As the fall semester approached, a post on the website of the University of Tennessee by the Pride Center Director, Donna Braquet, encouraged the university’s instructors to ask their students to provide their names and preferred pronouns at the beginning of the semester. Were she to have her way, pronouns such as “he” and “she” will be tossed out and replaced with gender-neutral ones such as, “ze” and “zir.” Braquet is associate professor and biology librarian with University Libraries who has followed an agenda since her faculty placement in 2004. That agenda helped to create Tennessee’s first Commission for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People and the opening of the Pride Center which she has directed since its beginning. According to the Pride Center, the pronoun usage is only the start of ways that the campus could be more inclusive.
The website post went viral and received an almost immediate response. The Tennessean reported on September 1st that top state and federal lawmakers reacted with outrage and promises of action. One week later, the school issued a statement saying there is no official policy that mandates the use of gender-neutral pronouns. The statement allowed that Tennessee is a university with colleges and departments that have a lot of autonomy. Yet, state Senator, Bo Watson, said the post suggested “a lack of institutional control.” Lt. Governor, Ron Ramsey, said the post was “the clearest example of political correctness run amok that I have seen in quite some time.” Federal lawmakers also reacted harshly. U.S. Representative, John J. Duncan, a UT graduate and Republican who represents the Knoxville area, wrote that he is “personally embarrassed by this stupid revision of personal pronouns by someone who obviously had too much time on his or her hands.” (The quotes are from The Tennessean, September 1, 2015.)
However, UT’s pronoun suggestions are not exclusive to the Knoxville campus. Vanderbilt University, Harvard University, Middle Tennessee State University, and the University of California also represent an aggressive push for gender-neutral pronouns. The Tennessean reported on September 4, 2015 that Vanderbilt added gender-neutral pronouns to the student handbook in August. “Variations of ‘they’ are used as single-person pronouns alongside forms of ‘he’ and ‘she.’ A statement in the handbook said the addition was made in an effort to create ‘a community that is welcoming and inclusive to individuals of all gender identities and expressions.’”
The latest on the issue, reported by multiple media outlets on September 5th, reveals that “UT President, Joe DiPietro, sent a message to university trustees on Friday saying references to gender-neutral pronouns will be removed from the school’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion website.” (Associated Press, September 5, 2015)
But the challenges go deeper than the pronouns. In the fall issue of Torchbearer (The Magazine of the University of Tennessee), there is a three-page, colorful spread by Cassandra Sproles highlighting and glamorizing a homosexual couple that teach in UT’s College of Veterinary Medicine. They were “married” in Brooklyn, New York, in 2011, but when they moved to Knoxville to begin working with the vet school, their “marriage” was not recognized under Tennessee state law. Moreover, one of the women was pregnant. How does that happen in the natural, God-created state of things? Their baby was the first baby born in the state of Tennessee to have a woman listed as “father” on her birth certificate. Was the woman a “father” or a ze or a hir? Confusion reigns. “In April 2015, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, which included Tanco v. Haslam (Tanco being the UT professor, A.K.) and three other cases. On June 26, in a 5-4 decision, history was made, and the court held that the Fourteenth Amendment does require all states to grant same-sex marriages and recognize those granted in other states.” (Torchbearer, Fall 2015, p. 14) At least through their magazine, the University of Tennessee celebrates, magnifies, and glorifies the immoral decision that adds to the confusion and downward spiral of America’s morals.
I am concerned about UT’s practices and teachings because I am an alumnus. When I attended the Knoxville campus in the late sixties and early seventies, I had teachers who were unbelievers and immoral people. This is to be expected in a state school. UT is not a religious institution nor “Christian” in any sense of the term. I knew that going in, but I wanted a Forestry degree. And I expected to get that education without the immoral, polluting baggage of homosexuality, and so should students of veterinary medicine. In my day, students were promiscuous and smoked and drank and cursed. But the school did not praise and laud such activities. Now, however, we have slipped down the slope of political correctness and anything-goes-godlessness to this point of advocating and encouraging that which God finds to be “shameless acts” (Romans 1:27). It is one thing to say, “Homosexual students attend here and we welcome them. The education we offer is for all.” It is another thing altogether to say, “We are proud of the immoral and ungodly acts of our teachers, and we promote such ungodly lifestyles by lifting up their example.” I am ashamed of my alma mater, and I am embarrassed by this recent trend and the publication of the school’s practices.
Liv Parks, program coordinator at Vanderbilt’s Office of LGBTQI Life, uses plural pronouns for the singular and says she does so “for safety reasons.” “Gender non-conforming people are more likely to fall victim to hate crimes and suicide because of their identities,” she says. (The Tennessean, September 4, 2015) Actually, they are mixed up about their gender because of the deception and confusion of ungodly people. That is their bigger problem. Being “straight” is more terrifying because of militant homosexuals and their supporters who don’t obey the rules in an environment that tolerates evil but cannot tolerate a stand for what is right in the sight of a holy God. Christians speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Immoral people seem not to be concerned about truth or right. Their behavior declares it. Unruly people on the right seem to be in the minority, but the lawless people on the left seem to be in the majority. And so, they get their unjustified, illogical, unnatural way even in our Supreme Court. They are dangerous, frightful, and intimidating. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).
Right-thinking people must not compromise. Through prayer and with God’s help, we will turn the tide, but it can get worse before it gets better. “Evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” (2 Timothy 3:13). This is being seen on the campus of the University of Tennessee. Yet, the souls of men and women are at stake, in this generation and in generations to come. We must be vigilant in our love for these souls and for the word of God.
–Andy