People don’t have pronouns — languages do. Despite this, laws have been made requiring people to use others’ “gender-neutral” pronouns, and transgressors in certain cases have gone to jail.
A recent example concerns an Irish educator who’s being persecuted for refusing to deny reality. As the Daily Mail reports:
A Christian teacher who was jailed following his refusal to use gender-neutral pronouns is back behind bars after again refusing to stay away from school.
Enoch Burke, an evangelical Christian, was returned to Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison where [he] has been held for more than a week for breaching a court order not to teach at Wilson’s Hospital School in Co Westmeath.
His school told him to stay away after he was suspended on full pay in August for refusing to address a transitioning student as ‘they’ rather than ‘he,’ citing his devout Christian beliefs, which he maintained are against transgenderism.
But Mr Burke ignored the order and continued to attend school, leading to his arrest.
At Dublin’s High Court today, Mr Burke, who was representing himself, maintained that he would not purge his contempt of court for violating the order, insisting that he was being persecuted for his faith.
He will now face a hearing at the High Court at a later date, which [has] yet to be confirmed. He will remain in custody until then unless he … agrees to abide by the order to stay away from the school.
In court today when asked by Judge Eileen Roberts if he would abide by the order, he said: “I cannot do that. I go back to jail as a law-abiding citizen of the state always. But God first.”
Burke may know history, as his statement appears to echo that of St. Thomas More, who, before his execution for refusing to acknowledge monarch Henry VIII as the Church of England’s supreme head, proclaimed himself to be “the king’s good servant, but God’s first.”
The two persecutions do have something in common, too. Henry VIII sought to author his own reality, making himself head of a church simply by willing it. Likewise, MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka “transgender”) activists seek to alter reality, claiming they can become the opposite sex just by willing it. Both situations involve playing God.
One difference is that Burke won’t be executed. But other things can be: children’s well-being and souls when they embrace self-mutilation, acting on the MUSS lie; and society’s knowledge of Truth.
This is why, while some may ask, “Is it really a big deal being sensitive to how people want to be addressed?” our language certainly does matter. As The Tyranny of Words (1938) author Stuart Chase pointed out, the side that defines the vocabulary of a debate wins the debate. If I refer to a male MUSS individual as a woman and identify him with a feminine name and pronouns, I’m tacitly rubber-stamping the MUSS agenda’s central claim, that a person can actually switch sexes. In the name of being “sensitive” to his feelings, which diverge greatly from reality, I’m being insensitive to something far more important: reality itself.
Seeking to control debate language is done all the time, mind you. Abortion advocates don’t label “pro-lifers” just that, but call them anti-abortion or even “anti-choice.” Leftists don’t call the January 6 protesters just that, but “insurrectionists.” And when liberals call MAGA Republicans “fascists” or, as Joe Biden did recently, “semi-fascist,” are they being “sensitive” to how others “identify”?
Of course, there is a difference: Unlike Biden and his fellow travelers, those combating the MUSS agenda simply want to use truthful language. And perhaps the most important right is the right to acknowledge reality.
Unfortunately, this right is under assault — especially in Burke’s homeland, (once great) Britain. Just consider a story brought to us by Harry Miller, an ex-police officer who’s now CEO of the Bad Law Project, while appearing on the podcast TRIGGERnometry last month.
A few weeks before his TRIGGERnometry appearance, Miller said, police “turned up at the door of a 14-year-old autistic child [and] said that he was guilty of a Section 4 ‘public order offense,’ which with a repeat would end in two years in jail.” What happened?
On the playground, the boy had told a girl who was dressed like a girl and had long hair like a girl, but claimed she was a boy, “No, you’re a girl.”
His school then called the police, who visited the parents and read them “the riot act.” In a subsequent interview with the school, school officials said to the lad, “Where are you getting radicalized? How do we stop you getting radicalized?” related Miller. “Because if you continue … in this vein and do not learn how wrong your behavior is, one, you would be fired from a job; and, if you were to say that in a pub, you would probably be glassed.” (As if saloon-goers are as woke as school officials. Video below. Relevant portion begins at 58:10.)
Asking a person to say that a girl who’s obviously a girl is a boy is 1984-level dystopianism; it’s up there with demanding that someone say you’re holding up five fingers when you’ve only extended four.
Why all this is happening can be debated. But this is for certain: If the powers-that-be can inure you to denying reality and espousing lies, then it’s far easier for them to get you to embrace their chosen lies — the ones that cement and enhance their power.
