'LGBT" Issues

LGBT Issues

Introduction:

As the Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Biden has recently tweeted, “Transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time”*, this topic needs to be addressed in order for this site to be thorough in fulfilling its function of informing you as to the positions of the candidates and parties on all issues.

People who classify themselves to be "transgender" constitute approximately 0.6% of the population of the U.S.A., according to surveys, and those classifying themselves as "LGBT" were found to constitute 4.5% of the population (by a 2017 Gallup poll).

Issues related to sexuality and gender - “ such as how “sex” is defined in federal statutes, whether individuals with gender dysphoria can serve in the military, and whether “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” become protected categories in federal civil rights law - “ will be significantly influenced by the results of the 2020 election.

*See below for the source of this statement

Use the buttons in the Table of Contents below to select your topics of interest, or scroll down this page to study all topics.

Christian Faith Teaching “Transgenderism” - Medical Facts Trump/Pence Administration’s record Joe Biden’s record Compare the Parties’ Platforms Discrimination against whom? Compare Administrations Transgender Rights versus Women’s Rights Trump/Pence Administration LGBT Rights versus Religious Rights

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Christian Faith Teaching

Sexuality:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (“CCC”) addresses sexuality in Part III, Section 2, The Ten Commandments:

Article 6, The Sixth Commandment, states:

"Male and Female He Created Them . . ."

2331 "God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image . . .. God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion."

"God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them"; He blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply";

"When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created."

2332 Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.

2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. the harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.

2334 "In creating men 'male and female,' God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity." "Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God.

The Love of Husband and Wife:

2360 Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament.

2361 "Sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is not something simply biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and woman commit themselves totally to one another until death."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is available (free of charge) on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB): USCCB Catechism

Homosexuality:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states the following (Part III, Section Two, Article 6):

2357: Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture*, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358: The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359: Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

The Church’s classification of homosexual acts as disordered is consistent with the medical profession’s longstanding classification of homosexuality until 1973, when the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed the diagnosis of “homosexuality” from the second edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).

* 1st Corinthians 6:9: "Neither the immoral, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves... shall enter the kingdom of God." - "Instead of "homosexuals", the original Greek text states "effeminate nor sodomites". The apostle (Saint Paul) condemns, not the inherent tendencies of such, but the indulgence of them." - from Appendix I of The Holy Bible - Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition - Ignatius Press

"Gender Ideology” is defined and discussed in Bishop Athanasius Schneider's highly recommended new book, "Christus Vincit, Christus Vincit, Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age", a dialogue with journalist Diane Montagna - published in the U.S.A. by Angelico Press, 2019. The following paragraphs are excerpts from this book:

Now we have reached a peak of secularism, of this complete independence of man, of this enormous anthropocentrism where everyone decides for himself what is true and what is good or evil. Such secularism brings us a horrible and cruel society. We are witnessing this – it is cruel. What is the result? Egoism. Egoism is cruel: "only I and no one else".

It is Hell. “Only I”. Ultimately, this means, “When someone else is impeding or hindering what I want to do, I will kill him, I will destroy him.” And so, they begin to kill the innocents in their mother’s womb, because these babies are hindering them from achieving what they believe is their self-realization through pleasures, a false freedom, and worldly success. Then they eliminate sick people; then the handicapped, for instance those with Downs syndrome, and so on. This is the path of the new dictatorship, patterned after the Nazi dictatorship in Germany and the Communist dictatorship in the Soviet Union. This is a process which ultimately leads to … a cruel and inhuman society.

…this has led to gender ideology, in which man decides what nature is, instead of God the Word, “through whom all things were made”. (John 1:3)

… this is ultimately Satanic thinking, where man puts himself in the place of the Creator… eliminating God the Creator and eliminating God the Savior, Jesus Christ. In this vacuum, man puts himself in the place of and declares himself to be God, the Creator, though not formally…. This is demonstrated in so-called gender ideology. But this leads to insanity. So, society has arrived at a mad, insane way of thinking that is tainted with blasphemy, because gender ideology and homosexuality are an enormous blasphemy and a rebellion against the wisdom of God the Creator.

This is a detachment from reality because they say that we decide what reality is, what creation is, what man is, and so on. They seize on what is in some way the most mysterious part of creation, human sexuality. It is a very serious and holy area, given by God for participating in the transmission of new life – God gives life, but the parents transmit life as co-participants. Secularists want to appropriate this domain to themselves. They say, “We, and no longer God, say who is male and female.” This is blasphemy, rebellion and insanity at the same time.

