Trump v. Barbara

In a 5-4 decision on Tuesday, June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that birthright citizenship remains the law of the land, striking down President Donald Trump’s Citizenship Order that rescinded a SCOTUS ruling from the case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark. In that case from 1898, the SCOTUS ruled that children born on U.S. soil, even if their parents are in the country temporarily or even illegally, are automatically citizens of the United States. Trump attempted to subvert that ruling by Executive Order shortly after beginning his second term in the White House. The EO was challeged and the SCOTUS ruled, in Trump v. Barbara, that Trump’s EO was unconstitutional. The three “liberal” justices, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson were joined by “conservative” justices Roberts and Barrett. Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh dissented.

What that means is that, if Trump and the Republicans want to put an end to birthright citizenship and the practice of “anchor babies” they will need to go through the arduous process of amending the U.S. Constitution. The practice of “anchor babies” is where pregnant women from other countries enter the U.S. for the specific purpose of having their babies in the U.S. so the child is an automatic U.S. citizen, thereby opening the door for the parents to stay in the country. The practice is also called “birth tourism.”

Some in the Trump administration are calling for a ban on all foreign women who are pregnant from entering the U.S. “Birth tourism” involves pregnant women appling for visas into the U.S. misrepresenting their reasons for wanting to enter the country and for how long they intend to stay. That is illegal, of course, and there is some motivation now in the Justice Department to start prosecuting these women. But, once the child is born in the U.S., I suppose it doesn’t matter if the mother falsified her visa application. The child is born on U.S. soil, therefore the child is a citizen of the United States.

I have no trouble at all with the idea of passing an amendment to the Constitution to put an end to birthright citizenship. I think the logic behind the idea strains credulity. How is it that a mother, who has never been in this country, has no ties to this country, has no loyalty to this country, can step over the border, birth a baby, and that baby is a citizen of this country? That doesn’t make sense to me. Though, I have to admit, most countries in the North and South America recognize birthright citizenship, or jus soli (meaning citizenship based on the soil on which you are born) so it’s not just us. Most countries in Europe and Asia recognize citizenship jus sanguinis (meaning citizenship by blood, so you are a citizen of your parents’ country regardless of where you are born). I think jus sanguinis is the better way to go.

West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox

Also on Tuesday, June 30, the last day of “Pride Month” – what a hideous moniker! to celebrate a deadly sin! – the SCOTUS ruled that state laws passed to prevent males from competing in female sports in publicly funded programs were constitutional. These state laws were passed to stop the practice of transgender females (a.k.a. males) competing in female sports. This has, contrary to all common sense, become a huge issue, not only in the U.S. but internationally. The cases, West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox centered on an interpretation of Title IX, the 1972 civil right legislation that banned sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs. The Biden administration interpreted Title IX to include transgender girls and women (a.k.a. males), so that banning them from girls’ and womens’ sports programs was regarded as discrimination. But several states passed laws that banned transgender girls and women (a.k.a. males) from female sports programs, anyway. Yesterday, the SCOTUS ruled that, since Title IX allows for sex-based sporting programs that are federally funded, then states can limit these programs to those who were born female. This time, Roberts and Barrett joined the other conservative justices in the ruling. According to Pew Research Center, about two-thirds of U.S. adults agree that trans-athletes should be restricted to competing in sports programs consistent with their biological sex.

For some reason, three justices, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson (who infamously could not define what a woman is during her confirmation hearing), all three of them women, could not see a difference between males and females. Apparently, the claim that “trans women are women” has taken heart in the minds of these justices. They lament that trans girls and women (a.k.a. males) will not have an opportunity to compete according to how they identify. And, they are right. These males will not be able to compete as females, at least in those state that ban them from doing so, which is how they identify. But law is not for the purpose of affirming people in their identities, or comforting them when their feelings are hurt. Law is for the purpose of regulating the behaviors of citizens so that all may live in maximum safety, prosperity, and freedom, to the extent their ambition takes them. To allow trans girls and women (a.k.a. males) to compete in female sports programs is to create an inherently unfair and unsafe environment for actual girls and women. It is also a violation of females’ privacy and common decency, because competing in female sports includes using female-only facilities such as bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms.

How did we get here? Over the course of a mere decade or so, our society – indeed, all of Western society – has been infected with the fiction that people can choose their genders, and choose from between two or dozens of genders, at that! Sex is literally built in to every cell in our body, yet it’s considered fluid and on a spectrum. Race, on the other hand, is largely a social construct, yet it is considered immutable. No White person would dare claim to identify as Black, except as an obvious joke. Or, when they have and have been found out, they are ostracized to the point where they have to change their name (remember Rachel Dolezal, who changed her name to Nkechi Diallo?). How is it that this delusion has become so widely accepted that to deny it risks being labeled a bigot out of touch with reality?

The SCOTUS ruling will, at least, bring some measure of reality back into the discussion. Last year, in another 6-3 ruling in the case of United States v. Skrmetti, the justices upheld a Tennessee law banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors. There are other signs that the whole idea of gender ideology and transgenderism is being re-thought, or at least the expectation that regular people are expected to go along with the pretense is receiving backlash. Universities, and even high schools, are reporting significant decreases in the number of young people who identify as either the opposite gender, a gender other than male or female, or non-binary. De-transitioners have made headlines revealing the trauma they’ve suffered at the hands of doctors and parents who were too eager to turn to surgery for the child’s gender dysphoria. Gallup polling shows a decline from a peak level of support among Americans for LGBTQ+ issues. Even corporations are quietly de-funding their LGBTQ+ programs, ending their sponsorship of “Pride” events, and re-thinking policies in the workplace that imposed the LGBTQ+ agenda on their employees, such as listing one’s pronouns on internal emails. The medical profession, which ought to have known better in the first place, has shifted course from aggressively pushing “gender-affirming care,” including surgeries, in the light of research out of Europe that found little credible evidence that the therapy is beneficial.

The spiritual trauma of a transgender person must be deep and intense. It’s not possible, I think, to struggle easily with the idea that you are a man who was somehow born with a woman’s body, or vice verse. And then for one’s society, including the legal and medical professions, the last secular bastions of objective truth, to tell you that, instead of suffering from some mental illness that needs to be addreessed and then addressing it, you are, in fact, a man born into a woman’s body, affirming the delusion, the illness, the lie, and demanding that all others go along. Otherwise, you’re going to kill yourself. Those who are supposed to be there to help you become whole and healthy again , to help you become comfortable with your identity as it correponds to reality, are the very ones who are working hard to accomodate your illness and working hard to make sure everyone else does, too.

God is the God of truth (Dt 32:4; Ps 31:5; Is 65:16; Jer 10:10; Jn 14:6, 17; Jn 16:13; 1 Jn 5:20). God cannot lie (Nm 23:19; Ti 1:2; Heb 6:18). All truth comes from God. It gives no honor to God to insist that His will for any of us is that we be born into a body of the “wrong” sex. We are not assigned gender at birth. Our gender is discovered. Our happiness and health are directly connected to our coming to terms with the truth that is God’s truth, not in demanding that reality shape itself according to our delusions. We will find no satisfaction in standing before God, insisting that He got it wrong and that our truth is the one that counts. Such foolishness! When we stand before God, we will be an open book. All that we are will be revealed. Better that what is revealed is the truth about us rather than a fiction.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.