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Gender Ideology: The Neo-Pagan Blurring of Biology and Justice
Part 2 of 2
[Christians] are part of a human history that is destined for confrontation and conflict with pagan spirituality[1]
“Homosexuality must make its moral case, . . . It must show the deep spirituality of homosexual love.”[2]
Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process transforming the very fabric of society. . . [3].
“I’m just a man who has a vagina”[4]
Worldviews are at war. The LGBTQ advocates understand this clearly. They advance a totalistic agenda, seeking to transform “the very fabric of society.” This is no benign political preference clamoring for “equal rights” – rather, it’s a pursuit for cultural domination, if not extinction, of Christian cosmology.
Christians should understand this too. Scripture sets forth numerous metaphors describing and alerting us to this clash: light v. darkness; wheat v. chaff, sheep v. goats; sheep v. wolves; the wise v. the foolish; found v. lost; heaven v. hell; the City of God v. the City of Man.[5] Too often, however, Christians seem dull in understanding and lethargic in responding. The LGBTQ activists in contrast work ceaselessly; so should Christians and their pastors.
The LGBTQ activists are currently deploying Gender Ideology to advance their conquest. In doing so, the LGBTQ agenda attacks the Word of God. It does this often by using “words” – words undermining the Word. The abuse of language changes culture, because it creates the context for abusing power.[6] How so? Let’s get to the gist.
Language as a Political Tool
Consider a common term deployed today: “sexual orientation.” Understand that this is not a biological term, but a political one, aimed at changing how we think about sexual behavior. The idea is that being a homosexual is “hard-wired,” and immutable, a matter of one’s being and fundamental identity.[7] The Left’s cultural army deployed this term for legal and political purposes, not because it reflects reality. It doesn’t. Here’s their political purpose: They are seeking to analogize their sexual behaviorsas being in the same category as the status of being black, Asian, or female. They did this hoping to garner legal protection for this new “suspect class.”[8] This commits a category mistake: equating chosen behavior, that is, sexual conduct, with an unchosen inherent characteristic, ethnicity.
The Faux Legal Angle
They nevertheless pressed this notion in law and pop culture contending that just as one cannot wrongly discriminate against blacks, one should not be able to wrongly discriminate against homosexual behavior. Because people of good will are rightly repelled by racist ideations, they often swallow this analogy and retreat from opposing – or even support – the LGBTQ agenda as a matter of “fairness” or “fundamental justice.” This analogy, however, withers under informed scrutiny. Don’t be duped by this attractive, but poisonous tactic. Instead, think Christianly.
First, let’s pose a fundamental question: Is being a homosexual truly an identity rooted in metaphysics, or rather does it describe those who choose certain sexual behaviors, an ethical category? Is someone “born that way” in the same way someone else is born “black” or Chinese or male? Activists tried to bolster this claim by rooting it in “science,” asserting that homosexuality is genetic – “born that way” – but the actual science rebuts this. As researcher and LGBTQ sympathizer Simon LeVay noted:
“I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn’t show that gay men are born that way—the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain.”[9]
Moreover, even if a so-called “gay gene” exists and thus is “natural”, (albeit natural in a fallen world), that does not mean that a person’s genetic status is to be favored or celebrated. Certain “natural” genetic markers are rightly deemed pathological thereby needing both care and cure: cystic fibrosis is genetic as is sickle cell anemia. No one thinking rightly would jump for joy for those possessing these genetic maladies. Something “occurring naturally” supplies no moral solution. One still must undertake a moral evaluation based on some standard other than something being “natural.”
Second, for purposes of legal analysis, how would a court know who comprises the “homosexual class?” Who’s in and who’s out? Who benefits from that classification? Is it simply a matter of self-selection? Is it someone who once had homosexual ideations? Is it someone who engaged in homosexual behavior, if so, how frequently? Is it someone who previously engaged in homosexual behavior, but no longer does so? Is it someone who engages is such behavior for pay, the so-called “gay for pay” entrepreneurs[10]? Is it someone who privately engaged in lesbianism, but worked as a heterosexual prostitute – who then murdered her “customers?”[11] The law is ill-equipped to process and protect “homosexuality” as a legally recognized suspect class. And the Supreme Court, though repeatedly invited to do so, has politely and rightly declined this invitation on every occasion.