In so many nations (including the U.S.A.), by law there can be a valid and legal marriage between persons of the same sex, which is clearly madness and contradicts all reality, all evidence. We have arrived at this point, and it is a movement that grew out of anthropocentrism and the elimination of God from society. Therefore, we have arrived at a new pagan society, in some ways even worse than pagan societies of the past. At least pagans in Roman and Greek society still accepted reality.

In the Church, we have to be witnesses against this new pagan society, against this new atheism. We have to bring light and a clear witness.

We have to restore the family – which is, according to natural law, a husband and wife and their children.

"Transgenderism"

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states the following, in Part I, Section III, MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM:

Equality and difference willed by God:

369 Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. "Being man" or "being woman" is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator. Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity "in the image of God". In their "being-man" and "being-woman", they reflect the Creator's wisdom and goodness.

372 Man and woman were made "for each other" - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones. . .") and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming "one flesh", they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. "By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator's work.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is available (free of charge) on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB): ccc.usccb.org

“Transgenderism” - Medical Facts

"No one can change his or her sex. The DNA in every cell in the body is marked clearly male or female. Hormones circulating in an unborn child's brain and body shape his or her development. Psychiatrists and surgeons who have served transsexual clients know surgery does not change sex. George Burou, a Moroccan physician, admitted: "I don't change men into women. I transform male genitals into genitals that have a female aspect. All the rest is in the patient's mind."

Dr. Paul McHugh, chief of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University from 1975 to 2001, stated that “gender reassignment” is biologically impossible” and "It is a disorder of the mind. Not a disorder of the body." “I’m not against transgender people,” he said recently, stressing that he is “anxious they get the help they need.” But such help should be psychiatric rather than surgical, he maintains.

The above content is sourced from the website of the Family Research Council, where the well-researched article, “Understanding and Responding to the Transgender Movement: can be found at www.frc.org/transgender and from an April 5, 2017 Washington Post article found on the Washington Post website here: Washingtonpost.com Psychiatrist-on-transgender-issues-finally-recedes-at-johns-hopkins

The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly (July, 2016) stated, “The claim that it is possible to change one’s sex, or that sexual identity is fluid, contradicts scientific evidence, reason, the nature of the human person, and key tenets of the Catholic faith.”

While 0.6% of humans consider themselves “transgendered”, 3% of children and adolescents identify as such, with a high percentage “outgrowing” this identification, realizing, as they mature, that they are what their bodies tell them they are. Tragically, many parents push their children into so-called “reassignment surgery” procedures, pumping their bodies full of dangerous drugs, including puberty blockers and tissue-growing hormones (with a high probability of proving to be carcinogenic) and sentencing them to a lifetime of costly pharmaceutical dependence. Sadly, among those who have had “reassignment surgery”, the suicide rate is twenty times higher than average.

Trump/Pence Administration’s record

The following content is taken from the article, Gender and Sexuality in the 2020 Election, appearing on the website of the Family Research Council. Here is a link to this article on this site: Gender and Sexuality in Election 2020

The Trump/Pence administration has repeatedly prioritized life, family, and religious liberty issues, repealing Obama/Biden directives dealing with sexual orientation and gender identity and taking proactive steps to defend those who hold to a biblical sexual ethic. In addition, the administration has implemented an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, which does not read social policy preferences into the law but allows for an interpretation of the plain text to arrive at legal conclusions. Many of the administration’s policy changes flow from this interpretation, contrasting starkly with the policies of the prior Obama/Biden administration. Here are three examples:

• In 2016, the Obama/Biden administration had abolished the longstanding prohibition on transgender military service, establishing a policy that allowed people who identified as the opposite of their biological sex to join the armed forces; undergo so-called sexual re-orientation surgery and hormone treatment (at the expense of the government, i.e., taxpayers); and serve in accordance with their “transgender” sex. Due in part to concerns that this policy, which was effectively using the military for social experiments, would negatively impact military readiness, lethality, and unit cohesion, the Trump/Pence administration revoked and replaced this policy on March 23, 2018. This Trump/Pence policy allows existing transgender-identifying personnel to remain in the military but prevents new applicants who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria or have undergone gender transition surgery from joining the military. Those who identify as transgender, but do not undergo “gender transition” surgery, can join so long as they serve in accordance with their biological sex.

• In 2018, the Trump/Pence administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court defending the First Amendment rights of baker Jack Phillips who declined to create a custom cake for a same-sex wedding ceremony. The DOJ argued that the government should not coerce Phillips into creating messages that violated his sincerely held religious beliefs. Phillips won a 7-2 decision delivered on June 4, 2018.

