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Category: LGBT/Transgender
The Texas Attorney General’s office is investigating two pharmaceutical companies for their promotion of well-established drugs as puberty blockers despite the fact that they have not received approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
The Office of Texas’ Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that it was investigating Endo Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie Inc. under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
“These pharmaceutical companies allegedly advertised and promoted hormone (puberty) blockers for unapproved uses without disclosing the potential risks associated with these drugs to children and their parents,” Paxton said in a statement.
“Medications Supprelin LA and Lupron Depot are approved to treat children with Central Precocious Property (CPP), when the puberty process begins prematurely. And Vantas, along with other forms of Lupron, has been prescribed for palliative treatment of prostate cancer. These drugs are now being used to treat gender dysphoria even though they are not approved for such use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).”
The Attorney General’s Office cites the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act as the source of Paxton’s authority to investigate the pharmaceutical companies, explaining that the law gives the attorney general the power to “investigate false, misleading, and deceptive conduct by businesses in Texas.” In addition to sending out a tweet declaring that “I will not allow pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of #Texas children,” Paxton detailed some of the concerns pertaining to the experimental use of puberty blockers for children and teenagers.
“The manufacture, sale, prescription, and use of puberty blockers on young teens and minors is dangerous and reckless,” Paxton said. “These drugs were approved for very different purposes and can have detrimental and even irreversible side effects.”
Earlier this year, the Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden elaborated on some of the “detrimental and even irreversible side effects” of puberty blockers when announcing that it would no longer prescribe the drugs for experimental use on children younger than 16 who are struggling with gender dysphoria. In a statement, the hospital warned that “these treatments are potentially fraught with extensive and irreversible adverse consequences such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, increased cancer risk, and thrombosis.”
The American College of Pediatricians lists additional side effects of puberty blockers, which include “mood disorders, seizures, [and] cognitive impairment.”
In response to concerns about the side effects of puberty blockers, Arkansas became the first U.S. state to ban doctors from prescribing experimental puberty blockers, hormonal drugs and performing gender reassignment surgeries on children and teenagers with gender dysphoria by passing the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act.
President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice condemned the SAFE Act, filing a statement in an ACLU lawsuit against the Arkansas law declaring that “federal law bars the state of Arkansas from singling out [trans-identified] minors for specifically and discriminatorily denying their access to medically necessary care based solely on their sex assigned at birth.” The Biden administration contended that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
A federal judge ultimately agreed with the Biden administration, striking down the SAFE Act shortly before it was set to take effect.
Shortly thereafter, Texas’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott asked the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate whether prescribing puberty blockers to children with gender dysphoria or subjecting them to other experimental procedures constituted child abuse. The agency found that performing such procedures and prescribing such drugs to minors did constitute child abuse.
In a previous interview with The Christian Post, Dr. Paul Hruz of Washington University of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, expressed concern that using Lupron as a puberty blocker could affect children’s bone density. A study published earlier this year reached a similar conclusion, indicating that puberty blockers led to “reduced growth” in both height and bone strength among minors who took them.
Additionally, informed consent documents that a hospital in California asked children seeking to take puberty blockers and their parents state that “If your child starts puberty blockers in the earliest stages of puberty, and then goes on to gender-affirming hormones, they will not develop sperm or eggs. This means that they will not have biological children.”
A trans-identified doctor has also raised questions about the consequences of puberty blockers. Dr. Marci Bowers, who performed elective cosmetic surgeries on prominent trans-identified reality star Jazz Jennings, told Wall Street Journal contributor Abigail Shrier in an exclusive interview that “if you’ve never had an orgasm pre-surgery and then your puberty’s blocked, it’s very difficult to achieve that afterwards.”
“I worry about their reproductive rights later. I worry about their sexual health later and their ability to find intimacy,” Bowers added.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
The parents of a 12-year-old girl in the Spreckels Union School District (SUSD) in Salinas, California, claimed school staff indoctrinated their daughter into identifying as “trans fluid” after encouraging her to join a lunchtime “Equality Club.”
“You took away my ability to parent my child!” an irate Jessica Konen told the school board Thursday night.
The school reportedly called the parents in for a meeting where they informed them that their daughter is trans. The teacher then proceeded to call CPS on them when they didn’t use the “correct” name and pronouns.
