Thursday, October 14, 2004
Where PC is taking us
Choose your own gender: Governor Arnie Schwarzenegger has backed a new Californian law that says, in effect, a person can decide his or her (if those terms are even possible now) own gender. Gender has always been a social construct rather than a reality, but now it’s not even biologically based. It’s an obvious absurdity, and the trustees of Westminster School District are not afraid to say so. Apart from the law being “unconstitutionally vague”, they believe it could lead to situations where boys could not be banned from girls locker rooms, and so on. They’re resisting incorporating the code into their school laws, and taking the case to Court. But it looks to be touch and go whether they’ll succeed.
Teaching nuns hit by Muslim headscarf ban: Nuns who teach in state schools in the Black Forest region of Germany are to be banned from wearing their habits in the classroom in line with a judgment on Muslim headscarves, a federal court has ruled. The federal administrative court decreed that it would be unjust if a law passed this year in the southern state of Baden Württemberg prohibiting Muslim women teachers from wearing headscarves did not also apply to Christian symbols. Nuns who form an active part of the teaching staff in the predominantly Roman Catholic state will in future have to change from their habits into ordinary clothing before they enter the classroom.
Choose your own gender: Governor Arnie Schwarzenegger has backed a new Californian law that says, in effect, a person can decide his or her (if those terms are even possible now) own gender. Gender has always been a social construct rather than a reality, but now it’s not even biologically based. It’s an obvious absurdity, and the trustees of Westminster School District are not afraid to say so. Apart from the law being “unconstitutionally vague”, they believe it could lead to situations where boys could not be banned from girls locker rooms, and so on. They’re resisting incorporating the code into their school laws, and taking the case to Court. But it looks to be touch and go whether they’ll succeed.
Teaching nuns hit by Muslim headscarf ban: Nuns who teach in state schools in the Black Forest region of Germany are to be banned from wearing their habits in the classroom in line with a judgment on Muslim headscarves, a federal court has ruled. The federal administrative court decreed that it would be unjust if a law passed this year in the southern state of Baden Württemberg prohibiting Muslim women teachers from wearing headscarves did not also apply to Christian symbols. Nuns who form an active part of the teaching staff in the predominantly Roman Catholic state will in future have to change from their habits into ordinary clothing before they enter the classroom.
