Envision a hospital delivery room a few years from now. After hours of work, a baby cries for the first time as the people in the room celebrate a new life. After the baby’s vital signs are checked, the doctor works on the birth certificate. Instead of checking a box that says male or female, the doctor checks a box that says human. There’s no way to indicate whether the child is a boy or girl on the birth certificate and the doctor doesn’t even consider the question.
Some Kentuckians might favor a birth certificate like this. Tuesday Meadows, a transgender person that lives in Lexington, wrote in the March 2015 edition of LinQ magazine, “I feel like I am free to express my gender however it suits me.” Meadows isn’t alone in this sentiment and the debate over transgenderism is at the forefront in public policy, on university campuses, and all across town.
In those debates, however, are we asking the right questions? Are we asking the questions that will help preserve human flourishing not only for this generation, but for the ones to come?
In a debate on WEKU radio’s Eastern Standard in Richmond on July 27, 2017, Meadows was a guest of a panel discussion on the impact of President Trump’s policy change on the role of transgender people in the United States military. During the debate, Meadows raised the question, “What is a male and what is a female? How do we know? Is it our biological body?” The questions were addressed to a previous comment by Richard Nelson of the Commonwealth Policy Center. Meadows concluded his questions by asking, “Are you God?” The host of the program said they were almost out of time so the questions would have to stand as rhetorical.
The questions asked by Meadows are interesting ones. They are good questions that shouldn't be rhetorical. They need an answer.
In an op-ed published on CNN.com on July 30, 2017, Is the Justice Department Right about Gay Rights and the Law?, Pennsylvania attorney Danny Cevallos argued that the definition of sex, currently defined as biological gender by the U.S. Justice Department, should be set by Congress.
If that happens, does that make Congress God? Or at least God’s spokesperson?
It wouldn’t be the first time the U.S. Government has spoken for God. When the founding fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence, they said the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were given to all men from their Creator. They believed the government doesn’t give those rights, they recognize them.
Benjamin Franklin, not known to be a Christian, recognized a creator. In a letter written in 1790, Franklin said, “Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the creator of the universe. That he governs by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.”
If you mention God in the public square today, at best you’ll be immediately reminded of the separation of church and state, and you might even be silenced completely. It shouldn’t be this way. If we’re going to find answers to important questions, shouldn't we be free to invoke the Creator and His wisdom?