Don't women's bathrooms have stalls? So who cares?

A new North Carolina law requires transgendered persons to use public restrooms of the sex they were at time of their birth. It has sparked outrage; Bruce Springsteen, for instance, is refusing to perform in the state. And that outrage has sparked a counter-outrage. For example, ESPN baseball broadcaster Curt Schilling  raised the specter of cross-dressing men sharing bathrooms with little girls. He was fired for his remarks.

This has been an eye-opener for me. I didn't know this was such a problem. But it must be. After all, conservatives tend to be skeptical of laws that micro-manage every little detail in life, especially if the risks are minor and there are already laws on the books that address the underlying concern.

Now, I have been in women's bathrooms. To take out the garbage because it was part of my job. Once or twice by mistake. Those I have been in have had bathroom stalls, just like men's bathrooms. Only they have more stalls and no urinals.

For NC's law to make sense, apparently my experience is an outlier. Apparently... 

• In most women's rooms, there are no stalls separating the toilets, so female "private parts" are exposed.
• In defiance of my personal experience and what we routinely see in tv and movies, women do not actually go to the restroom together for protection. 
• Parents routinely send little girls into the public bathroom alone. 
• A law will actually stop men from posing as women to get into  a women's bathroom for whatever perverse thrill that may provide.
• Male-to-female transgendered persons actually do get some perverse thrill by using the same facilities as little girls or women.
• There are no indecent exposure laws, or they don't apply to women's bathrooms. 

Really?

It seems to me that NC legislators made a "mountain out of a molehill" except that the molehill is nothing. Whether is was motivated by transgender bigotry or not, it's a law that "solves" a non-problem. 

Everyone of us knows little girls we care about whom we would not want to see harmed. Daughters, nieces, neighbor kids, whomever. I see no less risk to them with laws such as North Carolina's, and no greater risk without them. Either way, the public restroom is one the last places I'd worry about them.

Heck, maybe we're better off integrating restrooms. Urinals one side behind a wall, sinks in the middle, stalls on the other side that anyone can use. Then we can all shut up already about this non-issue.

Rebel Without Some Causes

It's easy to feel like a jerk or worse on Facebook. I've changed the names of the invitees, and also the exact name of the Causes, but this is how it goes:

"Jane Smith invited you to support the cause Real Men Don't Hit Women."

"Mary Johnson has invited you to support the cause End Child Porn."

My responses? Ignore, and Ignore.

The worst part is, I don't ignore every cause or group. I know some people do as a matter of policy, but I don't. Yet, I "Ignored" perhaps the two causes that every decent person should agree with, right?

But as to the child porn thing, it seems to me that child porn as an issue is focused primarily in getting the government to monitor people's websurfing habits and forcing every business with wi-fi to keep records of everyone who ever used the Internet on their property. Eradicating child porn is the excuse, but Big Brother is the goal.

It's why I'd never join an "End Meth Addiction" cause even though it would be great if all meth addicts kicked the habit. I see that "cause" and I jump to the conclusion that it's about escalating the War on Drugs, something I definitely do not endorse.

As to the violence against women cause, I clicked to find out more. I saw that the beneficiary of donations was actually a gay rights group committed to sensitivity training in the workplace. I'm not necessarily against that, but a) it didn't seem directly related to the Cause, and b) I couldn't tell looking at things briefly whether this group had a political agenda of imposing "civil rights" by attacking property rights and freedom of association. It does seem to me that this is what most "civil rights" groups are actually committed to. I don't have time to research everything in detail, so I decided to Ignore this cause.

I was also recently invited to join a group or Cause to support the Massachusetts cop who arrested Henry Louis Gates. I wasn't there and didn't pay much attention to the story. But even if I thought the cop correctly followed protocol, which many insist he did, I'd still be reluctant to defend the police in any instance. As Will Grigg and others note, police assert too much power and have been given too much authority these days. To "support" this cop would likely mischarcterize my general views regarding the state of law enforcement in America, which is decidedly negative.

This is also why I don't join groups or causes that "support the troops." Such organizations, at some point in their literature, suggest that the troops are protecting us or defending freedom. I believe, however, that instead they were deceived by politicians and are going through hell for no reason except to protect the interests of politicians. I only join "Support the Troops - Bring them home!" type causes.

Is America ready for a [insert here] President?

Yesterday I briefly heard one of the right-wing talk radio guys discuss the Iowa caucus results. In 2004, two African-American candidates performed disastrously in Iowa, suggesting that this overwhelmingly white state was somehow not "ready" for a black President. Then Barack Obama comes and kicks but, putting the lie to that notion. The host was getting a lot of mileage on this point.

I tried to think: who were those black candidates in 2004? Then I remembered: Al Sharpton and Carol Mosely-Braun. I had to laugh. They were not credible candidates not because they were black, but because they aren't credible people. Whatever one thinks about Barack Obama's views, his style and personal and public record are such that he could persuade Iowa voters to vote for him than for far more experienced old white men like Chris Dodd and Joe Biden.

Does this suggest Iowans are prejudiced against old white men?

And now - surprise - it's dawning on some people that Hilary Clinton's campaign is in trouble not because she's a woman, but because she's Hilary Clinton.

I don't know if race or gender is still a large factor in Presidential politics. Of the two, I would posit that being a woman would be a bigger obstacle than being black.

The reason is, racism in America has no religious basis (except in some really far-out people with theories on the curse of Ham or whatever), whereas sexism does. Racism tends to be statistics-based: crime rates, education performance, etc., but is not personally directed against high-achieving blacks. In other words, a white may be anxious in some quarters of the city, and be skeptical about the grades of a black job applicant from a black school, but would be glad to have her son play for Tony Dungy or work for Colin Powell.

On the other hand, no matter how successful or smart a woman may be, a not insignificant part of the population still believes in gender roles they believe are mandated in the Bible or some other religious texts. Because the Presidency has been conflated with a pastoral role, people who wouldn't want a female pastor would probably be uncomfortable with a female President. Such voters may be small in number, but could provide the margin of defeat.

Moreover, while many whites object to the "radical" agenda of civil rights activists, they still feel sufficient guilt that they agree on principle with many of the goals of equal rights. But they have much less sympathy with the socialistic "radical feminist agenda."

That said, I think both sexism and racism continue to recede in American life. Before GW Bush, I figured the best chance we had for a female or black President would be if she or he ran as an economically conservative, socially moderate Republican - someone who wouldn't cram the "liberal agenda" down are throats Now, the Republican Party has governed so badly, it appears more people are willing to vote Democrat and take their chances.