Homosexuality and LGBTQ

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 30 March 2026

Are you tired of being bombarded by ads, TV programs, professional sports messaging, sports show highlight segments, and athletic competition ad infinitum, ad nauseum pitching the normality of sexual confusion, in particular transgenderism?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #255 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Mar. 26, 2026, “the International Olympic Committee (IOC) finally issued a ruling it has been contemplating for months: Men can no longer beat up on women at the Olympics.”

IOC president, Kristy Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming, said, “At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat, so, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.”

“One thing we will be waiting and seeing about is whether this policy will be applied retroactively. Will men who claimed to be women be stripped of their medals? Will they get an asterisk next to the records of their achievements?”

Wow. Yes, finally.

The Olympics first formally allowing transgender athletes to compete traces back to a policy shift in the early 2000s, when the IOC created eligibility rules permitting participation under specific medical and legal conditions. Laurel Hubbard became the first openly transgender woman, i.e. a man, to compete at an Olympic Games in weightlifting at Tokyo 2020, held in 2021.

Beginning with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, the IOC new policy restricts—I’d say “protects”—women’s events to biological females, determined through a one‑time SRY gene test. The IOC cites scientific review and the need for uniform standards across sports as the basis for this change.

But there’s more to it than science. The science, common sense, morality, biology, and history have been there all along.

What’s really going on is that the IOC is bowing to the enormous shift back to sanity that is underway in Western culture, back to 2+2=4, back to basic birds and the bees intel known to humanity dating to Adam and Eve. The IOC also saw the financial writing on the wall. They did not want to lose sponsors who are fed up with being asked to support illogical and inane and unfair competition their customers found offensive.

The IOC posted an article on its website, entitled, “International Olympic Committee announces new Policy on the Protection of the Female (Women’s) Category in Olympic Sport.” Notice the wording. “Protection of the Female (Women’s) Category.”

Meanwhile, leave it to CNN to once again demonstrate how to use a media method called “framing,” i.e., slanting a story according to a desired narrative. Rather than saying “protecting women,” their headline said, “Transgender women athletes banned from Olympics by new IOC policy on female eligibility.” Virtually all other media followed suit: The Guardian, ESPN, NPR, LA Times, USA Today, the NY Times said “bars.” FoxNews.com entitled its article, “IOC announces new policy to ensure only females compete in women's competitions.”

No one was “banned.” Male athletes posing as women can still compete as males if they qualify. One X user posted, “No one is prevented from competing. No one is excluded. There is a sex category for everyone. Everyone can compete, where eligible. You need to be good, and to qualify.”

Interestingly, 1976 Olympic Decathlon Gold Medalist Bruce Jenner, now living a sad life as Caitlyn Jenner, cheered the IOC ban on biological men from women's Olympic events.

While the idea and a few participants and activists have touted the transgender issue since the 1950s, the 2010s are the decade when transgender identity became a national cultural issue, and then in the 2020s solidifying it as one of the most contested topics in American public life.

After the Supreme Court of the United States declared same-sex marriage legal in Obergefell v Hodges in 2015, the focus shifted from LGB to LGBT with the T taking center stage. For more than a decade, American culture has been treated to a tsunami of propaganda masquerading as science and compassion, demanding what intolerant activists called “tolerance,” and calling people “bigots” for simply expressing prudence, rational thinking, and horse sense. But no, if you were anti-trans you were somehow not with it.

In his book, 1984, George Orwell said, “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” Yes, don’t believe your lyin’ eyes.

The Bible has something to say about reasoning in a reasonable world. In the language of the old King James Version of the Bible in 2 Pet. 3:5, people are described as “willingly ignorant.” In other versions like NIV, it’s “deliberately forgetful” or in the ESV, “deliberately overlook.”

In 2 Thess. 2:11, in the language of the old KJV, it notes how people give themselves over to “strong delusion.” In the NIV it’s called “powerful delusion.”

