As the culture celebrates that which should be suppressed, and kids are encouraged to explore hints of desires that were once easily corrected through both social stigma and proper understanding of desire as it relates to sexuality, we can expect more people to identify as other than “straight”+ their biological gender. In the end, it’s a disordering of the order of creation, a destruction of society, and an attempt to dethrone God.
Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
—Romans 1:32
“George, what are you afraid of if Gay Marriage is legalized? Its not like people will become gay. People don’t choose to be gay.” That was an oft-repeated point in the time leading up to the Obergefell decision. In the years since, we have seen homosexuality go from merely tolerated to Gay Marriage being legalized, corporations tripping over themselves to cash-in, school books celebrating it and kids encouraged to explore it, dragshows for children, and now the Presidential Declaration that June is Pride month.
In the midst of all of this, I have heard repeated concerns from parents with stories of gender and sexual confusion running rampant in their children’s middle schools. One friend in North Carolina told me that in the public school where his daughter goes that 50% of the girls identify as other than straight-female. A friend in Florida laments how all the middle school girls have girlfriends. One man in a Christian Facebook group asked for prayer because his daughter who is struggling to make friends came home and told him that she is bisexual because a popular girl in her class came up and spoke to her and she became flush. Naturally, this to her meant she must be gay, because that’s what she’s hearing in school. It can’t be that she was just glad to be noticed.
Are these stories just anecdotal? Or is something going on? And why is this phenomenon heavily weighted toward adolescent girls? Abigail Shrier, who is not a Christian, explored an aspect of this in her 2020 book entitled Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze that is Seducing Our Daughters. Her observations are heartbreaking, the statistics are telling, and what is happening is nothing short of child abuse.
And while 50% may be difficult to believe, the statistics do bear out a huge increase in youth identifying as something other than heterosexual + their biological gender. In reporting on this phenomenon, US News cited a study showing that 17.8% of girls between ages 15-17 identify as other than heterosexual. Nearly 18%! This compared to a much lower 6% for boys. When both genders are taken together, that is an overall 41% increase in just 5 years! A Christianity Today piece cites a recent Barna Study that shows that “Teenagers in Gen Z are at least TWICE as likely as American adults to identify as LGBT.” That’s a 100% increase between current teenagers and adults.
It is common for social scientists to explain this phenomenon in this way:
…we cannot be certain if this represents a true increase of this magnitude, or if it reflects at least in part, greater comfort by teens with acknowledging a non-heterosexual identity on an anonymous questionnaire…
—Dr. Andrew Adesman
It is reasonable that this explains some of the increase, but 41% over 5 years, and 100% increase over adults? Not likely.
What’s this have to do with the Moral Law?
This is where Calvin’s Institutes, Book II helps us out. Calvin explains that while Christians are saved by Grace through faith there is still validity to the Moral Law of God. In that, he gives his “3 uses of the law”:
- It is a Mirror – It shows us that we don’t live up to God’s standard.
- It Restrains Evil in Society – Civil Law is modeled after the moral law.
- It shows us what is pleasing to God and encourages us to walk in that manner by the Power of the Holy Spirit.
While there has been much controversy over the 3rd use of the Law being abandoned among Christians, we are seeing the same happen with the 2nd use of the Law. This has even occurred among Christians who have bought into the lie that gay marriage should be allowed because we aren’t a Christian nation. We are supposed to after-all have a separation between the Church and State, so the argument goes.