Roy Exum
In the eyes of the state of Tennessee, children living inside the state lines may not have a “mother” or “father” for much longer. As a matter of fact, earlier this week the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts was caught red-handed after it had already changed, albeit very quietly, a universal document that had profound ramifications. The centuries-old words of “father” and “mother” were changed to “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” in keeping with the Supreme Court ruling that redefines marriage as we once knew it.
Todd Starnes, a well-known conservative columnist for Fox News, reported on Tuesday that a Memphis attorney – Kendra Armstrong – alerted him to the change after a paralegal in Armstrong’s office brought this latest act by the “cultural jihadists” and someone’s idiotic reaction to his attention. Starnes had a hysterical response.
“Sounds to me like they’ve got an issue with old-fashioned baby-making – back when it took a mommy and a daddy to make a bundle of joy. I know, I know,” he wrote. “It’s old-school. But no matter how hard the Supreme Court and the cultural revolutionaries try to redefine what God defined – it still takes two to tango – ahem.”
Armstrong, on the other hand, didn’t find the humor in the change at all. “This is political correctness gone absolutely amuck,” she told Starnes. “It’s just ridiculous.”
Well, some hours after Starnes’ column appeared, the outrage was flowing. State Rep. Dan Howell of Cleveland could hardly believe anyone could be so stupid. “I was dumbfounded,” he told Starnes. “I thought: How could this happen in a state that has voted by more than 80 percent to define marriage between a man and a woman!”
The state’s AOC, now quite red-faced, went into disaster mode, issuing a hurried memo that read, “After receiving feedback regarding a recent change to the permanent parenting plan form, the AOC has reviewed the procedures and determined that, before making any changes to the form, the AOC should consult with the Domestic Committee of the Tennessee Judicial Conference. We have reverted to the previous form (that listed a “father” and a “mother”) and the committee has been notified.”
The outraged Memphis attorney had some wonderful points when she blew the whistle: “It’s absolutely ludicrous to make the term mother and father obsolete,” she said. “Quite frankly, the terms ‘Parent 1’ and ‘Parent 2’ seem more offensive than mother and father. It’s implying that one parent is the first parent and the other parent is secondary. That’s demeaning!”
She also pointed out, “Why are heterosexual parents having their rights violated? So now it’s improper and inappropriate in a court of law to refer to a parent as a mother and a father?,” she asked, telling the Fox News columnist she planned to flatly ignore the Person 1-2 form if indeed it becomes fact and stick with “mother” and “father.”
“I am exercising my right to free speech, freedom of religion and I am being a conscientious objector,” the whistle-blower told Starnes. “I refuse to go to court with a parenting plan that refers to Parent 1 and Parent 2 instead of mother and father.”
Starnes is hardly surprised. He wrote, “I suggested in my latest book that the true motive behind the gay marriage activists was to deconstruct the traditional American family – hence the ban on mommy and daddy,” adding, “I reckon it’s only a matter of time before Tennessee completely conforms to the demands of the gender-neutral crowd and begins referring to children as ‘Thing One’ and ‘Thing Two.’”
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Believe it or not, the State Department eliminated “mother” and “father” from U.S. Passports four years ago. At the time an announcement said such “improvements” were made in order to “provide a gender neutral description of a child’s parents and in recognition of different types of families.”
Starnes said Brenda Sprague, the deputy assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services, told him “political correctness” had nothing to do with the State Department’s improvements. Instead, she said, “We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago.”
That makes you feel better about it, right?
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When the White House announced a plan to combat heroin use and deaths from prescription drugs, the plan – believed to cost between $2.5 million of $13.4 million - was met with quite a bit of doubt. One angry disbeliever wrote, “This is so stupid; pure Obama!! He targets the states where use is high, and as usual, ignores the Mexican border where nearly all of it transits into the U.S. He M-U-S-T keep that border open so that more FDA's (Future Democrats of America) can stroll in ... with the drugs.”
Another agnostic pitched in: “The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again: The feds were able to limit the abuse of prescription drugs (by cracking down on supply and ignoring the addicted) and now, the addicted have turned to heroin, which is less expensive and more available. If the alternatives to opiate pill addiction are excruciating withdrawal or less-expensive heroin, which do you think an addict would pick? This could have been avoided by treating the addicts before they had turned to heroin in response to the government's actions … and you morons want the same incompetent fools to manage your health care!!!”
My, my, my. These are troubled times in which we live.
royexum@aol.com