[M]ale and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created, Genesis 2:4 (ESV).
If some in Congress have their way this week (The House is set to vote Thursday 2/25), the terms male and female will soon disappear. First, from the realm of bureaucracy that will continually push itself into our private lives, And second, from the hearts and minds of young people who will grow up learning a language, a way of life, that is blind to biology, scripture, and
In Newsweek magazine, Mary Rice Hasson describes the “Equality Bill.”
“The Equality Act is 31 pages long, and devotes thousands of painstakingly drafted words to prohibiting “sex discrimination.” In all those pages, however, the word “female” never appears.”
. . . .
“Under the Equality Act, ‘gender identity’ determines access to “public accommodations,” a category the act redefines to include just about everywhere. It mandates access to ‘a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room’ among other gathering places on the basis of ‘gender identity.’ Translation: There will be no safe spaces left for females. Support groups for mothers or sexual assault survivors would be forced to accept any male who feels entitled to join (based on ‘gender identity’).”
You may wonder: Can that really happen? It can. And without urging some Democrats to vote no in both the House and Senate, it will.
The White House has already announced it concurs with the goals of the bill.
Niamh Harris explains that there will be no safe haven of religious protection.
“Religious institutions fare no better [than public ones]. Religious schools, adoption agencies, and other charities would face federal sanction for operating according to basic biology and mainstream Biblical teaching on sex and marriage. Outrageously, this act exempts itself from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
We might well imagine that the act would end up in court within hours of passage. But there is oppression in that too. Litigation takes time and costs money. Just ask the Little Sisters of the Poor.
In the meantime, the doors of ministries would close. Many forever even if there is relief from the courts.
And that might be a big if.
I have a friend who was involved in the pro-life cause before 1973. I was still in high school
She battled against abortion before the Supreme Court issued the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions. Decisions that legalized abortion until birth for any reason.
Until birth for any reason.
The decisions went far beyond what the pro-abortion side considered to be their wildest dreams.
“We thought we could count on the courts,” she told me shortly after I began my own pro-life efforts in 1979. I’ve never forgotten.
Around the same time I was reading a book whose title and author I’ve lost–but whose opening example has stayed with me all these years.
The author presented an expectant mother determining to never allow society’s gender preconceptions to affect her child. She would raise her child in an environment that would laud feminist ideals.
This child would not wear dresses, would play with both dolls and toy trucks alike. She would give the child a name that did not assume a gender.
She planned. She prepared.
Labor. Delivery. Birth.
The mother’s first words upon the arrival of the child?
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
Why, the author pondered, did she ask so eagerly and so quickly after denying the importance of gender for so long?
Because it matters. Our gender makes us who we are more than this mother had been willing to admit.
People are free today to be openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.
But people must also be free, if they are to remain free, to live out religious convictions, to run ministries accordingly, and raise children with biblical principles in mind.
These freedoms are at risk.
And we may soon have to ask ourselves how to manage in a new dark night of oppression based on our conviction that men are men and women are women.
And that God made us that way.
A lot of information here, but one thing is clear–God’s Word is Truth. Thank you for taking a stand, Nancy.
Thank you, Katherine. God bless!
My heart grieves that we may be seeing the fulfillment of this quote from Tolkien:
“The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn.
If indeed, this is coming to fruition, Christians will have to wait to see the dawn upon Christ’s return or when He calls each of us home .
Amen, Ava. Thanks for the Tolkien wisdom. God bless us all!
Praying that this Bill does not pass. God made us male and female, end of story. Thanks for sharing this information.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Yvonne. God bless!
Thanks for this thought-provoking piece, Nancy! I used to think gender and race were unimportant, but now I recognized they are important differences that truly shape us as people.
Thanks, Jessica. I agree that many issues seem unimportant and then we realize why they really matter. God bless!
When I began high school Title IX was launching to force schools to provide girls with the same number of sports as they had for boys. Before then, we didn’t have any sports for girls in many small high schools. Boys played basketball, football, and ran track. Girls watched and cheered them on.
I was an athlete. I had participated in summer sports programs for softball and track since I was in grade school. SO, when this became the law, our school began basketball and volleyball and track for girls. We could now play for my school!
I was an athletic tomboy. If I were in high school today, someone might try to convince me that I was transgender. That would be a lie and a tragedy, because I always wanted to marry and to have a large family, which I did. Josephine March of Little Women was my hero. If she lived today, someone would also probably try to convince her of the same, and, if we listened, both Josephine and I would miss out on the great blessings of being female and living our lives as strong and confident women.
Unfortunately, because of these changes in laws, transgender boys are now participating in girls’ sports. Of course, they are winning because they are biologically male. They are bigger, stronger, and faster.
Among so many other tragedies, these law changes will destroy all that women have sought to achieve over the past forty-five years athletically and in many other ways. Humanity seems to have lost our minds. Our gender is inherent in all of our cells. That can never be changed. We are and always will be who God made us.
It’s just science that our gender is in our cells. Thanks, Melinda. God bless!
Still praying for a turn-around and fast. God’s arm isn’t too short to help us win this battle.
No, His arm is not too short. Thanks and God bless!
Prayers are definitely needed. Ongoing prayers. I can’t imagine trying to explain this to my grandchildren.
I understand and agree completely, Melissa. Thanks and God bless!
I find strength and beauty in my femininity. It deeply saddens me when men and women struggle against who God made them to be. I don’t struggle with gender identity, yet know that every time I choose my way over God’s, I am turning away from whom he created me to be. May I cling to my identity in Christ and not let the world or my flesh define who I am!
May we all indeed, Candice. Thanks and God bless!
Such a powerful teaching here, Nancy. My soul weeps at how Satan has blinded the minds of the culture to oppose God in the most basic of matters – who GOD made each person to be. We are indeed in very dark days.
So true, Melissa. But light shines more brightly in the darkness. Thanks and God bless!