Paul is describing people who reject the truth and embrace lawlessness. Because they refuse truth, God allows them to experience the consequences of their choice—being swept up in deception.

In other scriptural passages, we learn ideas, including wrong or evil ones, have consequences. “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (Romans 1:28). “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;” (Hosea 4:6). Those who “hated knowledge” reap the consequences (Proverbs 1:29–31). These passages echo the same moral logic: rejecting truth leads to confusion, distortion, and judgment.

Hopefully, this policy change by the IOC—which Jenner described as top of the mountain and what they do has a domino effect on down—hopefully, this means other sports associations will also return to rationality and sanity.

Meanwhile, we should not use terms like “Trans women” because these individuals are men. And reject the media vocabulary labeling people “biological” men or women. There is no other kind of men and women.

We should keep men out of women’s prisons and locker rooms. It’s a related but different subject, but the transgender ideology is costing the criminal justice arena millions of dollars that would not need to be spent if men were put in men’s prisons.

Another part of the propaganda is what we see in television and cinema. Yes, it’s fun to watch our favorite female protagonist on police shows like NCIS or FBI or Magnum PI, etc., fight, knock down, beat up or otherwise subdue a bad guy.

And no doubt there are women in law enforcement, military, and security who have learned to handle themselves in a way that protects themselves and their partners. But is it really realistic to believe 115-pound women can at any time physically overpower 190-pound male assailants?

On a similar note, “the fact that most men would win most fist fights most of the time against most women is why (a given female conservative pundit) considers anti-gun views to be anti-women and anti-disabled. If you ban guns, then people will only be able to use their physical strength to defend themselves. Even a knife or other melee weapon requires strength to be used effectively. And to ask women and disabled people to rely on their physical strength means that they will be disproportionately at a disadvantage. Now, you need some strength to operate a gun, and some people will be too profoundly disabled to operate one safely, so a gun doesn’t completely level the playing field…” but for many, it could be a life-saving tool.

This is just one ripple effect of the nonbinary ideology that for a time has deluded American culture. It also makes a direct impact on everything it touches. For the LGB—lesbian, gay, bisexual—these folks are attracted sexually to others of the same sex, but still, they remain women or men, so there is no need for special restrooms, yada yada.

But for the T in LGBT—transgender—this person psychologically and emotionally and spiritually believes he is a she or she is a he, so they present a category that disrupts all of civilized society. They say they require and they demand special treatment, separateness, “other,” which translates to new family, social, commercial, educational, athletic, governmental, and health costs.

But no, as a civilization perhaps in the name of liberty we allow, but we are not required to endorse, promote, or in totalitarian fashion demand adherence to the abnormal represented by a miniscule percentage of the population.

I find it sad. I watched Bruce Jenner become the world’s greatest athlete in 1976. What happened to him? Did he die? So, I am not gloating about the IOC ruling, but I am certainly glad for it.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best.

If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/ or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 10 August 2025

Have you noticed that in American culture today anything goes, that we can do what’s right in our own eyes because, well, we are gods?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #219 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

The New Testament verse John 5:6 quotes Jesus asking a question, “Do you want to be healed?” Now Jesus asks this of an invalid lying by the Jerusalem Pool of Bethesda, a lame man who’d suffered thirty-eight years, a man who wanted to be physically well or he would not have been lying near this pool, which people thought had healing powers.

But Jesus’ question went beyond the physical, asking the man to think about his spiritual condition, “Do you want to be healed?” The man apparently understood this, for after Jesus commanded him to pick up his bed and walk, which he immediately did, Jesus later found the man in the temple (Jn 5:14).

This is a question we could ask many people in our society. Do you want to be healed? Their attitudes and behaviors seem to indicate either they don’t want to be healed, or they are so confused they seek solace in debauchery and twisted religion.