Third, the claim that homosexual behavior is “immutable” like ethnicity is empirically falsifiable. Just consider notable celebrities who publicly “flip-flopped” their sexuality: Anne Heche, Julie Cypher, Sinead O’Connor, Ellton John, and WNBA star Sheryl Swopes.[12] If homosexuality is unchosen and immutable, how can these flip-flops occur?
The LGBTQ Great Commission
More important to understand is the worldview component to this agenda. The homosexual agenda comprises a totalistic agenda with a particular eschatological focus or telos: obliterating marriage as designed by God:
Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process transforming the very fabric of society. . . . We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society’s view of family. [13]
This is their “Great Commission.” LGBTQ activists designed and implemented a plan to bring this eschatological vision into reality. They fashioned strategies – evangelistic tracts, if you will – for realizing their “Great Commission.” Hunter Madsen and Marshall Kirk penned an article in 1987 entitled Overhauling Straight America, which in many ways is their version ofEvangelism Explosion.[14] They expanded their “how to” thesis in their 1990 book, After the Ball.[15] There, they outline a six-point strategy to leaven the culture for achieving their utopian aims:
- Talk about Gays and Gayness as Loudly and as Often as Possible
- Portray Gays as Victims, not aggressive Challengers
- Give Homosexual Protectors a “just” Cause
- Make Gays look Good
- Make Victimizers look Bad
- Solicit Funds—involve corporate America and Business
Here are some of the recognizable ways they implemented these strategies. These should sound familiar: (1) Labeling unused sodomy and adultery laws as anachronistic and on the “wrong side of history”; (2) Portraying homosexuals favorably in media and entertainment by (i) multiplying references to homosexuals in proportions far exceeding the actual percentage of the LGBTQ population; (ii) portraying homosexuals as victims or heroes in the media; (iii) urging “the famous” to “come out”; (3) “partnering” with other “victims” both real and constructed, pressing faux analogies to blacks and other bono fide minorities; (4) partnering with business and Corporate America by pressuring them to (i) extend medical and other benefits to same-sex relationships; (ii) erect “safe zones”; (iii) mandate sensitivity and “implicit bias” training and other HR grifts predicated on Critical Theory premises; and (iv) suggest and then mandate affirmation action – under the guise of “diversity” – aimed at hiring LGBTQ personnel.
They, in their hubris, believe they have vanquished all their cultural opponents, except for one: Christians who stand for Christian ethical orthodoxy:
“We rule the world these days. Everybody except orthodox religious sects has either been cowed by gay activist intimidation or softened by the politics of victimology and oppression and the doctrines of tolerance, diversity, and inclusion.”[16]
The LGBTQ Agenda and Spiritual Subversion
The LGBTQ activists use a two-fold strategy against their perceived orthodox religious opposition which stands in their way. On the one hand they directly attack these views by transgressive conduct and badgering ridicule. On the other hand, they seek to coop and subvert the orthodox. Bad Cop and Good Cop. For this latter tactic they understand that they need to make the religious and spiritual case for homosexuality. As Chris Hinkle, a purported Roman Catholic, [17] noted during his doctoral studies at Harvard:
“Homosexuality must make its moral case, not merely its civil-social rights [case]. It must show the deep spirituality of homosexual love.”[18]
Hinkle is correct in one sense: Homosexual love IS deeply spiritual. This stands to reason. As Paul informs us, unrighteous practices like homosexuality stem from religious disorder and idolatry:
they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.[19]
Deeply erroneous spirituality – idolatry – birthed homosexual practices. That’s the unvarnished reality.