• In 2016, the Obama/Biden administration established a regulation stating that “sex” includes “gender identity” and is not solely determined by biology. In contrast, in the interpretation of statutes, the Trump/Pence administration has consistently argued that “sex” refers to biological sex, not “gender identity.” For example, on May 24, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a new regulation that clarifies that discrimination on the basis of sex in section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act was to be interpreted under the plain meaning of the word, i.e., biological sex.

Joe Biden’s record

Joe Biden: "Transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time"

On January 25, 2020, Joe Biden tweeted:
“Let’s be clear: Transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time. There is no room for compromise when it comes to basic human rights.”

On January 29, 2020, Elizabeth Johnson* responded with the following questions regarding other "basic human rights":

If there’s “no room for compromise,” what does that mean for the biological women who are being erased and victimized by biological men who throw on a dress and demand entrance and acceptance into women-only spaces like shelters, bathrooms, and competitive sports?
What about the right to privacy for the little girl who risks a bladder infection because she doesn’t want to use the bathroom or locker room at school alongside a gender-confused little boy?
What about the hardworking female athletes who lose matches, titles, and scholarships to biological men who have simply been on estrogen for a year after living their entire lives with inherently stronger male physiology? Or, on that note, the women who have their skulls broken by their opponents without even being warned that they’ll be fighting a biological male?
What about the rights of women who were raped in prison after a man decided he was a woman, received “gender therapy” on the taxpayer dime, and demanded to be housed in a women’s facility?
What about the right to informed consent for the fathers whose sons are being “transitioned” against their will in spite of inconsistently identifying as “transgender” amid psychological abuse and neglect by their mothers?
What about the innocent children in communities where convicted child molesters are being released because, now that they identify as women and supposedly no longer have a “male sex drive,” they are deemed no longer a threat?
This is what the world looks like when transgender “rights” are made the top priority among our leaders. Transgender “equality” isn’t the civil rights issue of our time, it’s among the greatest threats of our time.
* Source: ActivistMommy.com - Elizabeth Johnson - January 28, 2020
Link to article: Joe Biden Declares

Joe Biden supports same-sex marriage

In 2012, as Obama and Biden ran for a second term, Biden went public with his surprise reversal: “I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties,” he said on Meet the Press.
The Biden Foundation, which suspended operations when the former vice president launched his White House bid this year, promoted acceptance and inclusion initiatives targeting families of LGBTQ youth. A collaboration with other organizations involved a storytelling campaign focused specifically on transgender and gender-nonconforming youth.
Note: The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 is a landmark United States federal statute enacted in December 2010 that established a process for ending the Don't ask, don't tell policy, thus allowing gay, lesbian, and bisexual people to serve openly in the United States Armed Forces.

Source: BuzzFeedNews.com - Henry J. Gomez - 10/2/19
Link to article: Biden supports gay marriage

Throughout his career, Joe Biden has been progressive on LGBT-rights and same-sex marriage. For example, in February 2010, Biden advocated for the repeal of the 1993 law barring military service by those who engage in homosexual conduct (often referred to colloquially as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”). Arguing that it was “the right thing to do,” Biden supported President Obama’s push for the repeal, which was enacted by Congress in late 2010 and took effect in 2011. On May 6, 2012, Biden surprised even President Obama by announcing his support for same-sex marriage; Obama followed suit three days later. And in August 2016, Biden officiated his first wedding — a same-sex wedding — at the vice president’s residence. It is clear that Biden has been a staunch ally of the LGBT lobby during the last decade.

Today, Joe Biden is running for president on a platform committed to advancing LGBT rights. The centerpiece of his publicly released plan is the passage of the Equality Act. In fact, according to his campaign, enacting the Equality Act is the “top legislative priority” for Biden’s first 100 days. Notably, the Equality Act would codify sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in U.S. civil rights law, thereby granting them the same status as race and national origin. The act also undermines religious protections currently in place by stripping individuals of a Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA) claim or defense.

If Republicans maintain control of the U.S. Senate, the Equality Act has little chance of passing Congress. However, Biden’s LGBTQ+ plan promises several executive actions that would circumvent the legislative process and go into effect immediately. For example, Biden has promised to reinstate Obama-era guidance to “restore transgender students’ access to sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity” on his first day in office. Biden has also committed to reverting to the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title VII, and “reaffirm that the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” Additionally, Biden will instruct the State Department to allow people who identify as transgender or non-binary to use “preferred pronouns” on government identifications, passports, and other documentation.

