A December 19 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Failure 101: Teaching Resilience” reports many American universities feel the need to offer courses that teach “It’s OK to fail sometimes.” Really. The Journal reports that many colleges, including elites like Princeton and Vanderbilt, are offering workshops with vignettes showing students and staff “discussing their failures and moments of self-doubt.” The University of Central Arkansas, during “Fail Forward Week,” apparently hands out certificates giving students “permission to screw up ‘and still be a totally worthy, excellent human being,’” citing the document.

On the same page of the print edition of the Journal, below the fold, is a much shorter article. In fact, it’s not an article at all. It’s simply a photograph with a caption. The photo is of a flag-draped casket being carried from a church in Export, Pennsylvania by six soldiers in dress uniform bearing the body of their fallen comrade, Army Sgt. Jason McClary, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan last month.

How striking the divergence in these depictions of our youth.

On the one hand, we have men who fear so greatly that they need counseling and courses to support their efforts. On the other hand, we have men so dedicated that even death cannot stop their spirit. 

It’s emblematic of our current times. We have become decadent in the original Latin sense: de-cadenced, out of step. Our country is a house divided. We don’t agree even about what what a man is or ought to be. When these disagreements reach to children, family courts decide.

James faces a dire cultural dilemma. Will he have a chance to be like those honoring their fallen comrade? Or will he be forced into a false gender identity, unsure of himself, living a false life with false promises?

Pray the courts will see reason and decency for James. Pray he will have a chance to be a man among men, as he was made to be.

James is the tip of the spear for transgender child abuse cases in the courts.

Save James – Save Thousands of Children.