The LGBTQ Agenda and Legal Subversion
Following their efforts to leaven the culture and the church, the activists turned their efforts to law and policy. They understood, as Paul did, that their unrighteous practices press to be approved.[20] This is the role of the law, using the State’s coercive sword. If one reflects upon our legal landscape, we catch glimpses of this effort all around us: (1) targeting criminal laws banning sodomy, including pressing to lower the age of consent. (The Supreme Court upheld sodomy laws in 1986, but flipped just 17 years later.[21] Note the timing: the effort began in earnest after Kirk and Madsen outlined their cultural agenda – law followed culture.[22])
Consider also the activists’ push in the law for (2) permitting birth certificates and other legal documents to change sex and names; (3) same-sex partnering; (4); same-sex fostering; (5) same-sex adoption; same-sex “marriage;” (7) regulating professions by infiltrating governing and accrediting bodies and injecting them with ideologically-generated “ethical” codes which favor LGBTQ perspectives and oppose Christian ethical convictions. These efforts are not unrelated; they form many strands of a web supporting a coordinated overall cultural scheme to “burst [the LORD’s and His Anointed’s] bonds apart and cast away their cords”.[23]
The LGBTQ’s Jettison of Reality: Gender Ideology’s Alchemy
The LGBTQ agenda’s wedge issue today involves something more than an ethical claim, however; it involves a metaphysical claim, represented by the “T”: the idea that a man can become a woman and vice versa. Gender ideology demands that this claim – based on one’s “gender identity” – be instantiated in culture and law.[24] This of course is philosophical nonsense akin to alchemy. The claim rests on a ridiculous premise that costumes, cosmetics, chemicals, and carvings change one’s essence. This is laughable[25]; however, the harm and tragedy that accompanies those who deeply hold to these false claims is lamentable and troubling. Consider the story of accomplished LA Times Staff Sportswriter, Mike Penner. He tells of his “transition”:
During my 23 years with The Times’ sports department, I have held a wide variety of roles and titles. Tennis writer. Angels beat reporter. Olympics writer. Essayist. Sports media critic. NFL columnist.
Recent keeper of the Morning Briefing flame.
Today I leave for a few weeks’ vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation.
As Christine.
I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words. I realize many readers and colleagues and friends will be shocked to read them.[26]
Mike, like many who “transition,” is convinced [deluded actually] that this move is natural, liberating, and salubrious:
Transsexualism is a complicated and widely misunderstood medical condition. It is a natural occurrence — unusual, no question, but natural. . . .
All I can say at this point is that I am now happier, more focused and more energized when I sit behind a keyboard. The wicked writer’s block that used to reach up and torture me at some of the worst possible times imaginable has disappeared.
My therapist says this is what happens when a transsexual finally “integrates” and the ever-present white noise in the background dissipates.[27]
The problem with such thinking – even if deeply felt and sincere – is that it bucks against a God-rigged universe. Denying and seeking to suppress the Creator’s design spurs consequences. Mike “came out” as “trans” in this column in July 2007. Like many who “transition,” he came to regret his choice.[28] He then “de-transitioned” to again be “Mike” and male in March 2008. He then took his own life in November 2009.[29]
The self-harm and suicide rates of those identifying as “transgender” dwarfs the ordinary population.[30] Upon reflection, this tragic choice makes perfect sense, since gender ideology seeks to subvert ethics at their metaphysical and creational level. Let’s examine the claims and aims of Gender Ideology.
Gender Ideology’s Spirituality: Man as God
Fundamentally, because neo-pagan spirituality drives gender ideology, and because pagan spirituality worships the creation, it’s no surprise that this spirituality treats mankind as divine. Man supplants God. This is precisely what we see being codified today. For example, the New York City Human Rights law provides:
Gender identity is an individual’s sense of being either male or female, man or woman, or something other or in between[31]
Or, perhaps both, legally speaking:
Even though he is legally male, Malachi is registered as the mother on his son’s birth certificate, while Charlie is registered as father. This anomaly means that he is both legally male and legally female simultaneously.[32]
Man in essence acts as the Creator and definer of reality. Note also the Gnostic and neo-pagan assumptions underlying such laws: Rather than mankind being a living soul comprised of material and immaterial components, mankind is exclusively “abstract’ and immaterial. Biology is irrelevant at best and bigotry at worst. Our bodies lack meaning and significance.[33] They are non-essential, indeterminate, and fluid. We are nothing more than glorified Mr. and Mrs. Potato Heads, adding and/or deleting parts at will. Bodies exist only to be commoditized, manipulated, used, and abused. As one Trans-activist contended, taking this claim to its logical extreme:
“[W]omen are unlikely to be viewed as equal to men until the law recognizes that some women have penises and some men have vaginas”[34]
They can confidently make this absurd assertion because the Supreme Court in 1992 defined “liberty” in a capacious way limited only by one’s unfettered autonomy:
“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, the universe, and of the mystery of human life.[35].”