Think about what we are witnessing today—abortion, sexual decadence and gender confusion, lawlessness, declining marriage and family structure, political polarization, racial animus, depression, anxiety, nihilism.

How is it that what was once unthinkable, became debatable and is now acceptable?

Transgenderism, or what some call trans insanity is one of these sad human tragedies. Laurie Higgins says it well: “The belief that gobbles up so much cultural time and space is the phantasmagorical and pernicious anti-science notion that men and women can become the sex they are not by the sheer power of their desire, makeup, hormone-doping, and some nips and tucks.

The dangers of this au courant metaphysical superstition are obvious to most Americans, and yet ‘trans’ activists and their collaborators somehow retain outsize cultural influence. Like the clout-chasing, infamy-sucking Dylan Mulvaney, female impersonator Nicholas (Nick) Contino, who now goes by his chosen transonym ‘Lilly’ is the most recent tranny to go viral with his social media victimhood posts.

The 32-year-old Contino…chose to invade multiple women’s restrooms at Disneyworld wearing women’s—sometimes young girl’s—clothing and Minnie Mouse ears, take selfies of his invasions, and post them on social media.

He goes to restaurants explicitly seeking to ‘normalize being a trans person in public,’ looking as creepy as drag queens do. He sets up his phone, knowing full well that normal people will respectfully address him as ‘sir,’ and then, like the cultural predator he is, Contino pounces on servers for speaking truth. At moments Contino feigns feeling hurt…and at other moments, he becomes hostile, berating his obsequious, apologetic servers.

Like other ‘trans’ cultists, Contino believes he has the absolute right to demand that others participate in his fiction. And like other ‘trans’-cultists, he believes everyone in the world has an ethical obligation to participate in his fiction. Therein lies yet more errors in his worldview.

He has a right to ask and even arrogantly demand that others refer to him as Ms., Mx. or she/her. But no one has an ethical or moral obligation to submit to his preposterous and unethical rhetorical demands. No one has a moral obligation to lie in service of Contino’s disordered superstition.

For those who believe rightly that Contino is a man and who believe lying is wrong, demanding they lie and violate their own convictions, which for many are religious convictions, is disrespectful.

‘Trans’-cultists argue ad nauseum that those who reject ‘trans’-cultic assumptions are denying the existence of “transgendered” people. No one denies that there exist people who, for diverse reasons, wish they were the sex they aren’t, or who believe they were ‘born in the wrong’ body, which is just another way of saying they wish they were the sex they aren’t.

What those who reject the ‘trans’ ideology deny is that objectively male persons can become female or vice versa. They reject Contino’s explicit claim that “transwomen” are women. They reject the claim that men who appropriate female fashions and pronouns, and who cosmetically alter their male bodies are, in reality, women.”

“If you believe people are transgender, you have fallen for a psychological operation wherein cultish ideologues invented a state of being that does not exist and then conflated it with same-sex attraction. They used words like love, diversity, and inclusion to hijack your mind and make you think you were unkind if you didn’t play along.

The actual unkindness is participating in any of this madness. We are living among one of the greatest mass delusions in mankind’s history, leading to millions of people believing they were ‘born in the wrong bodies’ — a statement so asinine and undefinable that it should have been laughed out of existence the moment it was first uttered.

Never use any of the language of the cult of gender. If you use false pronouns for a person, you are not nice. You are breathing life into a group psychosis.

There is male and there is female, and that is that. You get what you get, and you don’t get upset. If you want to help people struggling in a cult or with mental illness (or what some call sin), speak the truth.”

The cultural tide regarding transgenderism is finally turning, first with disallowing men to pose as women and compete in women’s athletics and now in terms of disallowing so-called “gender-affirming” care for minors. “A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in June…showed that 53 percent of Americans support laws prohibiting ‘gender-affirming care’ for children. Only 28 percent opposed these laws. ‘Gender-affirming treatments’ involve prescribing hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors. These treatments have been found to cause adverse effects on children — especially after they become adults. This is why many European nations have moved away from this treatment model.”

