“Nearly 30% of Gen Z women identify as LGBTQ, Gallup survey finds,” cheered the NBC headline Wednesday. NBC ran an almost identical headline about another survey in January. Our first thought was that taking 30% of women out of human reproduction will have devastating consequences for our nation. Our society can’t survive if male/female couples don’t reproduce. Our culture will collapse as traditional nuclear families are destroyed.

It’s almost as if some people think that’s the point and the goal.

To be sure, virtually the only reason 30% of young women identify this way is that “LGBTQ+” is a social contagion. There is no more celebrated group of people on the planet than those who are confused about what gender they are or what sex they’re attracted to.

Oh, they pretend to be oppressed, but for nearly the entire year, the national calendar is full of days of recognition and celebration for the Rainbow Cult. Even Joe Biden’s White House is decked out in garish colors to speak truth to power or something.

Young girls, largely from fatherless homes, find this to be the most welcoming place they can be at a time when they’re struggling with developing their own identity. And with every media headline trumpeting this group’s growth, there’s that much more pull to identify with the Alphabet People.

The Gallup survey found that a record 7.6% of the entire U.S. population now self-identifies as gender-confused. Another 6.8% declined to respond. “The current figure is up from 5.6% four years ago and 3.5% in 2012,” Gallup says. Is that because there were always this many people who really weren’t heterosexual but were afraid to come out, or is it because the explosion of rainbow “pride” over the last decade or so has attracted more cult followers?

That was rhetorical.

One part of the survey reveals our point. “Of all Gen Z women surveyed,” NBC said, “20.7% identified as bisexual.” That says to us that many of these young ladies aren’t fully committed to the cause but have found a middle ground for identifying with the favored group.

Maybe young people will grow out of this. After all, older generations are far less likely to choose an “LGBTQ” identity — Generation X (1965-1980) is at 4.5%, Boomers (1946-1964) are at 2.3%, and the Silent Generation (1945 or earlier) is at just 1.1%.

Yet the shift among younger people is profound. The rainbow percentage of the population has doubled since Gallup first asked in 2012, and Gallup says, “Overall, each younger generation is about twice as likely as the generation that preceded it to identify as LGBTQ+.” Some 9.8% of Millennials (1981-1996) choose the rainbow, as do 22.3% of Generation Z (1997-2012).

That’s astounding and deeply troubling. Many people won’t grow out of it. Instead, they will bear the mental troubles and (sometimes literal) scars for life.

Indeed, that destruction is just the point here.

This all began with pleas for “equality” to “love whoever you want to love.” That sounds perfectly innocent and understandable. But we warned of a slippery slope in redefining marriage because once that definition is changed, a major guardrail is missing. Sure enough, less than a decade later, we’re dealing with the aforementioned liturgical calendar, cancel culture based on quashing “homophobia,” groomers in kids’ classrooms and libraries, and people raking in money by mutilating children in the name of “gender affirmation.”

Make no mistake: This is ultimately political. Even the news analysts at The Washington Post tell us this week that “support for LGBTQ+ protections is tied to politics more than population.” The Post reports, “The best predictor of support for protecting LGBTQ+ Americans against discrimination isn’t the percentage of LGBTQ+ people in the state. It’s the percentage of Democrats.”

You don’t say.

The left-wing groomers who recruit young people into the gender cult are to blame for the coming decades of problems this demographic shift will create. There will be fewer babies born because of the intentional destruction of God’s design for families — a husband, a wife, and children. There will be lasting cultural consequences for a population that is increasingly irreligious and unmoored to any true family connections.

That isn’t to say there’s no hope. “We should never despair,” said George Washington. “Our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again.” The best way for us to realize this hope is to pursue people in our lives — especially the at-risk and marginalized. If good people do that, the number of lost people will shrink once again.