This is nothing new since sin entered the world:
For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.[36]
Unfettered autonomy is an impulse spawned by the corroding impact of sin, worshipping the creation instead of the Creator.
The LGBTQ’s Agenda: A Totalistic Eschatology
The LGBTQ agenda is totalistic. And, it has a specific worldview aim. As one of its key advocates, Paula Ettlebrick, former law professor at Michigan and Columbia, has candidly noted. This bears repeating in light of gender ideology:
“Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so. It is an identity, a culture with many variations. It is a way of dealing with the world by diminishing the constraints of gender roles which have for so long kept women and gay people oppressed and invisible. Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process transforming the very fabric of society. . . . We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society’s view of family.”[37]
Unsurprisingly, the Trans-agenda likewise has a correlative comprehensive aim:
“Unlike feminist and les/bi/gay rights cases, only trans litigation challenges the sex system. By “sex system,” I mean the law’s categorization and regulation of persons as male or female based primarily on their genitalia at birth. While the women’s and gay rights movements challenge, in their own ways the gender roles assigned to males and females, neither contests the categorizations of certain persons as “male” and others as “female.”[38]”
“[T]rans litigation—by explaining that self-identification is the central component of sex—ultimately may effect change by encouraging courts and society to conclude that the determination of one’s sex should rest with the individual and not the state.”[39]
These eschatological aims repudiate reality – by separating biology and sex – and thereby also attack the very foundation of orthodox Christian convictions. In particular, they assault the Creation, the Incarnation, and the Resurrection, as Charles Chaput explains:
In decoupling gender from biology and denying any given or “natural” meaning to male and female sexuality, gender ideology directly repudiates reality. People don’t need to be “religious” to notice that men and women are different. The evidence is obvious. And the only way to ignore it is through a kind of intellectual self-hypnosis. Gender ideology rejects any human experience of knowledge that conflicts with its own flawed premises; it’s the imperialism of bad science on steroids.
For Christians, it also attacks the heart of our faith: the Creation (“male and female he created them”); the Incarnation – God taking the flesh of a man; and the Redemption – God dying on the cross and then rising in glorified bodily form.[40]
Tom Wright pinpoints the fundamental folly of Gender Ideology:
We are not, after all, defined by whatever longings and aspirations come out of our hearts, despite the remarkable rhetoric of our times. In the area of human well-being, that is the road to radical instability; in the area of theological beliefs, it leads to Gnosticism(where you try to discern the hidden divine spark within yourself and then be true to it).[41]
Yet, there is hope. Western culture has previously encountered the type of hubris that claims men can become women. It is folly, as Angela Codevilla explained:
In his classic commentary on the laws of England, Sir William Blackstone wrote that the British Parliament could do anything not naturally impossible, such as turning a maninto a woman.[42]
Formerly complicit medical professionals are increasingly resisting these demanded practices:
[W]e psychiatrists have been distracted from studying the causes and natures of their mental misdirections by preparing them for surgery and for a life in the other sex. We have wasted scientific and technical resourcesand damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it.[43]
States are likewise banning these so-called “transition affirming” practices, at least as applied to minors.[44]
Hope and the Bottom Line: Truth
To be a thinking and faithful Christian in light of neo-pagan spirituality, we must – at a minimum – maintain, defend, and advocate for (1) the Creator-creature distinction; (2) the Imago Dei of mankind as distinctive; (3) male and female as immutable creational norms; (4) Marriage as comprised of one man and one woman, and accordingly (5) Gender Ideology’s invitation must be firmly yet politely declined in every square inch of reality.
We must not live by lies.[45] We must instead – if we are to rightly love our neighbors – live for and by the truth because “love rejoices with the truth.”[46] If we fail to do these things in ourselves, our churches, and our societies, our blurring of biology will blur justice to the detriment of all. Take heart: We will do them because we must do them.
