It’s only a controversy if you listen (and believe) politicians

There is nothing to fear

I admit, I’m an old Baby Boomer, which means that I have difficulty dealing with the gender war that has been declared by mostly Republican legislatures — and political candidates eyeing the White House in 2024, thinking that declaring against LBGTQIA rights is a path to victory.

I get it. I believe God created man and woman, but obviously the creation story is more complicated. Whether it’s our fall from grace or something else, all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. Is the LBGTQIA community just another iteration of that fall? I don’t profess to know, but what I do know, is that people who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex or Asexual, are, at the base of their existence, human, and John 3:16 says: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

While I’m uncomfortable with the gender diversity we now face, I don’t think it prudent to reject that diversity. What danger does it pose to anyone who declares themselves man or woman to acknowledge that someone in the LBGTQIA community is human? Being gay or lesbian or bi doesn’t rub off, although you would think it does by the measures some politicians have foisted. According to a University of Southern California study, only 3.5 percent of Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, and only 0.3 percent identify as trans.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, there have been 491 anti-LBGTQ legislative bills moving through the nation’s state legislatures. The most common is gender affirming care for minors. The logic legislators use to take parents power to raise their children away is mind twisting. Those same legislators want parents to be involved in every other facet of their children’s lives — from what books are allowed in libraries to school curriculum. Parents who are dealing with the gender preferences of their children have enough to worry about. But that doesn’t matter to politicians who think they can squeeze a few votes out of the controversy.

I personally have no issue with people who decide they love someone with the same equipment they have. It’s not my deal. I don’t care. If you want to believe they are living in sin, so be it, but Romans 3:23 says “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” And the words of Jesus ring in my ears when he said in John 8:7, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

So, to be totally candid, the acronym LBGTQIA constantly expands and contracts and means something different to whoever you talk to. I’m still figuring out the “trans definition,” but I think I’ve got it. A trans man is a woman who identifies as a man and a trans woman is a man who identifies as a woman. Don’t blame me if I got that wrong. I realize I’m confused, and you might be, too. Don’t let that confusion allow you to be persuaded by not-well-meaning politicians to fear someone you don’t understand.