Some of my Christian friends have accused me of "hating God" or "hating people that believe in God". Nothing is further from the truth. First, I honestly don't believe I hate anyone. If, however, I do and simply can't recall that person or small amount of people (it must be a small amount if I don't even know who the people are that I hate), I can assure you there is no group of people that I hate.
You want to know what I do hate? Take a couple minutes and read this article by Larry O'Dell from The Associated Press:
FOREST, VA. — Eight-year-old Sunnie Kahle likes to keep her hair short, wear boys' clothes, collect hunting knives and shoot her BB gun
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"She's a pure, 100 percent tomboy," said her great-grandfather Carroll Thompson, who along with his wife Doris adopted their granddaughter's child.
But to Timberlake Christian School administrators, the second-grader's boyish ways warranted an ultimatum: Start acting like a girl or find another school.
The Thompsons found another school, but they didn't go quietly. After being told by lawyers that they have no grounds for a lawsuit because Timberlake is a private school, the Thompsons have gone public with their complaints.
"I don't see nothing Christian about it," 66-year-old Carroll Thompson said in an interview at the family's house just outside Lynchburg, home of Liberty University, the Christian school founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Doris Thompson, who's 69, said she was stunned when she received a letter last month saying the school can deny enrollment to applicants for condoning "sexual immorality," homosexuality or alternative gender identity.
Principal Becky Bowman wrote that "we believe that unless Sunnie as well as her family clearly understand that God has made her female and her dress and behavior need to follow suit with her God-ordained identity, that TCS is not the best place for her future education."
Doris Thompson said Sunnie knows she is a girl and has never, to her knowledge, wished she were a boy.
Other disputes over gender expression at school have made headlines recently, including a demand, later rescinded, that a 9-year-old North Carolina boy cease carrying a My Little Pony backpack to school. But that case and others involved public schools rather than private religious academies that are not subject to anti-discrimination laws.
After a television news report about the Thompsons created a social media frenzy, the school retained the legal arm of Liberty University to tell its side. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, said there is more to the situation than the Thompsons are saying.
"This is not at all about how she is dressing or she is going through a phase," Staver said in a telephone interview.
However, he said confidentiality laws prevented him from being more specific and school officials would rather not try to rebut the Thompsons' allegations. Earl Prince, an administrator at the school, also declined to discuss what prompted Bowman's letter.
Doris Thompson said she is unaware of anything, other than Sunnie's appearance and tomboy ways, that would prompt the school's action. She said Sunnie made good grades, was well-behaved and got along with the other children. New classmates would sometimes ask if she were a boy or a girl, but she would answer and that would be the end of it, Thompson said.
Bowman acknowledged in her letter that the school's position doesn't stem from Sunnie's grades or "general cooperation with school rules."
Staver said school officials were dismayed that the Thompsons chose not to resolve the issue with them privately. He said school officials would like to have Sunnie back.
"The school has never called the girl immoral, has never evicted her and is willing to work with her," Staver said. "She is a precious little girl."
This year, a girl mistook Sunnie for a boy in the girls' restroom and reported it to a teacher, and two boys tried to drag Sunnie into the boys' restroom. Sunnie said the boys got in trouble, but she did too "for yelling down the hallway."
Sunnie, eager to break away from an interview and ride her bike, said she liked Timberlake better than the public school she is now attending.
"I had a lot of friends there," she said of the school she attended since age 3.
Doris Thompson said Sunnie would grow her hair so she could return to Timberlake, but her husband said that's "out of the question."
Sunnie's troubles at Timberlake began in pre-kindergarten after she cut her hair to donate it to a program that provides wigs for cancer patients, Doris Thompson said. Around then, she started wanting boys' clothes.
"A teacher told me I was the parent and I needed to control her, and if she didn't obey I needed to take her in the bathroom and whip her butt," Thompson said.
Rather than just dismiss the teacher's concerns, she asked the family doctor for advice. "He said, 'Leave that child alone!'" she said.
Afterward, Thompson said the teacher told her: "You need to find a Christian doctor."
I'm not under the impression every single person that believes in God acts like the members of this "school". But, I am under the impression there are way too many people that do act like this and that's unsettling to me.
Let's strip this story down to its most basic of truths. Throw out all of the religion and cultural nuance and simply observe the one and only thing we know is true. Do we not all agree a child is being abused?
So many times I'm rebutted by, "What's the harm in believing?"
Do you see any harm in the above scenario? A young child, in this case biologically female, simply wants to be a young child and the adults in the room decide they know what is "better" for this kid and command the vanity to give her an ultimatum. I purposefully selected the word "vanity" so I could segue to the Ten Commandments.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
This one sentence is all the proof I need that this particular God doesn't exist. What god would author this mess of instructions to people? Atrocious punctuation, abstract terminology, and a double negative is the work of a god that made an entire universe? He couldn't take a second or two and create a less fucked up sentence?
Let's get to the meat and potatoes of this message to mankind. Don't make wrongful use of the name of God. I know we're so simplistic that we've come to believe this means don't mix up God in your curse words, but, is it really that difficult to understand? Don't use God's name wrongfully.
As a person that doesn't necessarily believe in all of the magical components of Christianity, I'm not really opposed to the message. Love people. Even if that's not the only message in the Bible, why would anyone look for anything else? Love is mentioned over and over in the instruction manual. Warnings are listed for people that don't follow the instructions. The Lord will not hold him guiltless who fucks up the instructions.
This is why it completely mindfucks me when I stumble upon the above newspaper article while reading The Fresno Bee. The people that claim they are the ones that are teaching the instructions from God are the ones most responsible for getting it all wrong.
Here is what I found on Timberlake Christian School's own website:
TCS strives for academic excellence with a Christ-centered, discipleship focus. Students are grounded in the truths and implications of the Gospel through the preaching and teaching of our daily Bible classes, weekly chapels and accountability groups, as well as a curriculum consistently taught from a biblical worldview. We provide a safe, loving, learning environment for our students. TCS is your partner in educating your children and training them to be genuine followers of Christ.
Now back to the Bible:
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
When a group of people that happen to be in charge of the education of a child and claim they are "partnering" with the parents to bring up a child in this world kick that child out of school because she's not "behaving" like a girl then someone isn't guiltless in the matter. And every one that lives in this world, a world that allows this type of child abuse to go on, is not guiltless either. That should trouble all of us, believers or not.