This is the dad’s speech tonight: pic.twitter.com/17gl3QBRrQ
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) December 16, 2021
Konen alleged two years ago school staff at Buena Vista Middle School encouraged her daughter to join a lunchtime LGBTQ club disguised with the name “Equality Club.”
Konen told the Epoch Times that toward the end of her sixth grade year, her daughter informed her she might be bisexual, and later on, in the middle of seventh grade, Konen said she was called to the school for a meeting with her daughter, a teacher, and the school principal.
During that meeting, Konen reported the teacher said her daughter was “trans fluid.”
“I sat across the table, and I was crying,” she said, according to the Times. I was trying to absorb everything.”
“They kept looking at me angrily because I kept saying ‘she,’ and that it was going to take me time to process everything,” Konen added. “I was very confused. … I was very upset. I was blindsided—completely blindsided.”
Konen said the teacher accused her of not being “emotionally supportive” of her daughter’s new gender identity, and said she should be using her daughter’s new name and pronouns. The teacher apparently added Konen’s daughter would now be using the unisex bathroom at school.
“I felt she completely coached my child,” Konen said. “It made me feel very, very small as a parent. I was unaware of anything. Not one time had she mentioned to me ‘Oh, I think that I want to change my name,’ or ‘I’m transgender’ or anything. Nothing. I only heard bisexual one time, and that was it.”
Young children in kindergarten are being taught transgender ideology without an opt-out, say concerned parents in West Hartford, Connecticut. https://t.co/DuVOT0dS5B
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) November 19, 2021
Konen reported that several days after the school meeting, the King City Police Department arrived at her home to inform her a Child Protective Services (CPS) complaint had been filed against her. The Times noted police officers questioned both of her children and asked if they wished to be removed from their home.
“They made me feel like a monster,” she said, but followed through by taking her children to meet with CPS.
Ultimately, the agency dropped the case, Konen said, and did not require that she use masculine pronouns in addressing her daughter.
The experience, however, left Konen frightened that additional inquiries regarding her daughter’s activities at school could lead to another CPS complaint.
Several more meetings with teachers revealed, unbeknownst to Konen, her daughter had searched online for information regarding suicide, though the school had failed to inform her.
Konen then removed her daughter from the school. According to the Times report, her daughter, now 14, is at a new school, using her birth name and feminine pronouns.
As Breitbart News reported in November, author and journalist Abigail Shrier revealed leaked authenticated documents that showed activist teachers from the Buena Vista Middle School boasting at a California Teachers Association (CTA) meeting in October. Shrier reported the teachers were touting their “best practices for subverting parents, conservative communities and school principals on issues of gender identity and sexual orientation.”
**BREAKING NEWS**:
Teachers union speakers coach educators in surveilling student web searches, looking for middle school recruits for LGBTQ activist clubs.https://t.co/YCnCFjgccm
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) November 18, 2021
“Speakers went so far as to tout their surveillance of students’ Google searches, internet activity, and hallway conversations in order to target sixth graders for personal invitations to LGBTQ clubs, while actively concealing these clubs’ membership rolls from participants’ parents,” Shrier noted.
Two teachers, Lori Caldeira and Kelly Baraki, reportedly led a workshop about how to run a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club in conservative communities.
“Because we are not official – we have no club rosters, we keep no records,” Caldeira reportedly said. “In fact, sometimes we don’t really want to keep records because if parents get upset that their kids are coming? We’re like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe they came?’ You know, we would never want a kid to get in trouble for attending if their parents are upset.”
Another middle school teacher, Kelly Baraki, was reportedly heard describing how she has changed the name of her “GSA” to the “Equity Club,” and then later to “You Be You,” in order to keep parents at bay.
UPDATE from the School District re: Yesterday’s Bombshell About Activist Teachers
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) November 19, 2021
SUSD officials responded to Shrier’s report by stating:
Many of the comments and themes stated in the article are alarming, concerning, disappointing, and do not in any way reflect the District or Board of Education’s policies and practices.
“Regarding the teachers involved, appropriate personnel steps are being taken to make sure such activities and comments will not be repeated,” the district stated.
By Michael Gryboski, Christian Post Reporter 
A conservative pro-family group is accusing Twitter of suspending one of its leaders after posting a tweet denouncing the “surgical mutilation of minors suffering from gender dysphoria.”
