Racists and Transgender Apologists Both Reject Basic Biology

My wife’s mother was born and raised in Nigeria. Her parents were Baptist missionaries from America. Thus, in spite of the fact that my wife Michelle is almost as pale as I am, I sometimes (lightheartedly) tell people that I’m married to an “African-American.” This is (barely) humorous because of the modern left’s obsession with skin color and what is typically denoted as “race.”

It’s rare that Ken Ham (an evangelical Christian) and Bill Nye (a devoted Darwinist and secular humanist) agree, but when it comes to the issue of race, both rightly conclude: “There’s no such thing as race.” As Ham puts it,

As a result of Darwinian evolution, many people started thinking in terms of the different people groups around the world representing different “races,” but within the context of evolutionary philosophy. This has resulted in many people today, consciously or unconsciously, having ingrained prejudices against certain other groups of people.

However, all human beings in the world today are classified as Homo sapiens sapiens. Scientists today admit that, biologically, there really is only one race of humans. For instance, a scientist at the Advancement of Science Convention in Atlanta stated, “Race is a social construct derived mainly from perceptions conditioned by events of recorded history, and it has no basic biological reality.”

Bill Nye concludes,

We’re all the same, from a scientific standpoint. There’s no such thing as race — but there is such a thing as tribalism.

Many biologists avoid the term “race” and prefer a phrase such as “continental ancestry.” Thus, to prefer one “race” over another, or to declare one “race” superior to another, is biologically ignorant. Or, put another way, the “racists”—or “race-baiters”—of any era, of any color, on any continent, who battled against the cause of human rights of those of another skin color are guilty of contradicting the laws of basic human biology.

Likewise, those who fight to further the cause of the gender-confused (“transgenders”) are also guilty of contradicting the laws of basic human biology. Only in a world corrupted by liberalism must we debate who is a male, who is a female, and what restroom they get to use. The next time you encounter a liberal—especially one claiming the mantle of “champion of science”—who wants to lecture you about global warming—I mean climate change—or stem cells, or evolution, or the ignorance of Christians, conservatives, and the like, remind him that, when their side can settle on what is a male and a female, then you might only consider them ignorant and lost. Otherwise, tell them you have no time for madness.

And consider the ignorant irony: the modern liberals championing the cause of the gender-confused are on the same (wrong) side of science as those who fought against the civil rights of black Americans. As I began this piece, I encountered the following on the front page of the website of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution—the largest newspaper in my home state of Georgia:

When I clicked on the link, I was taken to a page headlined, “7 African American museums to visit with your kids for an unforforgettable (sic) history lesson.” The image above is taken from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. It’s from a display that depicts the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike.

Barely a week into the strike (it lasted over two months), at a rally with the strikers (black sanitation workers), The Rev. James Lawson declared, “For at the heart of racism is the idea that a man is not a man, that a person is not a person. You are human beings. You are men. You deserve dignity.” Rev. Lawson’s uplifting words became the message on the iconic placards seen above. In other words, there was a time when liberals knew what was a man. No more.

Chris Cuomo of CNN, and—being the son of Mario Cuomo, former New York Governor, and the brother of Andrew Cuomo, current New York Governor—of strong New York liberal stock, provides the perfect anecdote here. After President Trump this week reversed the Obama administration’s perverse decree that instructed public schools to allow the gender-confused to access the bathrooms and locker rooms they prefer, Cuomo (Chris) went on what David French called “one of the strangest tweet exchanges I’ve ever seen.” (The Blaze provides a good summary of the tweets.)

As Cuomo attempted to promote the transgender agenda via Twitter, he was voluminously challenged. His retorts are telling. Most revealing is Cuomo’s response when one tweet asked, “What do you tell a 12-year-old girl who doesn’t want to see a penis in the locker room?” To this, Cuomo answered:

Only a mind and heart corrupted by liberalism could “wonder” about a young girl in a locker room with boys, and her “intolerant” father who merely wants to guard the eyes (not to mention, the rest of her body) of his 12 year-old daughter. Amazing, but not surprising.

On “tolerance,” G.K. Chesterton declared: “Tolerance is a virtue of a man without convictions.” As the debate over bathrooms and gender reveals, what better describes a modern liberal than “a man without convictions?” Thus, we see again that liberalism corrupts not only sound science, but common sense and morality as well.

What’s more, the “tolerance” of which Cuomo speaks is little more than a self-refuting system of thought that attempts to impose liberal values onto any culture unable or unwilling to recognize the fallacy. The United Nations’ Declaration of Principles on Tolerance (which Cuomo has probably memorized) instructs, “Tolerance … involves the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism.”

