Topic: WorldNetDaily
Our catch-up on Michael Brown's anti-LGBT activism continues with an April 19 WorldNetDaily column in which he lists the existence of LGBT people as further evidence that the country is on an "inevitable and disastrous cultural trajectory":
Many things can seem innocent and innocuous in their early stages, just like a rocket that is the slightest bit off target. Nothing to worry about! In the end, though, it will miss its target by many miles. The wrong trajectory, however so slight, ends up with a major deviation from the original target and goal.
That's one reason why I often use a full gamut of letters when speaking about gay and trans activism, namely, LGBTQ++. It's a constant reminder of the trajectory, which originally started with just the G before quickly adding the L, then the B. Then it was T, then Q (which was part of the early foundation of, "We're here, we're queer, get used to it"), then beyond.
That's why websites answer questions such as, "What Does the Full LGBTQIA+ Acronym Stand For?" This same website has a section titled, "Understanding LGBTQ2S+ and other expanded acronyms."
But of course. Once you deviate from foundational, societal norms, the possibilities are endless.
Another site offers, "68 Terms That Describe Gender Identity and Expression." And a nonbinary reference page lists a number of multi-genders, including abigender, ambigender, bigender, demiflux, genderfluid, pangender, polygender and trigender, all defined with the utmost seriousness. Again, this is what happens when you deviate from "male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27).
That's why the list of preferred gender pronouns has become absolutely (and sadly) laughable, yielding questions like this: "Is bun/bunself a valid pronoun? My friend was calling me a transphobe since I said it's not valid."
One responder answered, "I don't understand neopronouns (for example, Someone said they prefer 'bug/bugself' as pronouns). Is this even respectful to the LGBTQ community?" Seriously!
More broadly, the larger trajectory of gay activism has inevitably led to this current moment in history, which includes: 1) The continued assault on our families and children, as Washington state has "passed a bill allowing children to legally be taken away from their parents for not consenting to gender transition procedures on their child."
Brown complained in his April 24 column that teaching kids not to hate LGBT people is a bad thing and somehow a form of "grooming":
Yes, the thinking of the children must be changed, and at the earliest ages possible. Or in the words of a gay drag queen who participated in Drag Queen Story Hour’s for children, the goal was to “groom” the little ones (not meaning here in a pedophilic, sexual way, although that may have been the goal for some, but in terms of changing their thinking about gays and sexuality).
In his April 26 column, Brown complained that "progressive" Christians don't hate LGBT people enough and that the Bible demands that they do:
When it comes to homosexual practice, progressive Christians argue that the biblical authors were not familiar with loving, same-sex relationships, otherwise they would have blessed them. Instead, it is claimed, they were familiar with abusive same-sex relationships, such as pederasty or prostitution or promiscuity.
But this argument breaks down on numerous levels.
First, are these progressive Christians claiming that loving, committed same-sex relationships did not exist throughout history? If so, what does that say about the fleshly and sinful nature of same-sex relationships? Was there no true, gay love in the ancient world? Is it only a recent phenomenon? That alone would be a bizarre and self-defeating argument.
Second, there is plenty of evidence that at least some of the biblical authors would have been familiar with committed gay couples. Some scholars have even argued that the situations Paul dealt with in Corinth would be very similar to the situations we deal with today.
Third, Paul taught that homosexual practice was fundamentally wrong, a violation of nature (meaning, the way that God created men and women). This was a matter of natural law, of biology, of divinely intended function, not a matter of societal practices or preferences.
Fourth, Jesus certainly understood human nature, and He only reinforced biblical teaching about sexuality and marriage. Or are you telling me that He was unable to gaze into the hearts of LGBTQ people and see their struggles? (A professing gay Christian once used that very argument: Jesus really didn't know what was in people's hearts. So, this "gay Christian" chose to downgrade who Jesus was rather than recognize the error of his ways.) Since Scripture tells us plainly that Jesus did, in fact, know what was in every human heart (see John 2:24-25), we must accept His judgment on the matter. God established marriage as the union of one man and one woman for life (see Matthew 19:4-6), and all sexual acts committed outside of that union are sinful and defiling (see Matthew 15:19-20).
Fifth, the idea that the biblical authors simply didn't understand same-sex attractions is to say that they were not inspired by God and that they did not have divine insight into human nature and the nature of sin. Again, this is a completely self-defeating argument, since, if you can succeed in proving that the biblical authors didn't get these things right, then you have just undercut the authority of the Scriptures.
Brown ranted about "cultural capitulation" in his May 10 column: "A current example would be the cultural mandate that requires us to give our preferred gender pronouns or to deny biological realities when talking with a trans-identified person. We rightly say no to that mandate for many reasons."
Brown spent his May 15 column praising how his teenage granddaughter hates LGBT people as much as he does (which, of course, he framed as "common-sense wisdom"):
"They no longer teach about the birds and the bees but about the birds and the birds and the bees and the bees and the bees that used to be birds and the birds that used to be bees."
Those were the spontaneous comments of our 16-year-old granddaughter as she explained to my wife and me what was being taught in her high school.
We were all together near Lynchburg, Virginia, celebrating the college graduation of our oldest grandchild, Ellie, from Liberty University when our youngest grandchild, Riley, learned that she had been penalized for failing to complete a class assignment.
Until then, her grade had been an A, but it now dropped down to a C. What happened?
It was a gender and sexual orientation assignment in a health class where Riley had to supply definitions for the standard LGBTQ+ terms, including words like genderqueer. But of course! I can actually point you to books for toddlers with similar vocabulary lessons. Certainly, all teens must be able to tell the difference between a cisgender person and a self-identified genderqueer individual, right?
In the past, with her parents' full approval and encouragement, Riley had opted out of other assignments, some of them with sexually explicit material. And her teacher had always accommodated these requests. But this time, while away with family and doing the assignment remotely, she simply failed to turn it in, hence the penalty in her grade.
We encouraged her to write to her teacher, explaining that the class violated her personal religious and moral beliefs, which she did immediately.
Thankfully, the teacher responded quickly, saying that she would never ask a student to complete an assignment that made them uneasy. Wonderful!
But this is hardly the norm in many of our school systems today, from children's schools through our universities. There is often a high price to pay for failing to conform.
Brown concluded by expressing his desire for other teens to follow his hate:
The bad news is that a whole generation of young people has been heavily indoctrinated, from the schools to social media, and from many authority figures to movies and TV, resulting in deep confusion and uncertainty. (I'll write more about this shortly; for the moment, see this recent report documenting how the number of high school students identifying as somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum has doubled since 2015, now at 25%.)
We had better pay careful attention to what our children are taking in, doing our best to provide positive, clear and compassionate environments for their own growth and development. And by all means, let us keep pushing back in the schools. Young lives are at stake.
Should we be similarly concerned that people like Brown are trying to indoctrinate young people into hating anyone who's not heterosexual? He's silent about that.