Jon Schweppe, director of policy and government affairs with the American Principles Project, reportedly had his Twitter account suspended over the tweet posted on Tuesday. The major social media site accused him of engaging in “hateful conduct.”
Twitter’s “hateful conduct” policy states that accounts “may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”
Schweppe’s now-deleted tweet came in response to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem championing efforts to ban biologically male trans-identified athletes from competing in girls’ sports in her state.
“Now we hope that governors will likewise be emboldened to continue the fight against the evil gender ideology being forced on America’s children by joining Arkansas and Tennessee in banning the chemical castration and surgical mutilation of minors suffering from gender dysphoria,” tweeted Schweppe.
On Wednesday evening, according to the APP, Twitter suspended Schweppe and would not reinstitute his account until he deleted the tweet, which he did.
Schweppe filed an appeal of the decision, arguing that he is “advocating for protecting children from violence.” However, his appeal was rejected because the Twitter support team “found that a violation did take place.”
In a statement emailed to supporters, APP President Terry Schilling denounced Schweppe’s temporary suspension as the work of “would-be dictators in Silicon Valley.”
“Throughout most of the country, there would be little controversy in saying that children should not be the subject of procedures that sterilize and mutilate their young bodies. In fact, advocating on behalf of those procedures would be considered hateful,” stated Schilling.
“But in the screwed-up world of Twitter’s woke censors, trying to protect young kids actually constitutes hateful, violent speech. Inside their impenetrable, left-wing bubble, they cannot imagine how any reasonable person would hold these views.”
Schilling believes that it is “terrifying that people with such views hold so much power over our national discourse.” He called on Republicans in Congress to “commit to reining in the unaccountable influence of Big Tech should they regain the majority next year.”
Twitter has come under fire from conservatives and Republican elected officials for censoring right-wing views on the platform.
In August, Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado sent a letter to then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey denouncing the website’s “troubling double standard” for banning former President Donald Trump but allowing the Taliban to have accounts.
“It is clear that the Taliban is a violent organization,” wrote Lamborn, adding that he “did not find a single fact check on any of their tweets, nor any warnings for false or misleading content.”
“It is impossible to see how the accounts of [Taliban members] Zabihullah Mujahid and Yousef Ahmadi do not violate your policies.”
In late May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law that allows private citizens to sue major social media companies if they believe they were wrongfully censored on a platform.
“Many in our state have experienced censorship and other tyrannical behavior firsthand in Cuba and Venezuela,” stated DeSantis earlier this year.
“If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable.”
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is doubling down on a commitment to “gender equity” as concerns grow about the impact of allowing biological males who identify as females to compete in women’s sports.
The NCAA, one of the largest governing bodies overseeing college sports in the United States, released a draft constitution last week that lists commitment to “diversity and inclusion” and “gender equity” among its core principles.
The document stresses that “activities of the Association, its divisions, conferences and member institutions shall be conducted in a manner free of gender bias” and requires “divisions, conferences and member institutions” to “commit to preventing gender bias in athletic activities and events, hiring practices, professional and coaching relationships, leadership and advancement opportunities.”
The draft constitution mandates that “it is the responsibility of the Association and each division, conference and member institution to comply with federal and state laws and ordinances, including with respect to gender equity, diversity and inclusion.”
In a statement, the NCAA said that “members across all three divisions will vote on the draft constitution at the 2022 NCAA Convention in January.” The Convention will take place from Jan. 19-22 in Indianapolis.
While the language used in the draft constitution was vague, critics fear its “gender equity” provision is a sign that the NCAA is doubling down on its policies that allow biologically male trans-identified students to compete on women’s athletics teams.
In an blog post, Patrick Reilly of the Catholic education-focused Cardinal Newman Society warned of the implications for the NCAA draft constitution on religious institutions of higher education. He contends that “there is an agenda here that threatens religious institutions.”
“Based on the proposed new amendment to the NCAA Constitution, it might be that the NCAA would exclude faithful colleges like Belmont Abbey College, the Catholic University of America and the University of Mary from participation” if they refuse to “abandon their Catholic mission and conform to gender ideology by allowing biological males to play on girls’ sports teams and enter locker rooms,” he predicted.
