(NaturalNews) This article is not satire. It offers a series of philosophical discussion points that I'm sure many people share these days, and it's all spurred by the case of Rachel Dolezal, head of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP. Dolezal says she is black and identifies herself as African-American. In reality, however, Dolezal is actually white.

"Dolezal's own birth certificate list her biological parents as Ruthanne and Lawrence Dolezal of Montana," reports KXLY.com. "The Dolezals told KXLY Thursday that Rachel is their biological daughter and that they are both white."

So Dolezal was born white, but she decided she was black. She's done up her hair to fit in, but she's really white. In other words, she's "dressing black." But that's not exactly the same as actually being of African origin, is it?

This curious question comes on the heels of Bruce Jenner being born male, then later deciding she's female (Caitlyn Jenner). I've written extensively about the Caitlyn Jenner "freedom to choose" phenomenon at this article on Natural News, which, believe it or not, encourages Caitlyn Jenner to publicly call for personality liberty and the freedom to choose in other areas of life (such as parental rights, religious freedom, freedom of speech, medical freedom and so on).

What's factually non-debatable about both of these cases is the biology: Dolezal was born genetically Caucasian. Caitlyn Jenner was born genetically male. Both of them, of course, were also born as members of the human species, known as "homo sapiens." On these points, there is no disagreement.

If a person can choose their gender, can they also choose their race?

So here's the logical question in pursuing the "self identity" trend that progressive society is now exploring. Today's society has arrived at a place where it largely accepts the idea that people can choose their gender. A person can be born as a male, but decide to identify as a female, in other words. Now with Dolezal, the question being posed is a little more intriguing: Can a person choose their race, too?

Here's a photo of Dolezal. The feature picture of this article shows another photo. Believe it or not, Dolezal is genetically white:

So the question being posed is this: If Caitlyn Jenner can choose to be a woman, why can't Rachel Dolezal choose to be black?

And extending the logic into the realm of the absurd, if a person can choose their gender and race, then why can't they choose to be a member of a different species, too?

Put another way, society currently accepts the idea of a person choosing to be transgender. So is it then okay for someone to be trans-race? And if that's accepted, then what about trans-species? Carried to its logical extreme, can a white male human being declare to the world that he's actually a female Peruvian llama?

Owls, dolphins and cats: Are these personal choices too?

What if John Doe, for example, wants to self-identify as a "Spotted Owl"?

Or maybe Jane Doe wants to identify as a member of the Delphinus delphis species... the common dolphin. Maybe she can even learn to speak dolphin and order in dolphin at the McDonald's drive-through.

There are, indeed, people who have come to believe they are certain animals. Dennis Avner, for example, believes he is a great cat, and he has undergone extreme biological modifications in an attempt to adopt the shape and structure of a great cat. The following photo is not Photoshopped:

Consistent with his personal beliefs, Dennis has undergone extensive surgeries to modify his facial structure, teeth, hair, eyes and much more... all in an effort to become the great cat that he feels like he already is on the inside.

The obvious question is: if Bruce Jenner can choose to be a woman, and Rachel Dolezal can choose to be African-American (even though there isn't an African ounce of blood in her body), then why can't Dennis Avner choose to be recognized as an actual member of a great cat species?

Is it progressive, or just getting ridiculous?

I hope you see the point in this serious discussion. If people can choose to decide to be something which they are not from a physical or biological perspective, then is there any real meaning to concepts like male, female, Caucasian, African or even human?

Is it going to be considered "progressive" to allow people to identify themselves as other organisms because they choose to do so? "Hi, I'm Billy the Ebola. I'm actually an Ebola virus, not a human."

Even more interestingly, could humans add themselves to endangered species lists by simply announcing they are an endangered species? "I'm Otto the Spotted Owl." The implications for the EPA and the U.S. government would be quite fascinating. For example, to my knowledge, I don't think the IRS can levy taxes on Spotted Owls. So if a person announces they are a Spotted Owl, are they now a "sovereign animal" that's protected by the government in their "habitat" apartment?

Without question, a court judge would denounce a person trying to claim they are a spotted owl. But let's follow the logic here. That judge would say, "You are obviously not a spotted owl. You weren't born a spotted owl and if we run a genetic test on your cells, they would not be consistent with a spotted owl."

Let's take that same test and run it against Rachel Dolezal. Following that test, a court judge would say much the same thing: "You are obviously not black. You weren't born black and if we run a genetic test on your cells, they would not be consistent with an African-American."

Tracking this same logic back to Bruce Jenner, a court judge would also be forced to conclude much the same: "You weren't born female and if we run a genetic test on your cells, they would not be consistent with a female."

