We Are All Different - And Response (2)

  • Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Re: Comments by Bradley County Commissioner Dan Rawls on bathroom use by transgenders 

Labeling and judging is not ours to do, it's wrong.  Transgendered people and sexual perverts are in no way co-mingled, like kind or a proper pairing as say peanut butter and jelly for example.  I have a hard time trying to even find any connection to that specific pairing as Commissioner Dan Rawls had evidently drawn.  Labeling a transgendered person as a “sexual pervert” is a knee jerk response by someone that is not well informed and in reality a small minded person.  Using labels and attaching them to issues where they do not belong inflames society incorrectly trying to sway a desired conclusion that is often unjustified.  

Commissioner Rawls is using a scary topic (sexual perverts), attaching it to a totally irrelevant issue, and scaring people into following his mindset, further in a rather broad and public way threatening a specific community/set of people with harm and allowing the premise that it is okay for others to harm these people.  Is this what we have come too, a society that finds it okay to publicaly threaten people with harm, worse from an elected official? 

We are all different, as such have different struggles and different successes.  We are all unique and that is what makes the world so enjoyable and interesting; why would anyone purposefully push someone down?  I was told this quote once: “Whoever is trying to bring you down, is already below you.”  It’s too bad we don’t remember these wise words often enough, better yet use our energies to build up our friends, family, community, etc.  We should help our friends and neighbors in times of struggle, never mis-label, discriminate and worse yet harm or threaten harm. 

In terms of using the bathroom, we all do it.  In these times of need I typically have one thing on my mind and I’m not worried about who is in the other stall doing their “business” unless a courtesy flush is necessary due to unplanned and often embarrassing issues (God bless us all at that embarrassing moment, we have been there before).  Once done I go about my prior business exiting the restroom and not looking back as I don’t look to the restroom as my new #HANGOUT.  I probably would not even know if Caitlyn Jenner was in the stall next to me, nor do I care (not the most appropriate place for an autograph either). 

Often we talk about work place environments, what about our living environment – where we live, play, socialize, shop, entertain, relax, etc.  We should strive to live in communities without discrimination, bullying, harassment, judgment and threats of violence. 

I hope Bradley County is paying attention, is this who you want speaking and representing you? 

The golden rule we all know, “Treat others as you would like to be treated”.  When did the rules change? 

Leslie A. Ward 

* * * 

Dear Mayor Davis and Commissioner Alford, 

I would like to call your attention to public comments made recently by Bradley County Commissioner Dan Rawls, as published in the Chattanoogan.com Monday, April 25, 2016.  Mr. Rawls has issued a veiled but no less apparent threat against citizens of Bradley County with whom he disagrees. Specifically, he has threatened transgender women, who the American Medical Association, American psychiatric Association, American Academy of pediatrics, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and many other medical professional societies acknowledge as having a bona fide clinical diagnosis which is appropriately treated through gender transition.

While his comments, as ill-informed as they are, would be disgusting coming from anyone, they are absolutely reprehensible coming from elected official. Mr. Mayor, you have stated that Bradley County is committed to providing a safe clean and progressive community for its citizens, yet the words and threatened actions of your fellow public servant speaks strongly to the contrary.

I respectfully ask that you take action to ensure that all citizens of and visitors to Bradley County are treated with respect and protected from the vile hatred espoused by a small minority. Specifically, I ask that Commissioner Rawls be publicly reprimanded and or censured for his mean-spirited and threatening comments.  

Renee H McLaughlin, MD FACS 

* * *

Beware of false prophets.  Do not be intimidated into enabling their strange, anti-scientific, religious beliefs. 

No one can dispute the right of Renee H McLaughlin, MD FACS, to preach his sincere, deeply held, religious beliefs.  Likewise, the churches he cites such as "...American Medical Association, American psychiatric Association, American Academy of pediatrics, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology..." also have the same indisputable right to professionally preach their fanatical, anti-scientific beliefs in a strange religious ritual he calls, "gender transition." 

But, on the other hand, Renee H McLaughlin, MD FACS, disputes the rights of others to preach their equally sincere beliefs.  Yes, Renee H McLaughlin, MD FACS even discriminates against the beliefs of those who do not share his self-presumed superior religious beliefs.  Special discrimination and condemnation is reserved for any government or government official who fail in their sacred duty to adopt the religious beliefs of Renee H McLaughlin, MD FACS, as the supreme law of the land. 

Donald O'Connor
Chattanooga

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