How about that, a dogmatic and absolute statement decrying “dogmatism and absolutism.” How intolerant! Given that its foundation is filled with lies—and as Cuomo, and his fellow gender-denying apologists well demonstrate—liberalism is filled with such contradictions. The fact is, we’re all intolerant. It’s just a matter of who’s right.

Again, some things deserve no debate. The great C.S. Lewis alludes to this as he rather bluntly declares, “An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy.” More plainly put, one would have to be an idiot not to recognize that certain things—like a person’s gender—are settled for all time.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

On Marriage: Never Give In. Never, Never, Never…

The battle raging over religious liberty on several fronts across the U.S. has been quite revealing. Most telling are the lengths to which liberals continue to go to ensure that the homosexual agenda roars on undeterred. As Ross Douthat has alluded, the political and cultural melee we’ve endured the last several days is because the perversion on marriage wrought by liberals has prospered to the point that an ever growing number of Americans have found themselves in the crosshairs of today’s gaystapo.

Interestingly, and sadly, religious liberty laws like what passed in Indiana, the one that failed in my state of Georgia, the one sent back to the legislature by the governor of Arkansas, and that exist across the rest of the country, have served as little to no protection for business owners, who, because of their religious convictions, want nothing to do with SSM. This is especially the case in states where SSM is legally recognized.

As Tobin Grant noted on the Washington Post recently, “In the 20 years since RFRA became federal law, there has not been a single case in which a person successfully used RFRA to get around civil rights laws.” And if SSM is legal in a state (as the liberal courts ensured in Indiana), it is a “civil right.” In spite of this, liberals insist that such legislation is nothing more than a license to “discriminate.”

Of course, the timing of these attempts at mimicking the federal RFRA is what has liberals up in arms. In part, they are correct. These attempts at religious liberty legislation are, at least in part, a conservative political response to what is rightly seen as a rogue judiciary forcing marriage perversion upon states whose electorate OVERWHELMINGLY rejected such perversion. Thus, this battle over religious liberty has turned into yet another debate over SSM.

Of course, this has brought liberals back to using their worn-out cry of “discrimination.” Whether used as a tool in an attempt to paint the police as oppressors, to justify their ridiculous environmental agenda, to defend the “right” to kill children in the womb, to promote virtually any kind of sexual act that deviates from the standards God gave us, and as fast and freely as they can spend other people’s money, liberals resort to bawling “discrimination!”

And they do it because it works. Rampant accusations of “discrimination” got GOP governors and many legislators in the states mentioned above to kowtow to the modern militant homosexual agenda. “No one should be harassed or mistreated because of who they are, who they love or what they believe,” said Indiana’s Governor Mike Pence as he sought to “clarify” his state’s foray into RFRA. Liberals took gleeful notice.

After Arkansas’s legislature passed their version of RFRA, Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson declined to sign it and sent the bill back to the GOP-controlled legislature to be “rewritten.” Hutchinson said, “We want to be known as a state that does not discriminate, but understands tolerance.” Notice that? Liberals got a GOP governor, in the midst of a religious liberty fight, no less, to tickle their ears with two of their favorites. It’s as if Slick Willie himself trapped Hutchinson in the Clinton Library and wouldn’t let him out until he yelled “discrimination!” and “tolerance!”

What’s more, many so-called conservative pundits in the media are very quick to express their support for the various and new-found “rights” (including marriage) of homosexuals. Fox’s Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly have both been sympathetic to SSM and the “rights” of homosexuals for some time now. David Brooks captured well the current “progressive” thinking that has infected some conservatives in this matter when he recently wrote, “If denying gays and lesbians their full civil rights and dignity is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. Gays and lesbians should not only be permitted to marry and live as they want, but should be honored for doing so.” (Imagine that. We should “honor” a lifestyle notorious for disease, depression, and promiscuity.)

When overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the U.S. Supreme Court’s swing vote Anthony Kennedy, wrote that DOMA created a “stigma upon all who enter into” same-sex “marriages.” He added that the law’s effect was to “demean” those in same-sex “marriages.” Kennedy also wrote that the “avowed purpose and practical effect” of DOMA was to “impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma” on those in same-sex “marriages.” In other words, the federal government was “intolerant” and thus “discriminating” against those in same-sex “marriages.”

