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The “Respect for Marriage Act” Will Harm Children

The law is a teacher, and the “Respect for Marriage Act” is a bad one. Enshrining legal lies about the truth of marriage harms all of society, most especially children. From facile heterosexual marriage dissolutions to novel family arrangements, children are harmed when their rights to their own mother and father are disregarded for the sake of adult desires.
Our culture seems to think that almost no behavior is off limits, no matter how dangerous or even deadly, if engaged in for erotic reasons. We’ve forgotten the harsh lessons about our bodily limits that HIV/AIDS taught us, and instead we embrace a sexual ethic of non-judgmentalism and autonomy. Monkeypox reminds us of our natural limits—and the consequences of ignoring them.
Today, white-coated professionals tell parents of children with gender dysphoria: affirm your child’s trans identity right away or prepare for suicide. Are those really the only two options? For a movement that decries the binary, its commitment to this false dichotomy is relentless.
As a recent British court decision correctly affirmed, the puberty blocking treatments being given to gender-dysphoric young people constitute experimental medicine. There is neither demonstrated efficacy nor evidence on long-term outcomes, and the risk of serious harm and irreversible damage is real. The same standards of medicine should be applied to gender dysphoria as other medical issues.
Abigail Shrier’s new book is an outstanding investigative report on the diagnostic craze of rapid onset gender dysphoria that has swept over adolescent girls in the past decade. It is an invaluable resource for parents, educators, church and community leaders, and anyone else who cares about the well-being of young women.
Before Covid-19’s pernicious spread, another health phenomenon had reached epidemic proportions and is still occurring on a global level. Unlike the virus, its vulnerable population is the young—especially young girls.
I want you to know that your opposition strengthens and encourages people like me—Christians who have struggled with same-sex attraction. When we see Barronelle refuse to lay her cross down, she becomes Simon to us and helps us shoulder our own.
By sharing the stories of real people suffering real pain and struggling with enormous regret, Walt Heyer enables us to gain the first thing a person seeking to be a true trans ally needs: compassion.
Suffering can lead to serenity, if we respond to it with trust in a loving God who will make all things right. We must remember: Love would not allow what Love could not restore.
Church communities should strive to be safe spaces where those with same-sex attraction can take refuge, openly sharing their experiences. We must affirm their dignity as children of God and lovingly refuse to encourage any behavior that is contrary to their good.
In our culture, there is a chasm between two irreconcilable conceptions of the meaning and purpose of human sexuality and equality. For children most of all, the wrong kind of sexuality and equality has devastating effects.
Teens struggling with their sexual identity may seem to have more options than they did in the 1980s—but one important option is increasingly denied to them.
May I make two requests? Love me, but remember that you cannot be more merciful than God. It isn’t mercy to affirm same-sex acts as good. Don’t compromise truth; help me to live in harmony with it.