One mission of CBMW is to help Christians think through secular and ecclesial trends on gender and sexuality. Through this work, we pore over a lot of different news reports and articles as we attempt to wade through the ceaseless flow of information on the web. In our weekly Gender and Sexuality News Roundups, we aim to distill some of the more pertinent information for you.
The articles below are from a wide variety of sectors and publications, organized generally into three categories. They are presented in aggregate, not necessarily endorsed.
If you see an article that you think should be featured in future CBMW News Roundups, you can send it to [email protected] with the subject “News Roundup.”
Openly Gay, Openly Christian Buttigieg Challenges the Religious Right, The New York Magazine (Ed Kilgore)
“But what makes Mayor Pete especially interesting is that he challenges the idea that Christianity is inherently homophobic in a direct and personal manner. To him, LGBTQ folk aren’t third parties who are the subject of some argument between Christians and progressives: He’s Christian, progressive, and gay.”
She Was Given a Deadline, but Married on Her Own Terms, The New York Times (Tammy La Gorce)
“Ms. Marti, 40, had been coaching the Sonics Dance Team at Cathedral High School for nearly 20 years when New Ulm Area Catholic Schools officials wrote to say her contract renewal was on hold because her living arrangement was under investigation. Cohabitating, the email said, ran counter to Roman Catholic teachings about marriage being a moral prerequisite to living together.”
One-on-One with Jonathan Merritt on Learning to Speak God from Scratch Part 1, Christianity Today (Ed Stetzer)
“In the past six years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my views on LGBTQ theology and relationships. I’ve read most of the literature, both academic and popular written by progressives and traditionalists, that has been written on this issue. I’ve dialogued with lots of LGBTQ people about this, both those who are celibate and those who are not. And I’ve done a boatload of prayer and have reflected the scriptures repeatedly. Looking back over the interview I conducted with you, there are some things I would have said differently if I were doing it now. As I say in Learning to Speak God from Scratch, I wish I had not referred to my sexual orientation as ‘broken.’ It’s not an appropriate use of that word, and I think using it in that way is harmful. I also implied that the Bible’s teachings on the matter are as plain as the nose on one’s face. I don’t believe that is true today. There is a lot of important scholarship being done by thinkers on both sides of the issue who love God and take the Bible seriously.”
Support for LGBT rights drops among young Republicans: survey, The Hill (Rachel Frazin)
“The Public Religion Research Institute survey found that among Republicans, support for laws protecting LGBT people from discrimination in jobs, public accommodations and housing fell from 61 percent in 2015 to 56 percent in 2018. The decline was sharper among Republicans between the ages of 18 and 29, with support falling from 74 percent to 63 percent.”
Indiana tax preparer shows limits and liberties of our post-Masterpiece Cakeshop world, Religion News Service (Jacob Lupfer)
“Four years after Indiana adopted its Religious Freedom Restoration Act, prompting boycotts, bad press and an eventual amendment to avoid approving anti-LGBT discrimination, the state briefly returned last month to the debate when a tax preparer in rural Russiaville, Nancy Fivecoate, declined on religious grounds to prepare a return for a same-sex married couple.”
Joe Biden needs to cut it out. So does the mob, The Washington Post (Karen Tumulty)
“What we all are learning, we should hope, is that we should respect women who have the courage to come forward about their experiences with unwanted physical contact. They deserve the benefit of the doubt both about their versions of events and about how they were made to feel. But it is also important — and a sign that a social movement is maturing into a social norm — to recognize that not every offense is of equal severity. Also worth factoring in is whether an alleged perpetrator was acting with malevolence or just cluelessness. Flores indicated that she believed Biden’s actions were demeaning and disrespectful, but not violent or sexual. Nor does it sound like a power move on Biden’s part.”
Hollywood comes out in opposition to Georgia’s ‘heartbeat’ bill, CNN (Lisa Respers France)
“Milano penned an open letter to Georgia House Speaker David Ralston and Gov. Brian Kemp against the so-called heartbeat abortion bill. Dozens of other celebrities including Amy Schumer, Sean Penn, Alec Baldwin, Don Cheadle, Rosie O’Donnell, Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman and Mia Farrow signed the letter in support. ‘This dangerous and deeply-flawed bill mimics many others which have already been deemed unconstitutional,’ said the letter, a copy of which Milano tweeted Thursday. ‘As men who identify as small-government conservatives, we remind you that government is never bigger than when it is inside a woman’s body or in her doctor’s office.'”
The Disproportionate Rate Of Measurable Harm For Males And Females In Homosexual Relationships, The Aquila Report (Robert A. J. Gagnon)
“Jesus taught us that the God-ordained union of “male and female” is our best clue that God intended sexual unions to be between two (and only two) persons. The requirement of two different sexes is the only foundation for rejecting more consistently the excessive structural sameness of incest. Eliminating this male-female foundation opens the door to other distorted sexual unions, at least for now of an adult-consensual nature.”
My Daughter Identified as Transgender. I Was Powerless to Stop Doctors From Harming Her, The Daily Signal (Elaine)
“The current standard of treatment promoted by medical and psychological associations is called ‘affirmative care.’ While this sounds nice, affirmative care leads directly to putting children on the path to medical transition with little chance of turning back.”
Nancy Guthrie on Changing Women’s Bible Study for Good, The Gospel Coalition (Nancy Guthrie)
“I look at the websites of various churches, oftentimes churches where I know the pastor preaches from the pulpit with a sense of redemptive history. And by that I mean, he preaches the Bible with Christ at the center from beginning to end. And yet sometimes I see in what’s being offered in women’s Bible study that the studies are sometimes just very topical, sometimes very emotion-driven, sometimes even psychology-driven, or self-help-driven”.
Can Hatred of Christians Lead to Support of Sexual Minorities?, Public Discourse (George Yancey)
“We generally believe that those who support LGBT rights dislike Christians because of their opposition to progressive sexual values. But a new study suggests that animosity toward Christians actually causes support for sexual minorities.”
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