I get e-mail

There are various ways people with strange agendas can harvest my e-mail address, but I am often puzzled by their motives in putting me on their list. For example, I get messages every day from the batshit crazy Zionist Organization of America. Now, for some reason, I got a message from "Pastor Paul Blair's Moment of Truth" newsletter, promoting the candidacy of Dan Fisher for governor of Oklahoma. Here's his platform:


There is only one candidate in the race for Governor that has the courage to:

• END ABORTION IN OKLAHOMA.  If Colorado can use the Tenth Amendment to legalize marijuana, Oklahoma can use the Tenth Amendment to end the murder of pre-born children.  WE CAN AND WE WILL!
• AUDIT EVERY STATE AGENCY.   There is no such thing as “public funds.”  The government does not have any money.  The only money the Legislature has is OUR TAX DOLLARS and the bonded indebtedness that they obligate us to repay.  Yet, no governor will audit spending to expose the corruption and give an account to the people.  They simply want to dip deeper into our pockets by raising fees and taxes! 
• PROTECT OUR CHILDREN.  The Bible says that God created male and female.  There is no third option.  Science says that females have a pair of XX chromosomes and males have an XY pair.  Again, there is no third option.  We cannot endanger our children in public restrooms and school locker rooms with this NONSENSE of gender fluidity.  Your bathroom selection should be based on your God given equipment.

I expect my faithful readers don't need my help to respond to this, but here goes.

Colorado did not use the Tenth Amendment to legalize marijuana. Colorado simply eliminated the prohibition in state law. The federal laws against marijuana trafficking are still in effect, it's simply that the Justice Department is showing forbearance. Details here. The Tenth Amendment has nothing to do with this whatsoever.

I'm not sure what it means to say that "The government does not have any money." Yes, most money in the government's possession comes from taxes, and borrowing. (Not quite all of it -- there are user fees.) This is supposed to be news? State agencies are already audited. Here is the web site of the Oklahoma State Auditor, who most definitely exists and is at work.

Does science say that females have a pair of XX chromosomes, and males have an XY pair, and there is no third option? Why no, science does not say that. If you want a summary of what science says about this, the World Health Organization has one. First of all, many people do not have either an XX or XY pair -- and some people who do end up with the physical characteristics ordinarily associated with the opposite endowment. Some people's "God given equipment" is ambiguous, probably not because of the so-called sex chromosomes at all. As WHO explains:

True’ hermaphroditism is a genetic condition in which affected individuals have both mature ovarian and testicular tissue. (29) There are no published population-wide estimates of the frequency of true hermaphrodites. (30) The autosomal inheritance of this condition suggests that genes controlling sexual development and differentiation are not limited to the sex chromosomes.(31) Blackless et al. suggest that such familial inheritance “opens the possibility that, as with other inherited forms of sexual ambiguity, there may be pockets, perhaps even large geographical regions, with relatively high frequencies of true hermaphroditism.” (32)

And of course, gender identity is a psychological, not a physical, characteristic. Some people are born with ambiguous sex, and have choices to make (or, in the past, typically, to be made for them). Others, for reasons we don't fully understand, feel that their gender does not correspond to their apparent biological sex. This is not a choice, it's just the way they are. And really, why the hell does the scientifically illiterate Dan Fisher even care? What does it have to do with him and his sheep-like followers?