From a genetics point of view, then, Bruce Jenner is a male, Rachel Dolezal is white, and John Doe is not a spotted owl. But that's not how progressive society recognizes them, at least not with Jenner. They are recognized according to how they WISH to be identified.

Restated, the question that emerges from all this is as follows:

Should society treat people as they physically are, or as they psychologically WISH to be? In other words, where does freedom to choose collide with the absurd?

That's the key question in all this, you see. To paraphrase it: Can a person spontaneously decide to be whatever they want, even if what they want contradicts what they really are from a biological and genetics point of view? It seems that the current answer is YES. If the answer is YES, then are there any limits at all to how far someone can take this?

What about people who feel they are psychologically trapped in the wrong body?

This question may seem to be complicated by what's commonly described as a disparity between the psychology and the biology of people who are gay. Many gay men, for example, describe their experience as being, "Born as a woman trapped in a man's body." (And vice-versa for gay women.)

It is this disparity between psychology and biology that lends support to the widespread acceptance of gay lifestyles, where modern society has largely accepted that people can choose to identify with a chosen mindset even if it contradicts their genetics. Such is the very foundation of laws now emerging which say that biological men can legally use women's public restrooms if they "identify" as women (even if they have a penis and might be just fine with a urinal).

However, if you take all this just one step further, you can argue that a woman who "feels" black -- even though she's white -- should also be able to choose to identify as African-American, even though both her biological parents are white. There are serious practical problems with this, however, as I'll discuss below on the issue of college scholarships...

And again, if you go yet one more step down the path of this logic, you arrive at a situation where you can argue that people who "feel" like they are tigers, or dolphins, or eagles should be allowed to self-identify as such creatures and even recognized as those actual creatures in society.

In other words, society today recognizes Caitlyn Jenner as a woman. We refer to her as a HER, for example. Because of how insidious political correctness has become in society today, I'm fully expecting everybody to soon recognize Rachel Dolezal as "black." And if we extend this same social acceptance into the realm of species, how could anyone reject another person who wants to claim they are a Tyrannosaurus Rex or even a fictional humanoid being such as a Vulcan from the Star Trek series? (Spock was a Vulcan.)

In other words, reality now has no meaning because what we're being taught is that there is no objective reality when it comes to people, gender, races and beings. You can decide to be a unicorn, if you want, and who can argue with that? Just don't forget to wear your giant horn. And yes, it's a rainbow-colored strap-on.

Free scholarships to all white people claiming they are black?

This discussion brings up all sorts of important practical questions for society. If people can self-identify their own gender and race, then it becomes immediately obvious that all white people can apply for college scholarships by self-identifying as African-Americans, for example. I'm not condoning this -- the very idea is ludicrous -- yet it's where we now find ourselves in a society that believes everybody can "choose" to be whatever they want to be, despite what they really are.

So why can't a white kid short on college funding just "choose" to be black and apply for scholarships as such? Obviously, scholarships that are set aside for African-Americans should be reserved for those African-Americans. Yet what's to stop a white person from claiming they're black so they can cash in on that scholarship money? No genetic testing is required as far as I know. And if "being black" just means putting your hair in a 'fro and joining the NAACP as Rachel Dolezal has done, then what's to stop a surge of lower-income white people from claiming all the black scholarship money across America's universities?... and thereby denying black people the scholarship money they truly need to strive for an education opportunity?

(Doesn't it just anger you to think that black people, after suffering generations of discrimination, could be IMPERSONATED by white people in order to take black peoples' scholarship money? Somehow this becomes a multi-layered injustice that's wholly offensive to ethics and morality.)

Taking this even further, how about someone who's actually white, but claims they were discriminated against in a job environment because they self-identify as black? Is it possible for a person's psychology to be racially discriminated against, even if the discrimination claim contradicts the person's genetic ethnicity? "They didn't give me that job because they knew that I consider myself to be black!" But they're actually white. Can that person file a racial discrimination lawsuit and win?

For another example of the ultra-absurd, how about a human who self-identifies as a dog and decide to defecate and urinate in public, on various lawns, but cleans up after himself with a doggy poop bag. Because all other dogs routinely defecate in the public (and in the nude), how can this behavior be wrong, right? If this person is cited by local law enforcement for indecent exposure, can his defense be that he "self-identifies as a canine," and is only "using the public restroom" in a way that's entirely consistent with canine behavior? Dogs poop on lawns. I'm a dog. Therefore, I can poop on lawns, too. (i.e. You can't judge me on my physical biology and genetics because I identify myself as a canine, not homo sapiens.)