I wonder if Justice Kennedy and his fellow homosexual apologists will have the same sympathies towards the polygamous, incestuous, or those same-sex couples who want to “marry” for reasons that have nothing to do with sex. Will he be as concerned about their “separate status” or the “stigma” they must surely suffer as their relationships are currently deemed less than others? In other words, are not these alternative (or perverse) relationships also suffering “discrimination?”

Of course they are. Though liberals are loathe to admit such, every position in the marriage debate requires a measure of “discrimination.” As an experiment, try to get a supporter of SSM to declare how the U.S. should legally define marriage. (My favorite line of questioning is, “How would you ‘discriminate’ and define marriage?”) In spite of all their blustering in this matter, it is next to impossible to get an answer.

Perhaps republican politicians should resort to such an approach. Sadly, they are far too eager to capitulate. It takes a strong will, a firm conscience, and a sure sense of what is right to stand against the homosexual agenda. Unfortunately, few politicians today can muster such character. This is especially the case if they fear it means a hit to their bottom line.

With the avalanche of court decisions in favor of SSM, sensing a swing in public opinion, and looking only to their bottom line, significant numbers of corporations are lining up against the truth in the marriage debate. A few weeks ago, more than 300 corporations issued a friend-of-the-court brief in the upcoming Supreme Court case that will decide if same-sex “marriage” will be forced on all of the U.S.

Many of these same corporations are now also pressuring states currently considering RFRA laws. Of course, many of these offended industries have been doing business for years with states that already had RFRA laws on their books, and many of them seem to have no problem doing business with communists or Islamists.

The sports industry has also fully embraced the “discrimination” meme, or is being heavily pressured to do so, when it comes to marriage and the homosexual agenda. A letter sent by Chad Griffin, president of the homosexual propagandists known as the Human Rights Campaign, to Roger Goodell, commissioner of the National Football League, said of Georgia’s religious liberty bill:

…Atlanta is a top contender for the Super Bowl in 2019, but this law directly contradicts the NFL’s nondiscrimination policy and values of acceptance and inclusivity. Should this bill become law, Georgia will not be a welcoming place for LGBT people or many other minorities.

“NASCAR is disappointed by the recent legislation passed in Indiana,” said chief communications officer Brett Jewkes. NCAA president Mark Emmert was “especially concerned” about the Indiana legislation. Duke’s Coach K didn’t seem to be as concerned, and the living legend was called out for his silence on CNN. Former NFL punter and CNN contributor Kris Kluwe, who’s a rabid proponent of SSM, said “[I]f you are a superstar athlete or a superstar head coach, it is your obligation to be aware of these issues because you will be asked about them and you do have a platform to talk about these things and you should be knowledgeable about it because that is the world you live in. That is your society.”

Kluwe’s correct, though I’m sure when he means “talk about these things” he means “speak favorably about all things homosexual.” Like so many small business owners recently, any celebrity, even homosexual celebrities, caught deviating from liberal orthodoxy on homosexuality, are threatened, castigated, disparaged, mocked, boycotted, and so on. And when a pizza parlor in Indiana, and a florist in Georgia decided to “talk about these things” (mainly because they were asked about them)…well, you know the results.

Al Mohler was also right when last year he concluded, “We are in the midst of a massive revolution in morality.” And of course, “sexual morality is at the center of this revolution.” We are indeed at the “crossroads” Mohler referenced, and unavoidable showdowns are looming. More and more Americans, whether they like it or not, are being forced to make difficult moral decisions. In spite of the willingness of many mainline republicans to do so (because so many would love for all of this to just go away), the left is not silent on the social (moral) issues.

In other words, many Americans, who would prefer to remain on the sidelines as we continue to debate the moral issues in America, are being forced to declare with whom they stand. This fight is not for the weak, but like the battle for life in the womb, it is certainly worth having. And like with abortion, if the courts ignore the truth on marriage, our efforts must continue. We certainly can’t expect those who’ve aligned themselves with the enemy of truth to behave honorably.

Nevertheless, as Pastor Rick Warren instructs us, we cannot be afraid to be unpopular (which is very hard for most politicians and celebrities), and we must remember that the only way to be relevant is to make sure that our words and actions align with eternal truths. Don’t worry if you’re on “the right side of history;” you just need to be on the “right side.”

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Liberals Wage War on the Truth

(A version of this appeared earlier here as "The Devil and the Democratic Party." This version also appears on American Thinker.)

When it comes to political “wars,” in spite of the meme perpetuated by most liberals, no one is more hawkish than modern liberals and the political party that they own, the Democrat Party. By and large since the 1960s, their efforts are summed up by one succinct and extremely accurate appellation: a war on the truth.