“It seems the new constitutional provision is intended to push out any college that stands by traditional and natural divisions of the sexes in college sports.”
Reilly added that the “irony of the campaign for LGBT nondiscrimination protections” is that “the nation’s majority of religious people will be targeted and subjected to all kinds of legally protected discrimination for maintaining their religious beliefs and truthful policies toward gender and sexuality.”
While the term “gender” is traditionally understood to mean either male or female, the Biden administration has interpreted federal civil rights law banning discrimination based on sex to also apply to sexual orientation and gender identity.
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order “preventing and combating discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.”
The executive order cited the U.S. Supreme Court decision Bostock v. Clayton County, which determined that firing an employee because of their sexual orientation or gender identity violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination based on sex.
Later this year, the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to U.S. schools announcing that it would “fully enforce” Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, initially created to provide equal opportunities to women and girls in education, “to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in education programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance from the department.”
For the NCAA, Reilly believes that there is an “easy fix” — “another amendment that recognizes the distinctive and appropriate needs of religious colleges.”
“That is precisely what some Catholic colleges, together with the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, proposed before the latest draft constitution — and yet their request was ignored,” Reilly stated. “The language they suggested was quite simple: ‘Consistent with the principles of institutional control, nothing herein should be construed to restrict or limit private religious institutions from adopting or maintaining policies consistent with their legal rights as private religious institutions.'”
He said the NCAA’s failure to adopt the amendment is a “very clear signal that its intentions toward Catholic and other religious colleges are not good.”
The draft constitution comes as female athletes have expressed concern about the ability of trans-identified males to compete on women’s sports teams at the collegiate level.
Most recently, female athletes at the University of Pennsylvania have accused the NCAA of violating the “integrity of women’s sports” by allowing trans-identified males to compete on women’s sports teams after one year of testosterone suppression treatment.
Speaking anonymously to the sports website OutKick, female swimmers at the Ivy League school lamented that Lia Thomas, born Will Thomas, has been shattering records while competing on the Penn women’s swimming team after competing for three seasons on the men’s team.
One athlete proclaimed that characterized the association’s embrace of trans-identified athletes like Thomas as “a slap in the face to female athletes “who train every day and give up so much for this sport.”
“While they say they care about all of us, our interests are in direct conflict with the interests of Lia in regard to fair competition and getting to compete,” she added. “While we support Lia as a person to make decisions for her own life, you cannot make that decision and then come impede on other people and their rights.”
In addition to citing religious objections, critics cite biological differences between males and females as the reason for their opposition to such policies. A study from the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that trans-identified male athletes continue to have a competitive advantage over their female counterparts after a year of hormone suppression.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a progressive civil rights advocacy organization, has denied that any “unfair” advantage exists for trans-identified biological males who compete against women or girls.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
My daughter’s story is no longer novel. Stories like it are occurring in your state, your town, and perhaps even on your street. Gender dysphoria — the incongruence between the mind and the body — moves stealthily and quickly to invade girls and boys alike.
But this isn’t a cautionary tale. It’s a warning.
My daughter was an ultrafeminine girl since birth. She insisted that her room be painted pink, and she refused to wear anything but dresses until third grade. She avoided her older brother’s toys and sports, choosing tea sets and Shopkins, a series of tiny, collectible toys.
Her favorite activity was to slip into my closet and don my few sparkly clothes and shiniest of heels. She rejected sports in favor of art and sewing.
That all abruptly changed when she turned 12. As her body matured into young womanhood, she stopped begging for a bikini and avoided any clothing that accentuated her figure. She hid her breasts under men’s extra-large sweatshirts.
I remembered doing similar things as my body changed, so I didn’t worry at first.
Then, my daughter immersed herself into anime art and cosplaying, the hobby of dressing like fantastical characters. I supported her creative side.
I didn’t know that anime and cosplaying can overwhelm a young mind. I didn’t know that anime and cosplaying involved gender-bending themes and that the community crosses into pedophilic and sexual themes.
I also didn’t know that the older cosplay community groomed the younger cohorts.
During that same time period, my daughter went through Teen Talk — a Manitoba, Canada-based program that says it provides “youth with accurate, [nonjudgmental] information” on “sexuality, reproductive health, body image, substance use awareness, mental health, issues of diversity, and anti-violence issues” — at her public school.
