In a move that should surprise almost no one, the Supreme
Court ruled a week ago Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry
nationwide. It’s probably no coincidence
that this ruling comes just weeks after a very high profile man in our culture has
publically re-identified himself as a woman.
Many challenges have been raised as to the wisdom and/or propriety of
these massive cultural shifts and as an orthodox Christian pastor, I speak for
many who have their own. What has perhaps
been the most astonishing feature of these recent seismic cultural changes is—no
one has bothered to seriously think through some of the predictable (not to
mention, unintended) consequences of these changes for our children and
grandchildren?
This sea change is immeasurably larger than for instance,
the legalization of marijuana. Most
reasonable people would assumedly hold that before the Supreme Court decides to
legalize this drug nationwide, it might be a good idea to see how Colorado and
Alaska look in five years. Yet we have
no sociological, longitudinal data for this much more essential change to argue
for it. As a nation, we’re running full-speed
into a pitch black expanse without bothering to investigate if our journey will
terminate in some form of societal abyss.
We are making this judgement mainly under the sketchy assumption
that any move toward what is popularly known as “equality” is always a positive
move forward. We haven’t bothered to ask
whether equality in opportunity (a good thing) is the same and has the same
good consequences as equality in essence. Marriage and a person’s sexual identity are
essential components of society and personhood, not external. This fundamental
difference is largely being ignored. Do
we as a culture realize that these changes will create another class of victims
who will hurt just as much as those who have felt marginalized till now? Perhaps you haven’t thought of this new class
of victims, but I’ve seen it first-hand.
What
are we to say to the parents and siblings of a young man or woman who has
decided to identify as a member of the opposite sex? How are they supposed to deal with this? Do they take down the senior pictures and
disavow knowledge of their “former” son or daughter? How do they refer to the “new” person by
their new name and gender identification when they’ve always known him/her as
someone else? What do they do with the
young children in the family who are forming their own sense of sexual identity
and are confused as to why Uncle Harry has become Aunt Sally? What about their indescribable pain?
Are they simply to swallow hard and allow the culture to dictate what an
enlightened response is? Where’s the
equality there? What about the first-grade girl who is traumatized
by the presence of a sixth-grade boy in a “gender neutral” public bathroom?
Far
too few in the media and policy-making roles are familiar with (or are choosing
to ignore) the research findings of Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former
psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins and its current Distinguished Service
Professor of Psychiatry. In a recently
published article, he cites reputable studies that show that, of those children
who expressed transgender feelings, over time, 70%-80% “spontaneously lost
those feelings.” Far more consequential,
two studies found that, for those who had undergone “sexual reassignment
surgery,” the suicide rate is 20 times higher than non-transgender people. Don’t those weighty statistics at least bear
significant investigation before we begin this massive cultural experiment?
As
for same-sex marriage, what about the wife and children abandoned by their
husband and father because he’s concluded he is a homosexual and can relate
intimately only with those who see him as such?
Why is it so comparatively easy for our culture to throw these hurting
people under the bus? This is not hate
speech. How ironic in our age where
scientists are the intellectual high priests of our society, that they haven’t
weighed in on the complete absence of scientific methodology behind these categorical
societal changes.
There’s
an old expression that will resonate with Northern Minnesotans. It states that temptation is like showing the
fish the bait while hiding hook. It’s
just plain irresponsible to blindly plunge forward in these areas of essential
societal change without first looking for the hook. I’ve seen the hook and it hurts…a lot.
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