In the history of our nation, only the pro-slavery Democrats of the 19th century rival the political deception employed by today’s liberals that lead the modern Democrat Party. Support of everything from abortion, to gender perversions, homosexuality, pornography, a redefinition of marriage, wicked climate policies, and an enslaving welfare state have made today’s Democrat Party little more than a modern-day Mephistopheles. Instead of magic to lure their Faustian targets, today’s Democrats employ, among other things, bribery, class warfare, fear, greed, lust, propaganda, scientism, vengeance, and violence.

This is really unsurprising. When your politics regularly conflict with absolute truth, constant deception is required. The evidence is, of course, all around us. This is especially the case given that we are in the midst of another election season. Take note of the political ads run by Democrats. How long before we get to meet the next Julia or Pajama Boy? How many times will we get to hear about, if elected, what Democrats will do in order to give out more goodies from the government? Where will the next fraudulent statistics in the “War on Women” originate?

How much “linguistic limbo” will Democrats perform in order blandly to describe their embracing of the “right” to kill children in the womb? (Or they simply video their abortions and tell us that everything is “super great!”) What deceit will liberals use to explain or embrace the fiscal and medical disaster that is Obamacare? How many times will we get to hear the phrase “marriage equality” (knowing full well that the liberal position on marriage also “discriminates”)?

How far away will Democrats attempt to run from what they really are in order to keep themselves in power? Liberals all over the country are running from Obama and their own party in an attempt to win elections. As most who are following this election season know well, Democrats are going so far as to avoid the label “Democrat” or even admit that they voted for Obama.

In Kansas, Greg Orman is a Democrat running as an Independent. He has shamelessly refused to say with which party he would caucus if elected. “Truth makes the Devil blush,” wrote English historian Thomas Fuller. As liberalism has created a culture that is nearly bereft of shame, today’s Democrats rarely blush, even as they mock their wheelchair-bound opponents. This usually happens only when someone becomes a political liability (as did the Democrat candidate that Orman replaced) and not because some proper moral standard has been violated.

If Orman does win, as the Wall Street Journal notes, he will most certainly owe his election to Washington Democrats. Kentucky Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes squirmed like Jim Carrey in “Liar Liar” as she attempted to avoid revealing to the Louisville Courier-Journal editorial board whether she voted for Obama in the last presidential election. Mary Landrieu and Michelle Nunn have played similar games as they try to win U.S. Senate seats in conservative states.

Given how far our culture has fallen morally, getting elected in the United States these days is much more challenging when you are accountable to absolute truths. As I noted earlier this year, because their moral bar is so low and easily adjusted to whatever is politically popular, liberals today generally have an easier time “playing politics” than conservatives—especially Christian conservatives.

When asked recently how to break the stalemate in the culture war that divides American conservatives and liberals, Catholic scholar George Weigel replied, “When you have a gnostic philosophy that ignores the very fabric of reality—and it is wed to a coercive state—it’s hard to know where to go.”

Ignoring “the very fabric of reality” is a frequent practice of modern liberals. Liberalism is so far removed from truth and reality that many liberals today can’t even acknowledge explicit evil when confronted with it. Ben Affleck has plenty of company among his fellow leftists when it comes to denying the rotten fruit of Islam. As the recent exchange with fellow liberal Bill Maher illustrated, many American liberals, in the name of the supreme virtue of liberalism—tolerance—will eagerly and angrily deny lesser virtues of their “faith.”

“Tolerance is a virtue of a man without convictions,” wrote G.K. Chesterton. A “man without convictions” who frequently “ignores the very fabric of reality” and who is enthusiastically “wed to a coercive state” is an apt description of modern liberals, but not perfect. In spite of what they themselves might think—lost in their fallacy that is today’s tolerance—liberals are not completely tolerant, and thus not devoid of convictions.

The convictions of modern liberalism are numerous and growing: Abortion, homosexuality, hook-ups, same-sex marriage, gender confusion, man-made global warming, universal healthcare, income redistribution, and whatever is the next perversion or deceit that will strike at the heart of biblical truths.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident” helped launch the American Revolution. If America is to remain, we need a spiritual revolution bringing us back to those truths that were once so “self-evident.”

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Close Your Mind

Some things deserve no debate. The great C.S. Lewis alludes to this as he rather bluntly declares, “An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy.” More plainly put, one would have to be an idiot not to recognize that certain things are settled for all time.

