Why Is Target Accommodating Peeping Toms?

Sexual offenses at Target stores have dramatically increased since the company’s 2016 announcement that men who identify as women are welcome in the women’s restroom. According to a recent study conducted by the Woman Means Something campaign, incidents of men attempting to look up the skirts of women while they use the restroom at Target have more than doubled since this policy change. And overall incidents of voyeurism (i.e. Peeping Tom offenses) have almost tripled.

But Target is not reconsidering its “gender-inclusive” restroom policies.

Two weeks after Target affirmed its policy of allowing customers to use the bathroom of their choice, a man was caught videotaping a girl as she tried on bathing suits at a Target in Frisco, Texas. The girl noticed the man peering over the wall with a cellphone pointed at her. She ran and told Target staff, but the suspect left the scene before he could be apprehended. A warrant was later issued for his arrest.

But Target is not reconsidering its “gender-inclusive” restroom policies.

In March, a man exposed himself to a child in the women’s restroom at a Target store in Chicago, Illinois. Police reports say the perpetrator insisted he had to use the women’s restroom. He then pushed into a stall being used by a little girl and exposed his genitals before leaving the bathroom. Outraged shoppers threatened to boycott Target for its restroom policies after the incident.

Still, Target is not reconsidering its “gender-inclusive” restroom policies.

The reason Target allows men into women’s restrooms is not to make its customers more comfortable. YouGov data suggest 47 percent of American women are uncomfortable using a unisex toilet in public (and there may be more unwilling to admit their discomfort to a YouGov pollster). So Target is potentially alienating 60 million female customers to cater to the demands of 700,000 males who identify as female.

The department store chain enacted a policy of allowing transgender customers to use the bathroom of their choice after North Carolina passed a law requiring transgenders to use the public restroom corresponding to the sex listed on their birth certificates. Despite the fact that only 0.6 percent of Americans identify as transgender, this small but vocal minority is bending large corporations like Target and numerous politicians and laws to their will.

How is such a small group so powerful in our culture, business and politics?

Normally, endangering women and children to cater to about half a percent of the population would be a spectacularly poor business decision. But Target executives are worried less about offending women and children than they are about being labeled “transphobic.” Why?

At the end of the day, the transgender advocacy groups calling for unisex bathrooms are more vocal and more organized than their opposition. They label as a bigot anyone who says a man should not enter the women’s restroom. These accusations are successfully dominating the media cycle and keeping the silent majority of Americans silent—and, in effect, submissive to this agenda of cultural extremism.

This shocking example illustrates how a small number of zealous “social justice” advocates have established themselves as the arbitrators of America’s new morality.

By labeling anyone uncomfortable about a man in a women’s restroom as a bigot, activists can bully the majority of Americans into submission and dominate media attention. These progressive activists shout down, censor and otherwise block conservative, traditional, biblical views, attempting to allow only one set of opinions to be discussed publicly. Despite the fact that most Americans don’t necessarily agree with their views on homosexuality, transsexuality, immigration, gender, family and abortion, these activists are successfully and radically transforming American culture.

Politicize Everything

One of the most notable areas where “social justice” leftists have seized power in recent years is the corporate world. One of the most time-tested principles of conversation with a new acquaintance is, “Don’t talk politics.” No one was more sensitive to that than the businessman, who wanted to keep his employees as unified as possible and to sell to as many customers as possible, no matter their political views. For that reason, companies avoided political statements in order to not alienate anyone.

This has changed at more companies besides Target. Major corporations from Twitter to Delta Airlines to Kellogg’s are making bold statements and taking bold actions to conform to the progressive agenda on abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, immigration, race and other issues. Customers with different values are invited to shop elsewhere. Employees with different values have to leave.