She came home with a whole new language. She and all her girlfriends discussed their labels — polyamorous, lesbian, pansexual. None of the five girls chose “basic,” their term for a straight girl.
Now, I was worried.
She distanced herself from her old friends and spent more time online. I checked her phone, but I was not astute enough to know that she had set up “appropriate” fake social media accounts for my viewing.
An older girl showed romantic interest in her. I barred that girl from our home. I learned later that she had molested my daughter.
When my daughter was in the eighth grade, as a Christmas gift, I took her to SacAnime, an anime convention in Sacramento, California. There, she met a girl three years her senior, but light years more mature. That girl mesmerized my daughter with her edginess or magnanimous personality.
The older girl went by “they.” After their meeting, my daughter got a boy’s haircut, stopped shaving, and asked for boys’ underwear. My daughter parroted everything about the older teen.
She started making gross TikTok videos, her language became vulgar and she redecorated her room to look like a cave. She self-pierced her nose with one of those bull rings. She broke every family rule. She was morphing into an emo-Goth-vampirelike creature. She was unrecognizable. Her personality descended into anger and rudeness.
The summer before ninth grade, she announced that she was transgender. Post-announcement, she began to threaten suicide. She sunk into deep depression.
I managed to get all of her passwords to all of her social media accounts. What I saw was jaw-dropping.
Almost everyone that she was conversing with was a stranger, except for the SacAnime friend, who sent her a self-made masturbation video. The discussions on the Discord platform online involved fetishistic sexual conversations. Kids were sending each other erotica, including involving incest and pedophilia.
Older girls were instructing younger girls how to sell nude photos of themselves to men for money.
Girls bragged about their different mental illnesses. They talked about which drugs do what. They talked about how they are really boys, not girls. They discussed “top surgery” (that is, having their breasts removed) and “packers” that create a bulge in one’s pants to imply the presence of a penis.
My daughter’s electronic devices were filled with TikTok videos and YouTubers talking about how great they feel now that they had “transitioned.”
There were messages in which strangers told her to kick my head in because I was a “transphobe” for refusing to call her a male name.
I went nuclear. I took the phone and stripped it of all social media — YouTube, Instagram, Discord, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter. I even blocked her ability to get to the internet. I deleted all of her contacts and changed her phone number.
I sat next to her while she “attended” school online via Zoom. I deleted YouTube from the smart TVs and locked up the remotes. I took every anime book from her room. I threw away all of her costumes. I banned any friend who was even the slightest bit unsavory.
I involved the police about the porn. I printed out the law and informed her that if anyone sent her porn, I would not hesitate to prosecute.
She hated me like an addict hates the person preventing her drug fix. I held my ground, despite the constant verbal abuse.
After going through seven mental health professionals, I found an out-of-state psychiatrist who was willing to examine the causality for my daughter’s sudden trans identity.
I immersed myself in reading everything on the issue, talking to other parents and other professionals. I worked unceasingly to re-create the bond she and I used to share.
After a year and half of utter hell, my daughter is finally returning to her authentic self — a beautiful, artsy, kind and loving daughter.
I am not sure what the actual ingredients for the magic potion were for alleviating gender dysphoria in my daughter. The formula will vary, but what I did was, after a very brief misstep of using a male name, our family and all of the adults in my child’s life only used her birth name and corresponding pronouns.
We did not permit social transition, although we could not control the school setting. Unbelievably, our local Catholic high school refused to follow our edict.
As I mentioned previously, we pulled the plug on all social media and her access to anyone other than those persons we vetted. I forced my daughter to listen to specific podcasts on the subject while driving her to school. I printed out stories about female de-transitioners (women who had medicalized, but then regretted their actions and returned to living as a woman) and left them throughout the house.
I left all of my research out in plain view, including Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier, Gender Dysphoria: A Therapeutic Model for Working With Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults by Susan Evans, and other books.
I followed the advice of Parents for Ethical Care’s podcasts and the book “Desist, Detrans & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult” by Maria Keffler.
I worked hard to take back the close relationship my daughter and I had once had. I bit my tongue until it bled. I took her anger and only responded with love or walked away when I knew I would respond poorly.
I caught her in vulnerable moments and hugged her or climbed into her bed. I stopped looking at her as though she were the victim of a scheme or a monster.
