Friday, June 03, 2016

Be explicit James Dobson

Did you mean to say that men should shoot trans men in bathrooms? I’m unclear. What are we supposed to do?

“If you are a married man with any gumption, surely you will defend your wife’s privacy and security in restroom facilities,” Dobson writes in a column published this week on the far-right site WND. He imagines such scenarios as “a strange-looking man, dressed like a woman … peering over toilet cubicles to watch your wife in a private moment” and “men who walk in unannounced, unzip their pants and urinate in front of [little girls].”

“If this had happened 100 years ago, someone might have been shot,” he continues. “Where is today’s manhood? God help us!” Via James Dobson: Be a Man, Shoot a Trans Woman in the Bathroom

It’s clear that Trudy Ring of The Advocate thinks Dobson is advocating for violence, but I am not sure. Dobson does not actually say, SHOOT THEM. He talks around it though. Let’s look at the original text.

Obama, acting like a king, is wielding dictatorial powers never envisioned in the law. He is determined to change the way males and females relate to one another, and worse, how children perceive themselves. If you are a married man with any gumption, surely you will defend your wife’s privacy and security in restroom facilities. Would you remain passive after knowing that a strange-looking man, dressed like a woman, has been peering over toilet cubicles to watch your wife in a private moment? What should be done to the pervert who was using mirrors to watch women and girls in their stalls? If you are a dad, I pray you will protect your little girls from men who walk in unannounced, unzip their pants and urinate in front of them. If this had happened 100 years ago, someone might have been shot. Where is today’s manhood? God help us! Via Protect Your Kids from Tyrant Obama

Let’s set aside most of the paranoid rantings the start the paragraph. What matters to me is this sentence. “If this had happened 100 years ago, someone might have been shot.” - I am not sure this is true, but I understand his appeal to the good old days of segregation and repression. Dobson is clearly saying, transgendered people would have been shot in the past by real men.

His next sentence challenges his male readers. “Where is today’s manhood” Dobson is clearly calling out men who do not protect their families like the real men of old. Dobson may not actually say to go out and shoot transgendered people, but its pretty clear that that is what he means. It is a repressible call to action that skirts direct responsibility for action while at the same time, encouraging that same action. I’d call it masterful if it did not come from human filth.