By Joshua Arnold

Last Tuesday, both chambers of the New York legislature passed a bill that would insert 22 occurrences of the term “gestating parent” or “non-gestating parent” into sections of law dealing with parent-child relationships and custody. According to the bill’s title, its purpose was to replace terms like “father” and “mother” with “gender neutral language” — and what a way to do so! “This would be almost funny,” said Casey Harper, The Washington Stand’s managing editor for broadcast and guest host of “Washington Watch,” “if it weren’t basically the sign of total moral confusion and departure from the ways of God.”

More than that, the phrase “gestating parent” is a major “dishonor to motherhood,” Harper added. “When you watch a woman — especially when you’re married to her — go through pregnancy, childbirth, the early infant stage, and you see the sacrifice, you see what a woman has to do to have a baby and care for that baby, you realize that it’s very Christlike. You really have to lay down your life for that baby.”

Alas, “this is the downstream effect of when you change marriage law,” responded Dr. David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview. “It’s sad, but I’m not surprised by this.”

“Years ago, during the debates on same-sex marriage … we were assured that redefining marriage would have no effect on our understanding of motherhood or fatherhood or parenthood,” Closson grimaced. “But … once marriage is no longer fundamentally connected to the union of a man and a woman, and then, once surrogacy enters the picture, separating biological children from their parents, well, it becomes increasingly difficult to explain why the law should privilege terms like father and mother.”

In other words, “this is not appearing out of nowhere,” Closson continued. “If a child can have two fathers or two mothers, a surrogate mother, an egg donor, a gestational carrier, well, our legal system eventually is going to have to develop new categories and new terminology to sort out some of those relationships. And ‘gestating parent,’ as silly as it sounds — that’s the kind of language that emerges when parenthood is detached from biological reality.”

“When we change these words like this, it’s really doing theology,” Harper summarized. “They want to say it’s legal. But when you change the meanings of words, you’re doing theology.”

“This whole transgender revolution — it really is rooted in a view of the human person that is diametrically opposed to the biblical worldview,” Closson concurred. “The biblical worldview sees us as body and soul together. The transgender worldview — it’s really a reincarnation of ancient Gnosticism that separates the mind from the body.”

More specifically, transgenderism asserts “the claim that someone is born in the wrong body,” Closson explained, referencing a phrase repeated in a congressional hearing last Wednesday titled, “Protecting Our Children: Exposing the Dangers of Irreversible Gender Transition Procedures on Minors.” That claim “assumes that our true identity is found primarily in our feelings, and really that the body, our physical body needs to be altered to match those feelings.”

However, he continued, “both biology and the Christian worldview teach us that our bodies are not accidental to who we are. Scripture teaches us that God created us male and female. Our sexed bodies are part of his good design. They’re not mistakes that need to be corrected.”

The hearing also demonstrated how the debate over transgender ideology’s view of personhood “is not taking place in the realm of theory or ideology” alone, Closson noted. “We are now hearing from a growing number of young people who underwent these medical interventions as minors.” Do No Harm, a medical group that testified at the hearing, has “identified 14,000 minor children who underwent gender transition procedures in just a five-year time frame from 2019 to 2023,” said Closson. “And, of those 14,000 minor children, that includes 5,700 actual physical surgeries.”

From a purely developmental perspective, the acceleration in gender transition procedures for minors runs directly contrary to the way that minors are treated in other areas, Closson said. “We don’t allow minor children to vote, to sign contracts, to purchase alcohol, to make countless life-altering decisions, because we recognize their judgment is still developing. So, why would we ever permit them to get these surgeries or procedures that can forever alter their bodies and their futures?”

“In Scripture, time and again, the Lord takes very seriously how a nation treats their kids,” Harper reflected. He alluded to the Mosaic law, where the Lord commands Israel, “Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire” like the wicked nations in Canaan, for “because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you” (Deuteronomy 18:10, 12). The prohibition was for ancient Israel, but God showed that he would even judge other nations that oppressed their own children.

Such biblical allusions reinforce the theological nature of the change in terminology nearly codified by the state of New York, which is part of a culture-wide assault on a biblical worldview.

Because the assault is culture-wide, Christians routinely encounter it, which makes them eager to find tools to combat these lies from a biblical worldview. “Our research shows that people in the church actually want to learn more about this. In 2023, we did a national research study within the evangelical churches, actually, and it’s over 68% of church-goers want training on this issue” of gender and sexuality, said Closson.

“And so, there’s a great hunger from the regular churchgoer. Folks in the pews — they want their pastors, they want their spiritual leaders to take them to God’s word, to walk through this issue,” Closson insisted. “So, this is a discipleship issue” for the church to address. The pastor’s job description is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12), and this is one area where church members need to be equipped.

“Our people need teaching that is clear and confident about God’s creation of us as male and female: our bodies are good gifts from God. Our identity is found in Jesus Christ and not our feelings, not our desires,” Closson pressed home. “Of course, pastorally we approach these situations with genuine compassion. Individuals with gender confusion —they’re experiencing real pain and loneliness. This is an opportunity for pastors and church leaders to walk with people with grace and truth.”

“What is encouraging,” Closson concluded, is “the strong public reaction to this” bill in New York, which “tells me that many Americans — including non-religious Americans — still recognize mothers as mothers, fathers as fathers, and recognize that children benefit from knowing and being connected to both of their parents whenever possible. Reality has a way of asserting itself even when our laws and language attempt to redefine it.”

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

This article originally appeared here.