I tolerated Mario Lopez in "Saved By the Bell: The College Years".
This was all roughly 25 years ago.
So it's interesting to have Mario coming up in conversation again under the headline, "It's 'dangerous' for parents to support transgender kids." This is the common headline I found in nearly every story regarding Mario's comments.
Two quick thoughts:
1) Read people's quotes for yourself.
2) Mario's actual comments are correct.
When asked about the high number of Hollywood parents who are allowing their children, even at elementary age and younger, to choose their own gender, Lopez responded thoughtfully.
"I'm never one to tell someone how to parent their kids...If you're three and you think you're a new gender, it's dangerous as a parent to make that determination then. There are potential repercussions later...allow kids to be kids, but you've gotta be the adult in the situation.
You can watch the interview here. Start at the 11:30 mark:
When I was seven, I wanted to be a ninja.
I high-kicked and screamed "hi-ya" all over the house.
My mom made me a ninja costume for Halloween that year.
My parents did NOT send me to Japan to start my training.
Why not? Because I was a child! The ninja thing didn't last long because later I wanted to be:
- Astronaut
- Pro Baseball player
- Archeologist (height of the Indiana Jones craze)
- Teacher
- Several other ideas before answering the call to ministry when I was 19.
Lopez is right. Parents have to be the adults. It's not unloving to prevent the uninformed and poorly formed ramblings of small children to determine their lives. We must train them up. We must let them know that gender is an awesome part of God's plan for every person. That child is no accident!
We are called to love our kids.
We are called to protect our kids from their own immaturity.
Lopez makes both of these points clear in his full comments.
Allow kids to be kids. They stand at the threshold of a million possibilities. Our job is not to stomp them into a mold, but to guide them into adulthood. The only apologies that should have been offered in the Mario Lopez saga should be for "Saved By the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas", and by those who unfairly summarized his thoughtful comments into an inaccurate one-word portrayal.