I let her know that I would never stop fighting for her. I let her see my posters from the protests I attended. I peppered her with questions that demonstrated the illogic of the gender ideology. I happened to have funny gender-critical memes on my computer when she walked into my office. Most importantly, I held my ground. I refused to accept her delusion with compassion.
I know that I have to continue to be tenacious as the gender ideology has crept into every facet of life. But for now, I can breathe a sigh of relief.
Originally published at The Daily Signal.
Charlie Jacobs is the pen name of a California wife and mother of two teenagers. Until recently, she worked part time in a professional capacity, but is now dedicated to educating other parents about how gender ideology can overtake a child.
A Catholic diocese in Michigan has ordered its priests not to perform baptisms, confirmations and other Catholic sacraments on trans-identified or nonbinary individuals, with an exception for those who have engaged in “repentance” for rejecting their biological sex.
The Catholic Diocese of Marquette, believed to be one of the first dioceses in the United States to issue the policy in July, stated in an official instructional report that its priests are to also withhold communion from trans-identified individuals who have not repented. The diocese clarified the instruction in a statement last week.
In the Catholic faith, communion is believed to be the process of taking in the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Additionally, in some cases, the order will prevent trans-identified people from receiving the anointing of the sick, which is often associated with providing physical or spiritual healing to very ill individuals.
“We are not defined or identified by our sexual attractions or conflicts about sexual identity [and] our fundamental identity is as a beloved son or daughter of God,” the instructional letter reads. “Thus, it is best to avoid identifying persons merely using labels such as ‘gay’ or ‘transgender.’ It speaks more to our fundamental identity and dignity as persons to speak of persons with same-sex attraction or persons with gender dysphoria.”
The instruction aims to provide considerations for pastoral care. It addresses the art of pastoral accompaniment, the meaning and purpose of human sexuality, general approaches to the accompaniment of persons with same-sex attraction and persons with “gender dysphoria,” and guidance for select pastoral circumstances.
“There is an ever-greater need today for the pastoral care of persons with same-sex attraction and persons with gender dysphoria,” the order said. “Let us open our hearts to the love of God that we may overflow with love and kindness and respect for others.”
The document, however, states that the experience of one’s sexual identity is “not sinful” if it does not arise from the person’s free will, nor would it stand in the way of Christian initiation.
But, the “deliberate, freely chosen and manifest behaviors to redefine one’s sex do constitute such an obstacle.”
The Diocese of Marquette contends that the best way to approach people with “same-sex attraction” and “persons with gender dysphoria” is through pastoral care and through a loving approach to spread the news about Jesus Christ.
“Human persons are created in the image and likeness of God. We are beloved sons and daughters of the Father,” the instruction states. “Jesus Christ died for us, which shows the depths of our human dignity. Thus, we are to treat persons with same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria with dignity and respect and all unjust discrimination is to be avoided.”
The order addressed how the Church’s teaching is good news to a broken world.
“The sexual revolution and the breakdown of marriages have led to barrenness, broken hearts, broken lives and broken families,” it reads. “The Church’s teaching, in contrast, fosters steadfast love, fidelity, unity, and fruitfulness. This is good news. The way to healing is embracing Jesus and His teaching.”
The instruction notes that for priests to accompany others, it’s “insufficient merely to state the Church’s teaching.”
“In addition, we must strive to meet people and lead them, step-by-step, as we all walk toward the fullness of truth,” the instruction reads. “Accompaniment requires docility to the Holy Spirit and discernment of the steps along the path. Discernment requires the virtue of pastoral prudence and must be carried out in fidelity to the teachings of the Church. Accompaniment does not dilute the teachings of the Church, but rather, animated by charity, we are to proclaim the Gospel in its fullness.”
The Diocese of Marquette released a statement last Thursday stating that “The Church teaches that persons experiencing feelings of same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria is not sinful, but freely acting upon them is.”
“Experiencing feelings and desires that are not in accord with the true meaning and purpose of sexuality is not sinful,” the statement reads. “To commit a sin, we must know that something is wrong and freely choose to do it.”
Bishop John Doerfler of the Diocese of Marquette said that in his years of ministry, he’s found working with same-sex attracted people to be a “privilege.” He said he remains “inspired” by their “faith and desire to live chastely.”
