Lux Lucet

The times they are a-changing wrote Bob Dylan over 50 years ago. And if those words were true then, they are at least as apropos today.

If you doubt that, consider this headline: NBC Reports ‘History’: Oregon Judge Grants Right To Be ‘Agender. ‘

Now perhaps like me and you’re an old fuddy-duddy going about your business with the antiquated notion that there are only two genders. How intolerant of you! Quite obviously you’re stuck in a repressive intellectual paradigm and are badly in need of a cultural Marxist re-education.

As NBC breathlessly reports,

History was quietly made in Oregon this month when a judge granted a Portlander’s request to become genderless.

Patch, a 27-year-old video game designer, is likely the first legally agender person in the United States.

The Multnomah County Court granted Patch a “General Judgment of Name and Sex Change” on March 10. In the same judgment, Patch was also allowed to change names, becoming monomymous – meaning only having one name instead of a given name and a surname.

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Amy Holmes Hehn commenting on this and a similar ruling of hers last year explained her decision thus,

I made these decisions, like all decisions, because they were supported by facts and law, and out of respect for the dignity of the people who came before me.

The judge did not elaborate on what facts and what laws led to her decision, only that we are to accept that her decision was in accord with her normal practice.

Very clearly the judge did not have in mind the Law of God when she made her decision.

Obergefell v. Hodges

Perhaps Judge Holmes Hehn was in some way influenced by Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark 2015 Supreme Court ruling that established overturned state-level prohibitions against same-sex marriage, making it the law of the land in all 50 states.

Judge Anthony Kennedy who wrote the majority opinion clearly did not have the Law of Go in mind when he penned his defense of same-sex marriage. He wrote, “Confucius taught that marriage lies at the foundation of government… This wisdom was echoed centuries later wand a half a world away by Cicero, who wrote, ‘The first bond of society is marriage; next, children; and then the family.’ ”

Note well, while Kennedy gladly cites the opinions pagan philosophers – neither quote says anything about same-sex marriage – nowhere in his decision does he quote the Bible.

As with Judge Holmes Hehn, Justice Kennedy reached his decision apart from any reference to Scripture, the only authoritative reference that defines who man, and what marriage, is.

The Word of God

In some ways, it seems almost pedantic to write about the Bible’s definition of man. This is not difficult material. Even children can easily understand it. Nevertheless, it seems to perplex supposedly great legal minds.

Here’s how God himself defines man,

“Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”… So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Genesis 1:26, 27).

There are two genders, two sexes, male and female, both of which are created in the image of God. There is no third alternative. This is not difficult.

There is no legitimate basis for anyone to declare himself agender, bi-gender, gender queer, gender fluid, intersex, pangender, neutrois, gender nonconforming, two-spirit etc.

A person is either man or a woman. A male or a female.

The genderless movement is an enormous lie. And those who promulgate it do so to the destruction of individual souls and, more broadly, to the destruction of Western Civilization.

Gender Confusion and Civilizational Collapse

Curiously, even some people who advocate for homosexual rights and who are themselves homosexual see at least some of the problems with the gender fluid movement. Camille Paglia, a noted feminist lesbian scholar, said of the transgender movement,

Nothing…better defines the decadence of the West to the jihadists than our toleration of open homosexuality and this transgender mania now…I think that the transgender propagandists make wildly inflated claims about the multiplicity of gender…Se reassignment surgery, even today with all of its advances cannot in fact change anyone’s sex, okay…So there are a lot of lies being propagated at the present moment, which I think is not in anyone’s best interest…I found in my study [her book Sexual Personae] that history is cyclic, and everywhere in the world you find this pattern in ancient times: that as a culture begins to decline, you have an efflorescence of transgender phenomena. That is a symptom of cultural collapse…So rather than people singing the praises of humanitarian liberalism that allows all of these transgender possibilities to appear and to be encouraged, I would be concerned about how Western culture is defining itself to the world.

There is Biblical support for that idea that homosexuality and gender confusion is tied to civilizational collapse.

Under King Rehoboam of Judah, the ruler under which the United Kingdom of David and Solomon was permanently split, Scripture tells us, “And there were perverted persons [ritual sodomites and prostitutes] in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel” (1 Kings 14:18).

On the other hand, times of reformation were characterized by the ending of such practices. Rehoboam’s son Asa is said to have put the perverted persons out of the land (1 Kings 15:12).

Further, Scripture tells us that Jehoshaphat, Asa’s son, “removed the rest of the perverted persons, who remained in the days of his father Asa” (1Kings 22:29).

The Bible everywhere is careful to maintain what the New Geneva Study Bible calls, “the principle of gender distinction” (Text note on Deuteronomy 22:5). And nowhere does it entertain even the hint that there is any gender option other than male or female.

A Psychiatrist’s View

Noted former psychiatrist-in-chief for John Hopkins Hospital Dr. Paul R. McHugh rightly sees many as victims of the gender confusion fostered by LGBTQ movement. “Think, for example, of the parents whom no one – not doctors, schools, nor even churches – will help to rescue their children from these strange notions of being transgendered and the problematic lives these notions herald.”

McHugh has called sex-change therapy performed on children “child abuse,” saying, “It’s like performing liposuction on an anorexic child,” and added, “It [the desire to change one’s sex] is a disorder of the mind. Not a disorder of the body. Dealing with it in this way [medical treatment] is not dealing with the problem that truly exists.

A New Thing Under the Sun

Solomon tells us there is nothing new under the sun. And indeed, Biblical evidence of gender confusion and perverted sexual practice goes back to the time of Abraham. And, due to man’s fallen nature, it probably goes back much further than that.

But while gender dysphoria – this is the medical term for transgenderism – is not a new thing, its acceptance in the once Christian West is.

But contrary to what the courts, the corporations and many churches tell us, this is not a development to be celebrated, but rather the unmistakable sign of a civilization in decline, perhaps even terminal decline.

The inmates, it would seem, are now running the asylum.

There is no such thing as a woman trapped in a man’s body, neither are there men in women’s bodies. No one has the option of being genderless. And it is a lie to say so.

Linguistic Insanity

Perhaps you learned in school that there were three linguistic genders: male, female, and neuter. But if one accepts the notion that there’s an entire gender menu from which one may freely choose, it follows the English langue must change to accommodate this. Enter linguistic insanity.

You can get a flavor for this by reading this page courtesy of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Perhaps ou never knew there were such words in the English language as xe, xem and xyr. Perhaps you wouldn’t even know how to pronounce them.

But be careful. As absurd as these new pronouns are, failure to use them (aka the high crime of mis-gendering) in New York City can set you back up to $250,000.

Basic to Our Identity

“An individual’s sex is the first thing you notice about a person, and the last thing you forget.” That line is not original with me, but rather is a quote, or at least a near quote, I once read. It is also a fitting idea to bring this discussion to a close.

Out identify as men and women is not optional, neither is it a small thing. God created the human race male and female. He did not provide three, four, thirty-one (according to the Big Apple), or fifty-eight options.

In Closing

Few movements highlight the insanity of our time better than the LGBTQ agenda, in particular the so-called gender non-confirming claim, the assertion that there are multiple genders outside of the God given options of male and female.

As Christians, we must warn, rebuke and refute those who promote these ideas. Perhaps God will save some of them. But in fulfillment of our duty to be salt and light in a world of darkness, we must never see agreement with them.