Our society has gaping, bleeding wounds all over the place precisely from the injury of fatherlessness and just plain bad fathers. If ever it has been vital to elevate and celebrate the irreplaceable value of fathers, it is now. If ever young girls have needed good men, good fathers in their lives to model how a good man behaves, it is now.
We won’t solve the lack by forbidding the plenty.
What’s even worse, though, is the argument that says, “Since it may upset the confused boy who thinks he is a girl, we cannot celebrate fathers and daughters anymore.” Of course, those making that argument wouldn’t say it that way, but that’s the reality. It’s no longer acceptable to honor dads & daughters because it necessarily excludes those who are not daughters by virtue of their biology.
So it went recently at a New York elementary school. The scheduled Father-Daughter Dance was cancelled when the parent/teacher association realized the dance would violate the district’s new Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Student Guidelines.
The school says it will reschedule the dance for kids and “caregivers” of any gender in March.
We Can Never Leave Anyone Out?
Jared Fox, the LGBT liaison for the Department of Education had this to say: “Father-daughter dances inherently leave people out.”
That’s certainly true. A father-daughter dance necessarily excludes anyone not a father or a daughter. It’s not for mothers and sons. It’s not for brothers or cousins or neighbors. Its purpose is to highlight and celebrate the unique bond between fathers and daughters because the father/daughter relationship is vital in a girl’s life.
So it leaves some people out. That’s okay. Every event does not have to include everyone.
That seems a simple concept, but one our society is suddenly having to justify and apologize for. Every event does not have to include everyone. It is okay to do something exclusively for a select group of people.
It is perfectly reasonable and good to honor particular relationships unique to specific people. It’s not cruel to leave out those who aren’t part of that particular relationship. It is not wrong to not invite everybody.
The Tyranny of Inclusivity
Fox also said that father-daughter dances are allowable “as long as there’s messaging that they’re inclusive to everybody.” In other words, as long as it is not really a father-daughter dance. “Inclusive to everybody” means that anyone must be allowed to attend, which makes the dance simply an ordinary, public social event.
It is perfectly reasonable and good to honor particular relationships unique to specific people. It is not wrong to not invite everybody.
When everything must be everything at all times to all people, then nothing is anything anymore.
The inclusivity mandate is like a filter that makes everything in life the same boring, neutral shade of gray.
Irrationality Rules
Worse than all the forced inclusiveness is the way every relationship, every event, every part of life must now be reframed and renamed according to the irrational worldview of “LGBTQ.” This tyrannical agenda demands not just our language, but our most basic familial bonds and traditions.
Anyone can be a daughter now, says the irrational. Being a daughter has no root in being female, since being a woman has no root in being female. A person is whatever and whoever the person decides, as prompted only by feelings and preferences.
Now everything rational must be seen through the lens of the irrational and renamed using the language of nonsense. Every reasonable person knows that a boy is not a daughter.
But reason has been bullied into silent submission by the likes of Jared Fox and school districts that pass guidelines saying there is no such thing as boys and girls anymore.
St. Anthony the Great warned us: “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.’”
Worth Fighting For
Father-daughter dances are worth fighting to protect. The father-daughter relationship is where the male/female “dance” begins, and it’s important to get it right, right from the beginning. Spotlighting the way it should be done might help more men get it right.
It’s a worthy fight for the sake of reason and truth. Girls are daughters. Boys are sons. Biology is not bigotry. We should not surrender the facts, nor our lovely and cherished traditions, to the crushing totalitarian fist of “inclusivity.”
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Jennifer Hartline is a Senior Contributor to The Stream. She is a proud Army wife and mother of four children. She writes passionately on the issues of Life, faith, family and culture, and has been published extensively at Catholic Online and at Catholic Stand. She is currently pursuing a degree in Theology at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. She runs on dark chocolate and peppermint mochas.