Jennifer Haselberger, a former chancellor for canonical affairs in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, told The Washington Post that the new policy could contradict Canon Law, a set of ordinances and regulations that guide the Catholic Church.
Canon Law, she said, states that anyone who has not been baptized can be eligible for the sacrament and that those who will be impacted by the policy might have a way to challenge the order if they appeal to the Vatican.
“There’s nobody who approaches baptism from a state of perfection,” she said. “The presumption is the opposite. You come to baptism as a sinner, and original sin is forgiven you.”
Doerfler told a local Fox affiliate that it’s crucial for people to realize the gift of the body that the Lord has given them.
“He’s given us this body as male or female to acknowledge that, to treasure that, and to respect that,” he said.
The Catholic Church is widely known for hosting primarily infant baptisms. The new policy will likely impact non-Catholic adults wanting to be baptized within the Catholic Church, trans-identified teenagers prepping for confirmation and children of Catholic migrants who could not be baptized due to migration and other factors, according to The Washington Post.
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Friday, December 10, 2021
The sexual revolution is taking place not only in the United States, but in most places around the world to one or another.
This week was a big week with a milestone coming from the nation of Chile. In Chile, lawmakers on Tuesday of this week, legalized same-sex marriage. Now, this is taking place in a context in which much of Latin America, much of South America, Central America has been going through a moral transformation. We’ve seen on issues related not only to sexuality, but also to liberalizing laws on abortion. We have seen stories come from nations, including Argentina. In this case, the nation is Chile. And it’s being trumpeted, especially by the proponents of the moral revolution as a huge gain.
There’s something the interesting to recognize here. And that is the question, why would so many of these countries have say, no legal, same sex marriage through at least Monday of this week, talking about Chile. Why would that be the case? Well, those who are trying to push the moral revolution, trying to push LGBTQ activism, trying to push worldwide this kind of moral revolution on a global scale, their answer is culture and religion, but mostly religion. And in this case, you’re looking at Latin America as basically overwhelmingly Roman Catholic by tradition. If not by current religious identity, then at least by tradition, and there has been a massive catholic influence throughout much of Central and South America in a form of moral conservatism, at least on issues of marriage and abortion and sexuality.
Worldwide, those who are trying to push the LGBTQ issues and agendas understand that the great obstacle is not so much cultural, because culture can change very quickly, it is rather theological. And that would include Orthodox Judaism. It would include Islam. It would include historic biblical Christianity. It includes, of course, the historic teaching held by all Christians everywhere until the modern abdication of theological liberalism. And you’re looking at the Roman Catholic church where it has dominated on these issues being very clear about the definition of marriage, very clear about sexual morality, but now same sex marriage is to be legalized in Chile.
The New York Times and other liberal media are looking at this and saying, look, this is a big, very good development because you are looking at a great opportunity to drive this revolution throughout, well, the world in general, the entire global culture, but most, especially throughout other Latin American countries. What you can do is now push this saying, Chile has done it, you should do it. The New York Times made its messaging clear with the headline, “Chile legalizes same sex marriage amid broad demands for social change.” The most important words there are broad demands for social change. That’s another way of saying this is just one step. It’s an important step. It’s a step that made the print edition of The New York Times, it made international headlines, but this is not where the moral revolution ends. That’s exactly what’s being trumpeted in that headline.
There are demands for social change, broad social change, moral change, big moral change. We are reminded of the way moral revolutions proceed with the fact that it was Argentina, that in the region became the very first nation to legalize same sex marriage back in July of 2010. 2010, that’s presented here as being a long time ago. That’s just one year over 10 years ago. That’s how fast this is happening, 11 years ago. But now it is as if, and here’s the hope represented in this article in the part of the moral revolutionaries, it is as if this is one of those final obstacles to overcome before the moral revolution just moves ahead like a flood, flooding the entire terrain.
Chile itself adopted what was called a Civil Union Law back in 2015. That by the way, is the year that the Supreme Court of the United States handed down the Obergefell decision legalizing same-sex marriage here, but LGBTQ activists argued that those civil unions were not morally equivalent to marriage. And thus, the same-sex marriage issue was legislated just this week in Chile. Speaking as an outside observer, this is a big deal. This is a major milestone. This is one of those moments, in this case, in the nation of Chile, but in the entire region where it’s becoming increasingly clear that the residual commitment to a Christian understanding of morality, marriage, life, it is all eroding before our eyes. The timetable is now very rapid.