Kevin Williamson was fired from the Atlantic after someone dug up one of his social-media posts from four years prior that suggested the legal penalty for abortion should match the legal penalty for murder. Harmony Daws was fired from her job at a cleaning business after she was named president of Oregon Right to Life. Her work as a pro-life activist had nothing to do with her job, but her boss argued that Daws’s views would cause her to discriminate against other employees. Julianne Benzel, a history teacher at Rocklin High School, was put on administrative leave after suggesting to her students that school administrators were practicing a double standard by supporting a gun-control march while remaining neutral about an anti-abortion rally.

Coaches at a CrossFit gym in Indiana organized an event to express pride in lesbians, homosexuals, bisexuals and transgenders. Christian gym owner Brandon Lowe canceled the event when he found out about it, prompting a homosexual member of his gym to organize a boycott. Within two days, the gym closed under pressure. One CrossFit executive, Russell Berger, tweeted in defense of Lowe’s decision and criticized the lgbt community for its intolerance. He faced such a backlash that, just hours after his tweet went viral, the CrossFit organization tweeted: “The statements made today by Russell Berger do not reflect the views of CrossFit Inc. For this reason, his employment with CrossFit has been terminated.”

This is far from a unique incident. espn host Curt Shilling posted an opinion on Facebook stating that grown men should not be able to use the same restroom as young girls. espn fired him. spx Flow Technology employee Charles Rhoads declined to look at a homosexual coworker’s wedding pictures. spx fired him. Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran wrote a men’s devotional book that contained a paragraph condemning homosexuality. The department fired him. When it became public knowledge in 2014 that newly appointed Mozilla ceo Brendan Eich donated $1,000 to support Proposition 8, a California initiative to ban same-sex “marriage,” left-wing advocates forced him to resign within two weeks.

None of these people lost their jobs because their views on abortion or homosexuality affected their job performance. One could try to make a case that they were fired because their bosses were personally intolerant of their views. But the evidence in more and more instances suggests they were fired because the companies they worked for feared the backlash from sexual activists.

As these businesses cave in to such tactics, a small minority of aggressive people is dictating the “mainstream” view by which society is judged. This is the advanced stage of an intentional strategy to revolutionize the nation.

‘Liberating Tolerance’

When America’s culture wars began in earnest in the 1960s, one of the nation’s most influential professors was Herbert Marcuse. Known as the “father of the New Left,” Marcuse wrote the essay “Repressive Tolerance” in 1965, arguing that Western civilization was thoroughly corrupt and that the United States was addicted to war, exploitation and sexual oppression. To change this state of affairs and create a subversive majority, Marcuse advocated a revolutionary strategy called “liberating tolerance.”

He defined liberating tolerance as “intolerance against movements from the right and tolerance of movements from the left.” This would require “extreme suspension of the right of free speech and free assembly,” but he insisted that this was justified “if the whole of society is in extreme danger.” Marcuse’s “liberating tolerance” notion became very popular among left-wing activists in the 1960s and ’70s—a generation that today holds high offices in politics, business and beyond.

Today’s left-wing activists follow this general strategy. If you want to create a society where the majority of the people support abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, socialism and other leftist doctrines, you must silence opposing viewpoints.

Slate magazine published an article titled “In Praise of Intolerance”last year. The article referenced Marcuse’s philosophy and argued that the left should champion “truth” instead of “tolerance.” It cited academia’s intolerance of creationism and vaccine skepticism as justified examples of backing truth over tolerance. It listed the idea that men should be the head of the household as another idea that should not be tolerated.

Liberals (in the more traditional sense of the word) decried intolerance, saying people should be able to decide right and wrong for themselves rather than have religious morals imposed upon them. Present-day progressive activists are different. They enforce a new set of their own moral standards with the same fervor the colonial Puritans used to enforce the old set. In a world turned upside down, those who espouse traditional biblical morals are now the new heretics.

Apathetic Christians

One does not need a very long memory to recognize how radically and rapidly society is changing. Many of the moral stances people are fired for today were considered statements of the obvious a generation ago, or even five years ago. The beliefs that abortion is murder, that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, and that people are born male or female were known facts. Now, expressing such facts in public can get you in serious trouble.

