#6 Wokeism In The Courts
IDENTITY POLITICS | Mark Boonstra: Wokeism is a worldview that emphasizes social justice, identity politics, and critical theory. It claims to fight against oppression and discrimination, however...
Wokeism is a worldview that emphasizes social justice, identity politics, and critical theory. It claims to fight against oppression and discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality, and other factors. However, wokeism is incompatible with the Holy Word of God, the Bible, and its worldview, which is based on God’s inspired Word through the Holy Spirit.
The Bible teaches that all people are created in the image of God, and that there is only one race, the human race. Furthermore, the Word dictates that God is a He, Jesus is a He, and the Holy Spirit is a He (Luke 11:13). The Bible also teaches that all people are sinners before they are graphed into Christ, and that only Jesus Christ can save us from our sins and reconcile us to God and to one another.
Wokeism, on the other hand, divides people into groups of oppressors and oppressed and promotes resentment, anger, and revenge. It also attempts to covertly convert God into a she-god, Jesus into a bisexual, and the Holy Spirit into a goddess-type spirit being. Wokeism also rejects the authority and sufficiency of the Bible, and instead relies on human choices, societal norms and ideologies. Therefore, authentic Christians should not embrace wokeism, but rather adhere to a Biblical worldview, which leads to an appropriate and Biblical identity of self. -Phinney
Today, Mark reveals the challenge of “wokeism” in the courts.
America seems to be changing at an exponential pace.
And while change can be good, is it always?
What follows is a true story.
I offer it to you—the reader—with the deepest respect for all concerned, out of a sincere desire to know how you think courts in America should respond in a situation such as I will describe.
A criminal defendant (whom I will simply refer to as “Defendant”) was convicted of three counts of child sexually abusive commercial activity and one count of using a computer to commit a crime. Defendant appealed. The three-judge appellate court agreed to affirm Defendant’s conviction and sentence. They disagreed, however, on how to say it.
Why? Because Defendant had asked the court to refer to Defendant using the pronouns “they/them” for the offered reason that Defendant “identifies as female.”
By way of background, Defendant was born a biological male. At the time of conviction, Defendant (who was married to a female) was approaching Defendant’s 46th birthday.
By Defendant’s own description (and according to the record), Defendant had a history of multiple personalities, identifying as both an eight-year-old girl and a feline (cat).
The two-judge court majority accommodated Defendant’s expressed preference and went to the effort of crafting an opinion that either did not use pronouns when referring to Defendant or that referred to Defendant as “they/them.”
The third judge wrote a short, concurring opinion to explain why he declined to sign the majority opinion. He said:
I fully concur in the majority’s legal analysis and in its decision to affirm defendant’s conviction and sentence. I write separately only because this Court should not be altering its lexicon whenever an individual prefers to be identified in a manner contrary to what society, throughout all of human history, has understood to be immutable truth. Abraham Lincoln perhaps said it best:
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.1
While I respect the right of every person to self-identify however
he or she may wish, it frankly should not be of interest or concern to the Court unless it somehow impacts the resolution of the case before us. We as a Court should be writing for clarity and focusing on legal issues, not spending our time making our opinions less clear, all so that we may conform to a particular litigant’s predilections.2
Defendant is a biological man who, as the majority notes and obliges, apparently wishes to be referred to as “they/them” (although even defendant’s counsel frequently defaulted to “he/him” during oral argument, presumably to limit the confusion that otherwise would have infected his colloquy with the Court). The reason given is simply that defendant “identifies as female” (while nonetheless preferring “they/them” to “she/her”). Defendant also claims to have multiple personalities, although that fact is not given as a basis for the requested pronoun preference.
Once we start down the road of accommodating pronoun (or other) preferences in our opinions, the potential absurdities we will face are unbounded.3 I decline to start down that road, and while respecting the right of dictionary- or style-guide-writers or other judges to disagree, do not believe that we should be spending our time crafting our opinions to conform to the “wokeness” of the day.
I decline to join in the insanity that has apparently now reached the courts.
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See, e.g., https://www.historynet.com/abraham-lincoln-quotes (last accessed October 22, 2021).
2 I wholeheartedly agree with the majority that all persons deserve to be treated fairly and with courtesy and respect, but disagree with any intimation that my nonconformity somehow does otherwise.
3 Commentators have described the “pronoun wars” as “the greatest nightmare grammarians have ever endured.”
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The resulting backlash (against the third judge) included attacks in the media as well as in letters (one of which was signed by 19 organizations) directed to the chief judge of the court as well as the chief justice of the state supreme court, suggesting that the judge may have violated the applicable code of judicial conduct requiring judges to “treat every person fairly, with courtesy and respect.”
They also called for “cultural competency training” and the adoption of “standards of conduct and pronoun usage.”
The state supreme court (which is charged with adopting court rules that govern practice and procedure in all of the state’s courts) subsequently adopted a new, first-in-the-nation court rule, which states:
Parties and attorneys may also include Ms., Mr., or Mx. as a preferred form of address and one of the following personal pronouns in the name section of the caption: he/him/his, she/her/hers, or they/them/theirs. Courts must use the individual’s name, the designated salutation or personal pronouns, or other respectful means that is not inconsistent with the individual’s designated salutation or personal pronouns when addressing, referring to, or identifying the party or attorney, either orally or in writing. (emphasis added).
As the author of the above-quoted concurring opinion, as the subject of the letters in question, and as one now subject to the newly adopted court rule, I offer no further commentary at this time. I merely note that the scenario raises serious questions about the proper role and obligations of a court, in deciding the legal issues before it while treating with respect all who appear before it, in what appears to be a fast-changing American society.
These are among the many issues of modern-day society that you, the American people, should consider and ultimately decide. I invite your respectful consideration and input.
What do you think? What would Lincoln think? What would our Founding Fathers think?
-Mark | Mark’s Substack | Visit Mark’s Website
Thank you for sharing this!