis (the dog), but wants to wait a while to get over her grief at losing Doerack."
You can't make up this stuff. And as for Target … thankfully we still have the power of the purse to take a stand.
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