Potty breaks could be where our polarized nation comes together

OK. It finally happened. I got the question that I was hoping I would never have to answer.

How can a conservative Republican like me espouse liberal ideas like acceptance of others, caring for the less fortunate, tolerance, sex education, equal rights and more?

The answer is difficult. Sometimes I think that our American politics have retreated to two distinct poles that are so opposite that we find each other’s ideas to be loathsome and repugnant. Yet, I cling to the hope that there is a middle ground where we can be militarily strong, economically smart and socially compassionate.

And I would guess there are a lot more people like me out there. People who support strong defense, economic programs that stimulate business, and the government’s role in building, improving and maintaining roads and infrastructure.

People who want jobs kept in America provided our people are competitive on a level playing field with the rest of the world and that we have enough workers. People who want to keep our guns (although a little tighter registration requirements would not be the end of the world).

People who believe that government intrusion into medical insurance is unnecessary, provided medical insurance could be even better structured by allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines on a national scale.

People who want to keep the government out of our bedrooms and out of our bathrooms.

And people who want the government to take a look at itself and cut bloat and wasteful spending.

Yet, these same people are also compassionate, believe in aiding others who are less fortunate, and support equality on any level. And they support social programs that help the downtrodden, provided the programs are a stepping stone to self improvement.

The difficulty in a polarized country is that it foments a polarized government. Little gets accomplished except for name-calling and finger-pointing. The right hates the left, and the left hates the right. Neither side accomplishes anything for the good of the nation as a whole, and the stalemate deepens.

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Kids learn early on that when it comes to dessert, that they need to play nicely with older siblings, or there will not be an after-dinner treat coming their way. It is this concept of sharing with all of the siblings that we need to remember in government. We need to share ideas, compromise and make room for everyone at the table, or we will fail as a country and as a people.

Take the incident in Palatine, Illinois. The people of Palatine ignored the issue of transgender rights until 10 years ago — in 2013 — when the school district got hit with a finding by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. As a result, a transgender student and the school district sat down and worked out a sensible solution for the student that included private changing areas and bathroom facilities.

Years later, our nation remains in a nasty fight over bathroom access for transgender people. In some places transgender students use the bathrooms of their sexual identity.

Conservatives are going ballistic. Liberals liken it to the days of racially segregated bathrooms. To say that this is a lightning rod issue is to underestimate the emotional explosiveness felt by many people.

The truth is that many transgender students are not known by their classmates to be anything but the sex with which they identify. These people have been using the bathrooms with which they identify for years. No one has noticed, and no one has cared until now that the government has put its foot in the doo-doo and achieved getting both conservatives and liberals riled up.

I can’t tell you how many times I have been at a ball game or a concert or an amusement park where I have been standing at the urinal only to notice a female enter the bathroom, excuse herself, and head into the first empty stall. There are just insufficient facilities for women at these major events, and when a woman has to go, she really has to go.

No one blinks an eye.

But now if a woman who identifies as a male comes into the bathroom and enters a stall, I can imagine the furor that might cause.

Or if a man who identifies as a female comes into the bathroom and enters a stall, it will be Katy bar the door.

All because the government has drawn attention to which door these people enter to relieve themselves.

Just think how much better the world would be if we spent this much energy feeding our poor or adopting kids who need responsible parenting.

The Palatine issue is just the tip of the iceberg. Every school district, college and university is now plodding its way in an attempt to come to grips with questions about bathroom access for transgender students. And they have to do this while parents go nuts in support of their own emotional position.

I have spoken to students — dozens of them — white, Black, Hispanic, male, female, gay, lesbian, bisexual and perhaps transgender (although I did not ask and I do not know). The kids for the most part are not bothered. Their attitude is that when you gotta go, you gotta go. No one likes to be in the bathroom attending to business longer than necessary anyway. And it is certainly not a place any of these kids feel particularly sexy.

However, they all agreed on one thing: Their parents would not be happy.

So, back to my thoughts about trying to take the best of being conservative while feeling compassion for others, I believe the government really messed up. It’s putting in place bathroom usage rules that upset many American parents without thinking through the specific policy guidelines or the repercussions of putting the government in the middle of this issue in the first place.

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