Delaware Governor Backs Down on Reg. 225: Totalitarian Tactics Don’t Work

A few months ago, I wrote about Regulation 225 in my home state of Delaware.

Regulation 225 was an edict issued by the state’s Democratic Governor ordering parents to allow their children to determine their own gender status — even if those children are as young as age 5 or 10!

Imagine: Parents are given full responsibility for feeding, clothing and sheltering their children. Yet under the order of Delaware’s Governor — not even required to go through the legislature — parents were not permitted to determine their child’s gender (or racial) status. It’s bizarre!

Like others in my state, I was outraged by this use of the government-run public school system to initiate literal totalitarianism.

My article was published at this website, as well as in the Delaware State News.

In that article, I wrote:

The absurdity of such a regulation speaks for itself. Regardless of what you think about “transgenderism”, or “trans-racism”, how on earth can a school-age child — age 5 or 10 — be capable of making such a determination? Children are fickle enough when it comes to things like food tastes, eating and play habits, things they do appreciate and understand. How or why would any remotely rational school system hand the right to “decide” one’s gender (or race) du jour over to the child?

It’s so openly absurd and irrational that I view it as a kind of dare. It’s a way for the state to tell parents, “We own your children — not you. And exactly what do you plan to do about it?”

Such a regulation has nothing whatsoever to do with rights, sensitivities or rational educational priorities of any kind. It’s all about power and control for its own sake.

Subsequently, for posting and publishing this article, I was fired by a publication in Delaware run by a LGBT organization, where I had written a popular advice column (unrelated to politics) for the last 8 years.

The LGBT organization, like so many others, sells itself as a pro-gay, pro-transgender program of charity and compassion open to all, one that “celebrates diversity”. In reality, from my own experience, it functions more as a social club taking advantage of tax laws permitting tax-exempt organizations who call themselves charitable. They get a free ride by not having to pay taxes while the rest of us do, all because they call themselves “liberal” and “diverse”.

That’s a different topic for a different discussion. See my article, “Diversity Dies in Darkness” for more on that.

I frankly did not expect much to happen with Regulation 225. Delaware hasn’t had a Republican Governor in decades. The people who run the state depend on the good will and money of those who espouse such craziness. If the Democratic Governor deems the State — and not parents — as in charge of determining the gender or racial status (two things now thought to be subjective, a matter of personal opinion) … well, so be it. Who are we to question the Governor?

So imagine my surprise on reading the following just this morning:

The Delaware Department of Education (DOE) released a revised version of Regulation 225, an anti-discrimination policy proposal to allow students to change their gender identity in schools.

A revised proposal was released Friday morning that now includes a provision to request parental permission before accommodating a student’s request to change their “Protected Characteristic.”

“A school shall request permission from the parent or legal guardian before accommodating a request by a minor student that the school take action to recognize a change in any Protected Characteristic,” according to the DOE’s revised proposal of Regulation 225. “If the student does not permit the school to request permission from the parent or legal guardian, then the request to take action shall not be accepted.”

Wow. A stunning victory for reason, rationality, parental and individual rights — even in a state run by a party with virtually no concern whatsoever for those things. That’s what makes it stunning.

You can defeat irrational bullies, if you learn to stand up to them. Especially when they’re so tragically, self-evidently, and comically wrong.

It can happen. Maybe Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election wasn’t just a fluke. Not when enough people get angry and start to fight back. Leftists and Democrats beware.

Delaware Democrats are like Democrats in the rest of the country — intolerant of dissenting views, smug and arrogant when in charge of the whole system, often acting as if they’re entitled to have their will imposed as law.

And yet reason and rationality, when asserted by enough people, managed to prevail.

It makes me optimistic that the good guys finally can start to win. At least, once they come out of the closet.

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