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President Joe Biden slammed the Florida Health Department’s efforts that prioritize counseling over medical transitions for children, calling these efforts “close to sinful” and “cruel.”
The president emphasized the humanity of children who struggle with an identity at odds with their biological sex, saying, “They love, they have feelings, they have inclinations”—as if to suggest that the Florida Health Department considers these kids as subhuman.
Who thought America would ever have a self-described so-called "devout Catholic" president who is seeking to turn Christian values and virtues on their head?
Be informed, not misled.
Tyler O'Neil, writing for the Daily Signal last week (an arm of the Heritage Foundation) said:
Gender ideology preys upon the young, convincing girls and boys that they were “born in the wrong body” and rushing them onto experimental drugs, hormones, and surgeries that will leave them stunted, scarred, and infertile. Yet the ostensible Catholic who currently occupies the Oval Office not only supports this horror but had the gall to condemn those who would protect children from it as “sinful” and “cruel.”
He's right. And he's not the only Catholic that was shocked by President Biden's public comments.
It is sinful. And it's cruel.
What is sin?
The president's comments were directed specifically at Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis, a Republican, fired back last week at the president.
The governor was responding to Biden’s remarks on the Florida medical board banning transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers for children.
“What’s going on in Florida is, as my mother would say, close to sinful. I mean, it’s just terrible what they’re doing,” Biden said.
He added: “It’s not like a kid [just] wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I want to become a man’ or ‘I want to become a woman.’ What are they thinking about here? They’re human beings, they love, they have feelings, they have inclinations.”
It is not "sinful" to prohibit the mutilation of minors.
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 14, 2023
It is not acceptable for the federal government to mandate that procedures like sex change operations be allowed for kids. https://t.co/YhPrrU5Poi
The governor said, “It is not ‘sinful’ to prohibit the mutilation of minors. It is not acceptable for the federal government to mandate that procedures like sex change operations be allowed for kids.”
Speaking to former Obama aide Kal Penn on The Daily Show, Biden suggested that the state’s efforts to protect children are “cruel.”
DeSantis also responded to the president’s remarks in a video that shows gruesome photos of the effects of transgender surgeries, including mastectomies and skin grafts, side by side with Biden’s remarks.
“Biden thinks it’s ‘cruel’ that Florida is NOT allowing experimental sex change operations for kids,” DeSantis' staff tweeted.
The governor’s press secretary called it “incredulous” that “the President of the United States attempts to make a moral argument FOR surgically altering children in the name of radical gender ideology.”
This mutilation is not isolated. It's an epidemic.
Do Catholics share Biden's beliefs?
I'm not a Catholic, but this left me wondering how many Catholics share the president's beliefs?
One, in particular, does not share Biden's beliefs. The Pope.
In Pope Francis’ statement Friday—three days before Biden’s remarks aired Sunday—he said, “The ideology of gender” is “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations,” denying “the richness … of men and women, and of all humanity” in “the tension of the differences.”
The Arch Diocese of Arlington has published a lengthy paper on the Catholic Church's position on "Human Person and Gender Ideology."
It begins with this introduction:
In the past decade our culture has seen a growing acceptance of transgender ideology-that is, the claim that a person's biological sex and personal identity have no necessary connection and could in fact contradict each other. According to this view, “human identity” is self-defined and “becomes the choice of the individual.” Consequently, our culture is experiencing a rapid rise in the number of persons claiming an identity contrary to their biological sex. Attempts to accommodate such claims already have resulted in tremendous upheavals in our social, legal, and medical systems.
This situation presents a serious challenge for all members of the Church because it presents a view of the human person contrary to the truth. It is of particular concern for our young people, as Pope Francis has warned:
Today children-children!-are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex. Why are they teaching this?
Let us not play with truths. It's true that behind all this we find gender ideology. In books, kids learn that it's possible to change one's sex. Could gender, to be a woman or to be a man, be an option and not a fact of nature? This leads to this error. Let us call things by their names.
Every Catholic should check out this statement of Catholic beliefs on the subject.
Playing with the truth.
Instead of embracing the Truth about the matter, Biden has adopted religious language to advance a secular progressive cause directly opposite from the official teaching of the Bible and his own church.
He is denying Scripture and Christian, biblical, tradition for the past 2,000 years.
The president has adopted the moral authority to declare sinful what his own Catholicism and Scripture don’t consider sinful and to advocate a teaching that contradicts the Truth, is sinful and thus turning Christian belief on its head.
Genesis 1:27 says: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."Most first graders understand that "Truth": Boy-Girl.
The problem is identified in Romans chapter one:
"Because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were they thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."
O'Neil says, "Both the Old Testament and the New Testament urge believers to serve the orphan and the widow, and Jesus warns his disciples about children, saying that “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:5-6).
He continues, "The Bible doesn’t directly weigh in on many political issues, but it strains credulity to imagine that Jesus approves of telling children the lie that they are really members of the opposite sex and urging them to take experimental drugs with long-term consequences to which they arguably cannot consent, setting them on a path to removing perfectly healthy sex organs."
"It’s hard to imagine anything more cruel than that."
Agreed.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.