Biden’s push for LGBT rights extends to his approach to foreign policy. He has promised to install a “point person” for LGBT rights on the National Security Council and appoint a Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTQ+ Persons at the Department of State. He is also promising to appoint a Special Coordinator in charge of international LGBTQ+ programming at USAID.

Legislatively, Biden supports the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act, which would prohibit sexual orientation change efforts, or so-called “conversion therapy.” This legislation is problematic because it infringes upon the freedom of people with unwanted same-sex attractions to voluntarily obtain counseling to help them achieve their own goals. It also undermines the privacy of the therapeutic relationship, the autonomy of the client, and the religious liberty of those seeking help to live their lives in accordance with the teachings of their faith. He also has signaled support for the Globe Act, which, among other things, would establish that persecution based on sexual orientation or gender identity may form the basis of an asylum request. He has also promised that LGBTQ Americans will have “full access to health care treatments and resources,” including “care related to transitioning—including gender confirmation surgery.”

Finally, Biden has actively campaigned on expanding rights for people who identify as transgender. On the campaign trail, he has argued that “transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time” and proposed several related policy changes. These include overturning the Trump administration’s policy regarding service members who identify as transgender (and allowing them to receive government-funded gender transition surgery), repealing the proposed HHS rule that permits faith-based adoption agencies to receive government funding while still operating according to their convictions on marriage and sexuality, and requiring the Bureau of Prisons to take into account an inmate’s gender identity when considering housing assignments. Biden has frequently touted this last proposal on the campaign trail. On September 20, 2019, Biden told the crowd at an Iowa LGBTQ forum, “In prison, the determination should be that your sexual identity is defined by what you say it is, not what in fact the prison says it is.” Biden’s press secretary Jamal Brown reiterated this position, saying, “Transgender women are women, and their placement in men’s prisons is inhumane.”

The foregoing paragraphs are excerpts from the article, Gender and Sexuality in the 2020 Election appearing on the website of the Family Research Council. Here is a link to this article on this site: Gender and Sexuality in Election 2020

Compare the Parties’ Platforms

In 2016, the Democratic Party Platform fully embraced LGBT rights. The platform affirmed the 2015 Obergefell decision, pledged to combat LGBT discrimination, and promised to “support a progressive vision of religious freedom that respects pluralism and rejects the misuse of religion to discriminate.”

The 2016 Republican Party Platform also addressed these issues. However, Republicans condemned the “Supreme Court’s lawless ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges,” endorsed the First Amendment Defense Act (which would bar government discrimination against individuals and businesses for acting on the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman), and affirmed that “every child deserves a married mom and dad.”

Refer to our Party Platforms Comparison page for relevant content of both parties' platforms and links to both party platform documents.

Discrimination against whom? Compare Administrations

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Trump/Pence Administration

2017 to Present:

November 1, 2019 -The Trump administration proposed changes to the 2017 Obama/Biden rule, stipulating that federal discrimination standards must adhere to the Constitution, acts of Congress, and Supreme Court decisions. This prevents rules coming into effect that constitute the opinions of unelected bureaucrats. In doing so, these rules restored to the faith-based agencies the religious freedom promised by the Bill of Rights.

Faith-based groups have worked with government agencies to provide safe, healthy homes for children for decades. Catholic charities in many cities have been among the largest partners in caring for these children.

These agencies, bolstered by social science and moral principle, believe that the best home for a child is one that includes a mother and a father.

The good people who work in these faith-based adoption agencies shouldn’t have to choose between the good of children and their deeply-held beliefs.

And most importantly, vulnerable kids shouldn’t be used as political footballs.

Source: Catholicvote.org - Brian Burch (11/11/19) - Another Win

Obama/Biden Administration

2008 to 2016:

Days before Barack Obama left office in 2017, Department of Health and Human Services officials declared it was “discrimination” for faith-based adoption and foster care agencies to only place children in homes with a mother and a father (versus a same-sex “marriage” home). This move would appeal to the LGBT lobby, whose goal is to coerce Catholic agencies into affirming same-sex marriage.

As a result of this rule, tens of thousands of foster care children had been awaiting adoption, with hundreds of agencies and thousands of families willing to help. The rule prevented families from being served by faith-based programs.

Source: Catholicvote.org - Brian Burch (11/11/19) - Another Win

Transgender Rights versus Women’s Rights

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Trump/Pence Administration

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LGBT Rights versus Religious Rights

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