Legislating gender identity confusion - the latest craziness out of California.

California is in the vanguard of the cultural left. The latest example is legislation signed into law last week by Governor Jerry Brown allowing kids to decide which gender they are for purposes of participating in elementary and secondary sport's and extracurricular activities and use of facilities, including bathrooms. 

Transgendered students in California will now have the right to use whichever bathrooms they prefer and join either the boys’ or girls’ sports teams, thanks to landmark legislation signed by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday.

The law amends the state’s education code, and stipulates that each student will have access to facilities, sports teams, and programs that are “consistent with his or her gender identity,” rather than the student’s actual biological composition. A male student who self-identifies as female could therefore use the girls’ bathroom, even if he is anatomically male.

Though the debate over accommodating transgendered students’ needs has ramped up recently — with several high-profile cases attracting media scrutiny — California is the first state to address the issue with statewide legal action.

Here's language from the bill dealing with the use of restrooms and sports' teams.

This bill would require that a pupil be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.

Certainly there are students are struggling with sexual identity and they need help and support.  But this sort of bill will only more deeply embed confusion in their personal identity - by affirming the confusion rather than pointing out their male and femaleness as God created them to be.  Unless we line up with and affirm God's created order, we will only experience more problems not less.

The principle threat public threat to religious liberties in the U.S.? The activist homosexual movement

I've always thought the biggest threat to religious liberties in the United States will come from homosexual activists and associated sexual lifestyle groups. It will come initially through the use of anti-discrimination laws and eventually the tax code.

An excellent example is a transgender woman (a man who wants to be a woman) who is demanding a sex change operation at a Catholic hospital in California. Previous examples include the Catholic Church forced to shut down their adoption services in Massachusetts, because they refused to place children in practicing homosexual households.

These examples point out why these "sexual orientation" provisions in anti-discrimination laws are so insidious. I recall here in Minnesota when sexual orientation was jammed through the state legislature in 1993; there were the usual assurances that all homosexual men and women wanted was to be left alone. Since then and most obviously with the push for homosexual marriage, the rally cry is for societal and governmental endorsement not just tolerance of homosexuality.

The biggest threat and obstacle to ultimate goals of the homosexual activists will always be the church which embraces the moral vision that sexual behavior outside of marriage is always wrong and that of course includes homosexual behavior.

Well, the church has flourished and prevailed under far, far worse persecution and attacks than these and no doubt will again. But it's a sad commentary on the moral drift in our nation. A drift which is harmful for all concerned.