This radical transformation in American culture illustrates how a vocal minority can punch above its weight—to the point of knocking down a silent majority—precisely because that majority is so weak-willed.

Gallup surveys indicate that over half of Americans oppose abortion under most circumstances, and almost half believe homosexuality is morally wrong. A large majority believe biological sex is real and fixed. The reason people are fired for expressing these beliefs is not because they are fringe opinions. It is because of the aggressive and successful efforts of a small, well-organized group of activists who pressure companies into firing such individuals.

Meanwhile, the great majority of Americans remain silent.

The radical left has been able to revolutionize American culture due to the moral apathy of the average citizen.

Seventy percent of Americans identify as Christian, but less than half of these say reading the Bible is essential to their Christian identity. A usa Today poll found 25 percent of Americans can name all seven ingredients in a McDonald’s Big Mac, but only 14 percent can accurately list the Ten Commandments. So while a majority of Americans feel that the moral fiber of the nation is deteriorating, they struggle to define right and wrong.

By adopting a live-and-let-live attitude, American Christians have surrendered their children to a secularized education system and surrendered their influence to a minority of vocal “social justice” advocates. The result is that America is approaching a tipping point where the silent majority becomes the silenced minority.

This never could have happened if Christians clung to biblical morality with the same fervor that progressive activists fight for irreligious principles.

Casting Truth to the Ground

Most Americans own a Bible, but do not read it. Yet the Bible contains important warnings about what happens when people become tolerant of evil and apathetic toward the truth.

The Prophet Daniel delivers an incredible end-time prophecy about a great apostasy in God’s Church, enabled by religious apathy. This prophecy gives us vital context concerning the state of American morality today.

Daniel 8:11-12 prophesy of an authoritarian leader who comes in the same spirit as the ancient Hellenistic King Antiochus Epiphanes. This leader rebels against God and temporarily halts the work of God’s Church. He is allowed to “cast down the truth to the ground” because of the sins of the people in the Church. This leader, with a small group of supporters, is able to hijack the Church and change its doctrines because of the people’s apathy. They do not zealously love God’s truth, so they lose it.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains how this prophecy has been fulfilled in his booklet America Under Attack (free upon request). He further explains that these verses reveal the devil’s strategy to destroy America: He takes advantage of people’s apathy and uses a small group to cast truth to the ground.

“The sins of the people gave Satan his opening,” Mr. Flurry writes. “Their prayers to God are not being answered. That is why Antiochus can do all of his dirty work: because there’s so much sin going on inside Israel. That was woefully true of spiritual Israel, God’s Church, and it is equally true of our nations today.”

It is undeniable that there is a small, aggressive, well-organized movement working to convince Americans that abortion is normal, homosexuality is healthy, gender roles are oppressive, and the Bible is bigoted. But this movement has been successful only because the American people are ignorant of and lackadaisical toward biblical truth.

“The fact is, the great majority are forming views, making decisions, and creating policies having been influenced—even bullied—by political correctness, peer pressure or societal coercion,” writes Trumpet managing editor Joel Hilliker in Redefining Family(free upon request). “There has been a clandestine yet concerted effort to radically change people’s minds about homosexuality. And whether they realize it or not, many people have come to accept and embrace this idea because they’ve been unwittingly manipulated to do so.”

Americans pride themselves on being tolerant, but this liberal “tolerance” runs in one direction. When most of society strongly opposed homosexuals, transsexuals, abortion advocates and other liberals, the strategy was to advocate tolerance. But now that radical liberal causes have grown stronger and the opposition has grown weaker, their strategy is shifting away from the tolerance ideal and becoming much more aggressive. This creates an environment where a small group of radicals can bully the silent majority into submission and cast truth to the ground.

So, if you are one of the 8 in 10 Americans who believes moral behavior in the country is deteriorating, now is the time to examine what you believe. The solution to apathy is zeal for the truth. It will take national repentance to bring people back to God and turn this world’s upside-down morals right-side up.

If you do not zealously love and defend the truth, you will eventually come to believe a lie.