If these examples seem silly, you need to realize it's already happening

Your initial reaction to these absurd scenarios might be, "Well that's just stupid. No one would do that."

And yet you're already wrong: We have a white woman in Spokane, Washington who claims to be black. We also have people living right now who honestly believe they are specific animals, such as the Dennis Avner example mentioned above. We simultaneously have all sorts of people choosing to be different genders than what they are genetically. You response might be, "Well those are not all the same thing. Gender is different." And you're correct, these aren't the same thing. What I'm exploring is where are society's limits along the spectrum of embracing or rejecting people who choose to self-identify with labels that contradict their genetic reality?

Are there any limits at all? Should there be any limits at all?

It can't merely be "whatever people BELIEVE they are should be accepted." Caitlyn Jenner believes she is a woman, and I don't personally have a problem with that because it's her personal choice. Rachel Dolezal believes she is black, but I do have a problem with that because somehow it seems like she's impersonating black people. Dennis Avner believes he is a great cat. That just seems weird to me, but who am I to judge, right? Where does society draw the line, if any, on which of these beliefs are "socially acceptable" vs. socially rejected? And if any of them are rejected at all, then isn't that totally inconsistent with the very idea that people should be free to choose whom they wish to love or what they wish to be?

One more step down the rabbit hole

Now, I'm really going to throw you for a loop and give one more example demonstrating the logical extension of the extreme absurdity which could be extrapolated from all this.

If we are to recognize people as members of other species, then our recognition requires that we allow them to "love" the members of those other species as well.

For example, if Dennis Avner self-identifies as a cat, and if he were to have sex with another great cat, then wouldn't that be him simply choosing "who he wants to love?" Isn't that Avner simply "being himself" and expressing the full spectrum of his great cat social interactions? This is even more true if the cat of his choice reciprocates that love and affection for him, correct?

You can't call it bestiality, you see, if someone self-identifies as the same animal species they are having intercourse with. If someone announces they are a sheep, to cite another extremely absurd example, then is society supposed to accept that person having open sex with other sheep in a field somewhere? If you call it "bestiality," that's a violation of that person's choice of whom they wish to love, isn't it?

On the issue of marriage then, if marriage is to be accepted among any beings who decide to love each other, then can't the argument be made that Dennis Avner can marry a leopard? Or that Joe Blow can marry a sheep? Or how about some guy marrying five dogs? (Is that called Podogamy?)

If marriage is to be redefined as joining any sentient beings that love each other, then obviously we can't limit it to just only marriages between humans. The real question remains: Where is the line arbitrarily drawn, and by invoking what principles, if any? Society seems to be in the process right now of redefining marriage as a union between "any two people who love each other." But why limit it to just two? Why limit it to just "people?" I can even hear the Supreme Court arguing, "Why can't a man decide to marry five horses and demand a local church carry out that wedding?"

Can people love and partner with non-being objects such as cars?

Interestingly, there are people alive today who suffer a sort of mental illness that causes them to be sexually attracted to cars. Some people even have sex with cars, and no, I'm not making this up. (No, I'm not sure how they "do it." Never bothered to ask, and I probably don't want to know.)

What if these people "self-identify" as being cars themselves? Is there any rule in society which says they cannot simply decide to be a Volvo, or a Volkswagen, or even a Ford pickup?

You see where this goes? If a white person can decide to be black, and then another person can decide to be a great cat, then why can't yet another person decide to be a Dodge Ram? Vrooom, vrooom.... who's your daddy now?

And if you're a Dodge Ram, then it's "normal" to have sex with a Mini Cooper, we'll probably be told. So when you see these people running around the streets with their pants pulled down, sticking it to parked cars, just remember: that's politically correct behavior in our bizarre society today because the person "self-identifies" as being an actual Dodge Ram who "loves" Mini Coopers. Where's George Carlin, by the way, when you really need his comment on all this?

For my part in all this, I can't wait to see if Rachel Dolezal is going to be recognized as being African-American even if she's white. If she is, then it opens up a Pandora's Box of bizarre new possibilities for white people to unfairly claim black scholarships, for humans to claim they are animals, and for people to demand they should be able to marry their pet goats (or whatever animals they love).

Progressive society will have gone completely insane at that point, of course, by utterly abandoning any attachment to reality. So strap on your unicorn horns and hump some Volkswagens, folks. Apparently we are now living in a free-for-all that's starting to resemble the weird, distorted characters in online role playing games, where Blondie the Bodacious, a 25th level wizard, is actually overweight Bob living in the basement, munching on Pop Tarts and Chicken McNuggets while scratching his crotch.