Dave Chappelle under fire for transgender jokes

  

Welcome to Defenders Voice. I am Dr.Paul. Thank you for joining us today. Please send me your questions to info@doctorpaul.org. To support our ministry, please visit www.doctorpaul.org. 

   Today’s question is Dave Chappelle created a social storm by criticizing transgender ideology. Netflix still supports him. Is this right? 

           Dave Chappelle is an American comedian. Lately, he has been irritating progressives with his comments and jokes. He called LGBTQ community as ‘the Alphabet people’. In his recent program on Netflix, he said, ‘Gender is fact’. He made it clear that gender is binary and biologically determined. 

    Needless to say, the progressives are up in arms. They called for his immediate cancellation. Trans employees of Netflix demanded immediate removal of Dave Chappelle from Netflix. Netflix did not budge. They threw their weight behind Dave Chappelle. Instead of firing Dave, they fired a trans employee because that person attended a business meeting without an invitation. This added fuel to the fire. 

    Adding to the insults, Mr.Chappelle also declared himself ‘team TERF’ joining J.K.Rowling, author of Harry Potter books. TERF stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. He said, “They canceled J.K.Rowling. Effectually she said gender was fact, the trans community got mad as………, they started calling her a TERF”. 

       Let us look at these developments from a constitutional dimension. Here is a black American exercising his first Amendment rights. You may not like what he says but you should respect his right to express himself. That is what comedy is all about. In the olden days, comedians used to satirize even emperors, often risking their careers and lives. Today’s comedians reduced themselves to worthless buffoons, they would play jokes as long as they do not offend the cultural elites. When Trump was in the White House, he was ridiculed, joked and mocked on a daily basis by our comedians. Now, no comedian is cracking satire on President Biden. You must belong to the Republican Party or a conservative group to be ridiculed by our comedian buffoons. They don’t cross lines and make fun of progressives. But, Dave Chappelle crossed the line. He is making fun of trans people. They say that is absolutely not acceptable. So, you can see the double standards here. 

     Then, we should also see this from a religious dimension. Mr.Dave Chappelle is a Muslim. He takes Islam seriously. The religion of Islam teaches that men and women are different. Let me show you a verse from Quran 3:36. 

But when she delivered her, she said, “My Lord, I have delivered a female.” And Allah was most knowing of what she delivered, and the male is not like the female. “And I have named her Mary, and I seek refuge for her in You and [for] her descendants from Satan, the expelled [from the mercy of Allah].” Quran 3:36 

  When Mary was born, the Quran says, ‘Allah was most knowing of what she delivered, and the male is not like the female’. So, Orthodox Islam teaches that men and women are fundamentally different right from the birth. As a Muslim, Mr.Dave Chappelle was expressing his Islamic beliefs concerning gender. The US Constitution affords him the right to express his religious beliefs concerning any topic. His freedom of speech should not be curtailed. 

    The trans community said, Mr.Chappelle’s rhetoric leads to more violence against them. They condemned his speech as ‘hate speech’. That is also a bad argument. Can I criticize Democrats? No you can’t because it leads to violence against Democrats. Can I criticize Hinduism? No you can’t because it leads to violence against Hindus. Can I criticize Islam? No, you can’t because it leads to violence against Muslims? If we follow that logic, we have to keep quiet all day long. We can’t criticize any idea or followers of any ideology. You can also see double standards here. When someone mocks Christianity, noone says that is ‘hate speech’. No one says that puts Christians in danger. 

       Netflix released the movie Cuties which glorified pedophilia. Such movies will lead to the abuse of children. But these progressives kept quiet about it. Netflix released the TV series 13 Reasons Why, which glorified suicide and drugs. Millions of people are dying in our society due to drugs and suicide. The critics kept quiet. They said Netflix must have freedom to broadcast its values. Now, they say, Netflix should not have any freedom to criticize this group. Such double standards only make you look hypocritical. 

      So, whether you like it or not, Mr.Dave Chappelle has a right to express his view points. As an American, he has constitutional rights to speak up his mind. As a Muslim he has a freedom of religion. So, we should respect his rights.