Just this week, the Michigan Board of Education went forward with adopting a voluntary guidance for school districts in regards to providing “school environments where LGBT students can live, learn and thrive.” Some of you may remember me writing about this issue last spring, when the Board attempted to adopt the guidance without any advertisement to the fact. Once the proposed guidance was publicized (and one cannot help but to wonder how pleased the Board was with word getting out), the public outcry was intense. Out of the 13,000 public comments, we are told that the vast majority opposed the proposed guidance (though exact numbers were not released). Two public hearings took place, each producing plenty of vocal advocates and opponents to the guidance who spoke for hours. After several months, the Board has finally taken a vote on a revised version of the guidance, passing it by a party-line vote of 6-2.
While the Board did make some revisions, those revisions were very minor and not of very much substance. Some of the most egregious suggestions put forth in the guidance (such as requiring schools to allow transgendered and gender nonconforming students to use whatever restrooms and locker rooms they choose and allowing such students to play on whatever gendered sports team they choose) remained fully intact. Some of the restrictions that would have prohibited schools from notifying parents of a student’s gender choice at school have been removed, but it seems that there is no mechanism that would allow parents to be made aware of these behaviors. While a school might not be prohibited from alerting parents to what has always been seen as aberrant behavior, there is certainly no obligation to do so. Indeed, the “safe harbor” (to borrow a legal term) for the school would be to withhold that information.
It is difficult not to be amazed and shocked by the speed at which the moral revolution is progressing. Things that just a generation ago would have been viewed as insane are now not only being advocated, but are also being celebrated. Not content with mere tolerance for these lifestyle choices, those advancing this revolution require opponents to set aside any disapproval – regardless of the basis for that disapproval – and openly celebrate and condone the behavior in question. How should a believer respond?
Clearly, we cannot compromise what God has revealed to us in His Word. Just because humans believe they are now more “enlightened” does not make it so, nor does it make obsolete God’s moral law. Yet we also need not be belligerent and hostile toward those who are dead in their sins. Instead, we must see them as Christ sees them. These are individuals who are suffering in the bondage of sin, suppressing their knowledge of the truth so that they can continue pursuing their fleshly desires. In this respect, we need to be reminded, just as the Corinthians were reminded, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you” (I Cor. 6:9-11a). But notice what Paul goes on to say is the difference: “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (v. 11b). Rather than being surprised that the lost act like they’re lost, let us constantly offer them the Gospel of Jesus Christ, knowing that if it can save and change wretches like us, it can save and change anyone. Just something to think about…
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