[1] Peter R. Jones, CAPTURING THE PAGAN MIND, (2003) 236
[2] Peter Jones, The God of Sex—How Spirituality Defines Your Sexuality (2006), 71; similarly see Matthew Vines’ so-called The Reformation Project – “Advancing LGBTQ Inclusion in the Church” – which mangles scripture in an attempt to justify sexual deviance, https://reformationproject.org/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAiaC-BhBEEiwAjY99qBU6-1Do_v4MPbTSRuo5OHxKtykvY-fSz-YBy0ANdKpA4XuKKfGcOhoCHUQQAvD_BwE
For a more scholarly, yet still ethically compromised effort, see apostatizing theologians Richard B. Hays and his son Christopher B. Hays in The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality of Within the Biblical Story (2024). It’s deliciously ironic that the Hays father and son team purport to discuss God’s mercy – an attribute which presupposes the guilt of its object – while also claiming God accepts as unsinful same-sex sexuality. For a bracing biblical rebuttal of Hays, see Robert Gagnon, 12 Disqualifying Errors in Richard Hays’ “Biblical” Case for Gay Relationships, https://thefederalist.com/2024/12/16/12-disqualifying-errors-in-richard-hays-biblical-case-for-gay-relationships/
[3] Since When is Marriage a Path to Liberation? Out/Look, Fall 1989, reprinted in Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Law, Ed. Wm. Rubenstein, pp. 402,403,405.
[4] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/im-uks-first-man-fall-34815064
[5] Augustine gave the church this enduring metaphor,
[6] Josef Pieper, Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power (1992). And, as Michael Sacasas notes, words work as events, rather than lifeless artifacts. Words are relational, not inert and isolated, and thus comprise powerful phenomena. See, M. Sacasas, “The Material Sources of Free Speech Anxieties”, The Convivial Society, July 9, 2020, as cited in Daniel J. Brendsel, Answering Speech – The Life of Prayer as Response to God, (2023), 112, 113
[7] Paul plainly rejects this notion: “[M]en who practice homosexuality . . . such were some of you.” 1 Cor. 6:9,11
[8] The courts utilize the highest level of review – known as “strict scrutiny” – when assessing alleged violations of “equal protection” under the 14th Amendment. This level of review is triggered when “suspect classes” like ethnicity are involved.
[9] Cited in Peter Jones, The God of Sex—How Spirituality Defines Your Sexuality (2006), 68.
[10] The New Buy-Sexual? Straight Men Who Are Gay for Pay, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-new-buy-sexual-straight-men-who-are-gay-for-pay_b_5977d929e4b01cf1c4bb7424
[11] https://www.biography.com/crime/aileen-wuornos; the 2003 film Monster dramatized this story.
[12] See generally, https://www.josephnicolosi.com/articles/celebrities-who-have-left-a-gay-lifestyle/
[13] Paula Ettelbrick, Out/Look, Fall 1989, “Since When is Marriage a Path to Liberation?” reprinted in Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Law, Ed. Wm. Rubenstein, 402,403,405.
[14] https://library.gayhomeland.org/0018/EN/EN_Overhauling_Straight.htm; Madsen used the pseudonym, Erastes Pil, derived from ancient Greek society involving an adult male sexually involved with a young boy (the “philetor”).
[15] Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madasen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer It Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s (1990)
[16] Id., quoting activist John McKellar, as referenced in Tom Hoppes 2 July 2002 Crisis.
[17] Hinkle has been part of Dignity/Washington’s Liturgical Committee, a group masquerading as Roman Catholics seeking to normalize same-sex behavior. https://dignitywashington.org/page/16/?pagewanted=all; more recently, here is Hinkle in a selfie at “Pride Night” with his “husband.” https://www.threads.net/@chinkledc/post/CuYB3kAxf8O?hl=en
[18] Peter Jones, The God of Sex, 71; similarly see Matthew Vines’ so-called The Reformation Project – “Advancing LGBTQ Inclusion in the Church” – which mangles scripture in an attempt to justify sexual deviance, https://reformationproject.org/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAiaC-BhBEEiwAjY99qBU6-1Do_v4MPbTSRuo5OHxKtykvY-fSz-YBy0ANdKpA4XuKKfGcOhoCHUQQAvD_BwE
For a more scholarly effort, see apostatizing theologians Richard B. Hays and his son Christopher B. Hays in The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality of Within the Biblical Story (2024). It’s deliciously ironic that the Hays father and son team purport to discuss God’s mercy – an attribute which presupposes guilt of its object – while also claiming God accepts as unsinful same-sex sexuality. For a bracing biblical rebuttal of Hays, see Robert Gagnon, 12 Disqualifying Errors in Richard Hays’ “Biblical” Case for Gay Relationships, https://thefederalist.com/2024/12/16/12-disqualifying-errors-in-richard-hays-biblical-case-for-gay-relationships/
[19] Romans 1:25-27
[20] Romans 1:32
[21] Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, 478, U.S. 186 (1986)
[22] Jeffery J. Ventrella, “Law Follows Culture” – Except When it Doesn’t (2020), https://www.amazon.com/Law-Follows-Culture-Except-Doesnt/dp/1657754367
[23] Ps 2:3
[24] The new Administration, though weak on other LGBTQ areas, has pushed back strongly against gender ideology and Christians should be thankful for this development, including cycling out transgender-identifying personnel from the military. See, e.g., https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/ and https://apnews.com/article/transgender-military-trump-ban-troops-deb9e388ff588d9d25fb0d8cc58e540f
[25] Make no mistake. Laugher can be an appropriate response to those foolishly seeking to live apart from God’s order of reality. Ps. 2:4
[26] Old Mike, New Christine, https://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-oldmike26apr26-story.html
[27] Id.
