The General Got Fired … for Five Hours
Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, June 17, 2016 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler
Some time in your life, you’ve probably said: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me.” Maybe, they shouldn’t, but they do, especially in this day and age.
Case in point is Lt. General Jerry Boykin, who was President Bush’s Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. He was in the Army for 36 years, and 13 of those years he served on Delta Force counter-terrorist missions, including the Iran hostage rescue attempt, the hunt for Pablo Escobar in Colombia, and Black Hawk Down in Mogadishu.
General Boykin is a born-again Christian and, to get to my point, I’ll fast-forward to 2007 when he retired from the Army and took a teaching job at Hampden-Sydney College, one of two all-men’s colleges left in the U.S. He’s taught there for nine years, and has been Executive Vice President of Family Research Council since 2012.
The General, who is a seasoned successful warrior on the battlefield, just emerged as a target in the culture war about sex, gender and who uses which restroom. In his speech to conservatives in March, the General jokingly said, “The first man who goes into the restroom with my daughter will not have to worry about surgery!”LGBT activists were furious, and demanded that the college fire him … which they did … then reinstated him in less than six hours with a final one-year contract that, simply, delays his termination.
General Boykin explained it this way: “The bottom line is that I oppose these so called ‘bathroom’ bills that let men go into women’s locker rooms, showers, and [restrooms]and I have been very public about it. When I [made that statement in Orlando], the LGBT community once again came after me, claiming that I was calling for violence against transgender people. …That simply is not the case … My statement was meant to be humor and not a call for violence, which everyone in my audience understood….
“Nonetheless, I gave the LGBT community just what they needed to pressure the college leadership to terminate me and they did. My personal view is that PC speech is smothering free speech, a constitutional right in America. …I have not and will not change my position on men in women’s showers and locker rooms.”
Thank God for men like General Boykin! For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.