One other issue to note here when it comes to what arguments were and were not made in the case of Chile, Christian should understand that tradition has only so much binding authority. Tradition is very much a part of the existence of very single human being. We all have some tradition. We all come from some tradition, and tradition has some influence on us. But if the morality is merely the morality of tradition, it can be overthrown pretty quickly. The question is, what’s the morality of truth? There is no real evidence here that there is much of a debate about what marriage is and is not, that dealt with issues of moral truth, rather it is now just a part of cultural conflict and politics. And in the mainstream of a moral revolution, tradition just doesn’t get you very far.
The binding authority of tradition turns out not to have much bite at all. It’s a warning to Christians that if we or our children consider the Christian faith more tradition than truth, the tradition won’t last long. And that’s the truth.
By Michael Gryboski, Christian Post Reporter
A United Methodist Church pastor was recently relieved of his duties after participating as a drag queen in the HBO reality series “We’re Here.”
The Rev. Craig Duke, formerly the lead pastor of Newburgh United Methodist Church, was relieved of his duties effective Dec. 1. The Rev. Mark Dicken will serve as interim pastor.
Duke became the center of controversy after being featured in a Nov. 8 episode of the docu-series. In the episode, Duke was shown preaching to his congregation about love before transitioning into singing Kesha’s song “We Are Who We Are” with “drag mother” Eureka O’Hara.
The series follows three renowned drag artists who travel to small towns across the country teaching local residents how to perform as drag queens. Craig was nominated by the River City Pride organization to take part in the series.
In a letter sent to the congregation last week, Dicken said that although he had “positive feelings about stepping in as the interim pastor,” he was not “not happy about the circumstances that led to this.”
“I love this church for many reasons,” wrote Dicken. “I am committed to helping NUMC through this challenging time. But I will need your help.”
“Come home. Come home to Newburgh United Methodist Church. Come home for worship. Come home for the holidays – and beyond. Healing takes time. Reconciliation and rebuilding trust is not easy and can be frustrating and sometimes painful. Most of all, come home to Christ.”
Duke and his family will be allowed to live at the parsonage until Feb. 28, though he will not serve as senior pastor at the church and his salary has been reduced.
Mitch Gieselman, superintendent of the South and Southwest Districts of the Indiana UMC Conference, sent a letter to the congregation on Nov. 26 stating that Duke was neither fired nor suspended. Rather, Duke “has reached a place where he feels unable to continue to serve in parish ministry at present.”
“During his time of being relieved from pastoral duties, he will be engaging in a process of renewal, reflection, and recovery that will be monitored by our conference Director of Leadership Development, Bishop Trimble, and myself,” wrote Gieselman.
“Our desire is to provide an opportunity for Craig to again be able to utilize his numerous gifts as a pastor in a local congregation. He will not, however, be returning to the NUMC pulpit.”
Gieselman also noted that there is a divide in the congregation over whether Duke should have been relieved of his duties due to his involvement in the drag performer series.
“I’ve received numerous calls and emails that are highly critical of Craig’s actions, and I’ve received numerous messages of support for him,” Gieselman stated.
“In such a polarized climate, our main intent is to foster an environment in which both NUMC and the Duke family can move forward in grace.”
Gieselman assured that Duke’s actions were not a “violation of the United Methodist Book of Discipline.”
A GoFundMe page launched in support of Duke has raised a little more than $57,000 through more than 1,400 separate donations as of Wednesday morning.
“Pastor Craig considers himself to be a man of faith, a father, a husband, a social justice advocate, and ally for the LGBTQIA+ community. Craig has a hope and has fought for a fully inclusive church that is welcoming to people of all races, all genders, and all sexual orientations,” reads the campaign page.
“Please join us in praying for Pastor Craig as he (and his family) navigates this time of transition. If you feel inclined to donate to help offset some of the family’s living expenses, it is greatly appreciated.”
Craig participated in the show in support of his daughter who identifies as pansexual. Duke told The Courier Press in a Tuesday interview that his wife, Linda, also stepped down from her role as the church’s youth pastor.
Duke said he believes that “God loves all people as we are.”