Such a conclusion is in direct contradiction to what has become the supreme virtue with far too many in our culture: “tolerance.” As the United Nations’ Declaration of Principles on Tolerance instructs, “Tolerance … involves the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism.” Of course, such a declaration reveals how the definition of tolerance has changed. Today “tolerance” no longer simply means “to recognize and respect others’ beliefs and practices without sharing them.” Today’s “tolerance” is little more than a self-refuting system of thought that attempts to impose liberal values onto any culture unable or unwilling to recognize the fallacy.

The United Nations description of “tolerance” above illustrates well such fallacy, as “Tolerance … involves the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism” is itself a dogmatic and absolute statement. Today’s liberalism is full of such nonsense.

On “tolerance,” G.K. Chesterton, who greatly influenced the life and writings of C.S. Lewis, noted that “Tolerance is a virtue of a man without convictions.” What better describes a modern liberal than a “man without convictions?” When a person lacks convictions it becomes very easy to align himself with whatever worldview provides the most benefits in this world—or at least allows you to have the most “fun.”

A case in point is the debauchery on display at Dartmouth College. According to Linda Chavez, a few weeks ago, student protestors gathered at the office of the Dartmouth president “and demanded more ‘womyn or people of color’ faculty, coverage of sex-change operations on the student health plan, and ‘gender-neutral bathrooms,’ among other things.”

Sounding like Dean Vernon Wormer, Dartmouth’s president, Philip Hanlon, harshly addressed the student body culture that, in the 1970’s was the inspiration for the film Animal House. Hanlon declared, “Dartmouth’s promise is being hijacked by extreme behavior, masked by its perpetrators as acceptable fun.” He addressed sexual assaults, dangerous drinking, partying, hazing, and “a general disregard for human dignity.”

Hanlon also noted “a grave disconnect between our culture in the classroom and the behaviors outside of it — behaviors which too often seek not to elevate the human spirit, but debase it.” Hanlon, evidently, has not been visiting Dartmouth’s classrooms very often, because the debasing behaviors occurring outside the classrooms directly reflect the culture of “tolerance” that exists inside them.

In other words, Dartmouth is only reaping what it has sown. Hanlon and his cohorts should not be surprised that young people who have been taught that it is okay to kill their unborn children, that they can have sex with whomever they wish without any consequences, and that they can “marry” whomever they desire, will also eagerly embrace “sexual assaults, dangerous drinking, partying, hazing” and the like.

Dartmouth, he added, cannot “be held back by the few who wrongly hide harmful behaviors behind the illusion of youthful exuberance. Routinized excessive drinking, sexual misconduct and blatant disregard of social norms have no place at Dartmouth. Enough is enough.”

To what “social norms” is Hanlon referring? It sounds like he is appealing to some “absolute” moral standard. How “intolerant” of him! For decades now, our colleges and universities have led the way in preaching “tolerance,” in place of moral absolutes, as the supreme virtue in our culture. Impressionable young minds have taken this message to heart and today the U.S. contains tens-of-millions of Americans who have abandoned any notion of sound (biblical) morality. They have eagerly adopted the pagan philosophy of “Do as Thou Wilt.”

More tragically, the scourge of “tolerance” has also invaded our churches. My own church’s association, Vineyard USA, like many other American churches, has recently experienced dissension on the issue of homosexuality and marriage. Ken Wilson, senior pastor of Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, has recently made headlines over his decision to “come out” in support of homosexuality.  

According to USA Today, “Experts say it might be the first time the pastor of a large evangelical Christian congregation in Michigan, and maybe the U.S., has come out so openly in favor of gay people and same-sex marriage.”

Wilson said his decision was “about welcoming previously excluded groups.” On the issues of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, Wilson has also said “we should all ‘agree to disagree’ [which is certainly not the attitude of those leading the homosexual agenda]: Maintain our different convictions, but not judge each other over them, not insist on excluding each other over such matters, and continue to work together in the name of Jesus to do things like alleviate suffering for orphans in abject poverty.”

“Agree to disagree” is simply another way of framing today’s “tolerance.” Of course, Wilson’s position would ignore the suffering that results from homosexual behavior. As is typical with so many who preach “tolerance,” his argument is rooted in multiple straw men (evangelicals generally are “judgmental” and “excluding” when it comes to homosexuals) that make his position seem more “loving.”

What we are really dealing with here is competing views of truth. Those peddling “tolerance” generally reject the notion of absolute truth. As noted apologist William Lane Craig puts it when writing about the Christian perspective on homosexuality, “Today so many people think of right and wrong, not as matters of fact, but as matters of taste.” And if taste determines truth, then we’re all at the mercy of whoever’s in charge, because, ultimately we’re all intolerant. It’s simply a matter of who’s right.

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com