Opinion: Bozell & Graham - $ Six-Figure Fines for Gender Pronouns?

By Brent Bozell and Tim Graham | May 21, 2016 | 7:38 AM EDT

The Left used to congratulate itself on being the "Free Speech Movement" and celebrate the rebellious anarchists who used obscene words and forced sexually graphic images and conversations into the public square. Conservatives were the ones who insisted on decency in the public discourse, and demanded regulation, both within the private sector as well as from the federal government, to protect the public from that obscenity.

But now, as the world turns upside down on sexuality and gender, leftists are becoming the ones who censor and fine. Instead of a Hays Code for decency, there's a Gays Code. Breaking the new language rules of the LGBT lobby can now cost you very dearly. And literally.

Washington Post blogger Eugene Volokh revealed the New York City Commission on Human Rights has issued guidance that employers, landlords, professionals, and businesses can now be fined up to $250,000 for not using an individual's preferred name, pronoun, or title under the New York City Human Rights Law - "regardless of the individual's sex assigned at birth, anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or the sex indicated on the individual's identification."

Their legal "guidance" insists "Most individuals and many transgender people use female or male pronouns and titles. Some transgender and gender non-conforming people prefer to use pronouns other than he/him/his or she/her/hers, such as they/them/theirs or ze/hir." So if you refuse to call a single person "they" as they prefer, you can be fined for hate speech.

This mandated speech code not only reflects a rejection of biology, and not just an endorsement of leftist cultural politics, but a form of fascism never before seen in this country.. You must use "ze" - an utterly made up word - and then be required to use a different pronoun for the same person tomorrow, when they decide on a new term. So far, they include not just "ze," but "xe," "ve," "(f)ae" and "per." They've insisted on "Mx." instead of "Mr." or "Ms."

Let's call this regime for what is - transgender privilege.

"We can't be required to even display a license plate that says `Live Free or Die' on our car, if we object to the message; that's what the court held in Wooley v. Maynard (1978)," Volokh argued. "But New York is requiring people to actually say words that convey a message of approval of the view that gender is a matter of self-perception rather than anatomy."

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What's more, Volokh warned, the Big Apple grammar police have declared that "refusal to use a transgender employee's preferred name, pronoun, or title may constitute unlawful gender-based harassment." The label "harassment" is important because harassment law requires employers and businesses to prevent harassment by co-workers and patrons, not just employers.

This punishment is not an empty threat. In 2012, Mirella Salemi, a lesbian chef at a Mexican-restaurant chain was awarded $1.6 million in damages by a New York county judge because her employer Edward Globokar told her repeatedly in prayer meetings that homosexuals were going to Hell. The hate-speech fines were upheld in 2014.

President Obama's overweening imposition of a transgender-bathroom policy for all of the nation's schools makes it clear that the federal government will likely follow in New York City's footsteps. The Obama administration has already taken the view that existing federal sex-discrimination laws automatically apply to "gender identity." The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission views it as illegal under federal law to persistently call employees by the "wrong" (biologically correct) pronouns.

Male Is Female, and Female Is Male. Orwell's "1984" is here.