[28] https://sexchangeregret.com/
[29] Peter Sprigg, Remembering Mike Penner, https://www.frc.org/blog/2017/12/remembering-mike-penner#gsc.tab=0
[30] Transgender people face significantly higher suicide risk, Danish study finds [capitalization in original], https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/28/health/transgender-suicide-risk/index.html
[31] Guidelines Regarding “Gender Identify” Discrimination, A Form of Gender Discrimination Prohibited by The New York City Human Rights Law (Title 8 of the Administrative Code of the City of New York. www.nyc.gov/cchr
[32] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/im-uks-first-man-fall-34815064
[33] For a cogent rebuttal to this claim, see Nancy Pearcy, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality(2019)
[34] Taylor Flynn, Transforming the Debate: Why We Need to Include Transgender Rights in the Struggles for Sex and Sexual Orientation Equality, 101 Colum. L. Rev. 392 , 399 (2001).
[35] Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 2807 (1992). Thankfully, the holding of this decision was overruled along with Roe v. Wade in Dobb v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,597 U.S 215 (2022) but this libertine-autonomy ethos remains as a compass in the law.
[36] Genesis 3:5
[37] Since When is Marriage a Path to Liberation? Out/Look, Fall 1989, reprinted in Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Law, Ed. Wm. Rubenstein, pp. 402,403,405.
[38] Id. at 394.
[39] Id. at 395, 396. Notice the reliance on unfettered autonomy for this claim. The Idol of Self controls and it invokes the Idol of State to approve or codify the Self’s choices. See, Jeffery J. Ventrella, Christ, Caesar, or Self (2016), https://www.amazon.com/Christ-Caesar-Self-Jeffery-Ventrella/dp/B0DM1TN1BH/ref=sr_1_4?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.jKhglfRMf95ApYnUyg8Rhkf6dz5ngWOTG6w2q0kBC0goWetEkjXVHgKRCuo9MoHzoi9Yke28tFq3-mWV61MhRSIXJJa7krk9weC5lyvF6cFtuxB25uyAJ5RcNoyS4ymo.zp77cjGcImi9t0J6fbyc3t7mUiQlkGkfZZX9BkcNWnc&dib_tag=se&qid=1741361768&refinements=p_27%3AJeffery+J.+Ventrella&s=books&sr=1-4
[40] Charles J. Chaput, Strangers in a Strange Land: Living the Catholic Faith in a Post-Christian World (2017), 93
[41] N.T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began (2016), 398
[42]Angelo M. Codevilla, The Character of Nations: How Politics Makes and Breaks Prosperity, Family, and Civility (1997), 65
[43] Paul McHugh, “Sexual Surgery,” First Things, November 2004, 38.
[44] The Supreme Court heard argument December 4, 2024 concerning Tennessee’s’ regulation of these practices on minors. See, U.S. v. Skrmetti, https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-skrmetti/ Missouri’s similar statute was upheld after a nine day trial, Noe v. Parson, https://ago.mo.gov/wp-content/uploads/Noe-v.-Parson-trial-order.pdf
[45] Rod Dreher, Live Not By Lies: A Manuel for Christian Dissidents (2022)
[46] 1 Cor. 13:6