Another LGBTQ+ spectrum ideological insanity that’s been around awhile but is now back in the news is so-called "self-marriage"—sologamy, sometimes called autogamy, meaning marriage by a person to themself. That’s right, a person sets a date, schedules a ceremony with guests and cake, buys special clothes, and goes through the façade of a marriage while proclaiming love for themselves. “Celebrants commit themselves to idolatrous self-service and self-celebration.”

The self-marriage movement is utterly nonsensical, irrational, and absurd, not to mention a waste of time and money. What happens later when the person “falls out of love” with themselves or “grows apart” from themselves or “finds another soul mate” or “needs to be true to themselves,” all self-absorbed rationales used to justify divorce?

The bottom line on these degraded developments in American culture is our rejection of the authority of Scripture. While there have always been people who did not believe, for more than two hundred years the Bible was regarded as the basis of America’s Judeo-Christian moral consensus. This began to change in earnest in the 1960s, in public education, families, entertainment, politics.

It’s very basic, really. If you believe the Bible offers moral absolutes about life, then any debate or doubt can be settled by reference to the Scripture. What does the Bible say? If you no longer believe the Bible is inspired by God, infallible and inerrant, a moral compass for all of life—and you add to this there is no God or at least none that is involved in our lives—well, then, anything goes. Do what is right in your own eyes because there is no moral code, no sin, no negative outcomes, no one to whom you are accountable, no eternal punishment.

In terms of sexuality, if we want to believe men and women can change their biological sex, well, so be it. If we want to promote same sex “mirage,” then so be it. If we want to narcissistically exalt self and conduct a faux marriage to ourselves, then so be it.

There is no God, or wait, yes there is, we are gods.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 10 June 2025

Well, it’s June, so we must determine how we will respond to people proclaiming their sexual choices, “Loud and Proud,” for all the world to know.

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #210 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

It’s June, so Pride month is upon us. It’s that time when those who choose to pursue Gay and Lesbian, Trans, and a list of 72 other gender identities and lifestyles seem bent upon demanding everyone else not only allows them to make this choice in a free society but must accept and affirm and endorse and promote and proclaim and celebrate their immorality with them.

If 72 choices don’t do it for you, there’s now something called “seasonal gender” or “genderseason.” Yes, you heard that right. Humans can now change their gender with the earth's tilt and its orbit around the sun. According to one authority, “'genderseason' comes as part of a growing expansion of gender identities and sexual orientations, including 'ecosexuality,' which is centered around the seductiveness of nature. The term ‘ecosexual’ is the state of finding nature sexually appealing, whether that means feeling at one with nature’s ‘energy’ or physically caressing nature.” So here we are at Pride Month.

Why? You may ask. Who proclaimed June Pride Month? There is no law passed by Congress establishing Pride Month as a federal observance. Pride Month in the United States was originally authorized primarily through presidential proclamations.

1999 & 2000: President Bill Clinton was the first to officially recognize Pride Month by proclaiming June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.
2009 onward: President Barack Obama expanded the recognition to include the broader LGBTQ+ community and began issuing annual proclamations declaring June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.
President Joe Biden and President Obama continued the tradition with annual presidential proclamations.
President Donald Trump did not issue official proclamations for Pride Month during his first administration.

“President Donald Trump's second administration has officially declared that June will now be recognized as Title IX Month — not Pride Month…Fox News reported, "Dept of Education labels June as 'Title IX Month' in wake of trans athletes winning girls' competitions. Title IX is a federal civil rights law enacted as one of the Education Amendments of 1972. The main function of Title IX is to prohibit discrimination based on sex.”

“For the last several years, Pride Month was a splashy marketing event for big brands. Stores adorned windows with rainbow flags, displayed LGBTQ-themed t-shirts and coffee mugs at their entrances, changed their logos on social media accounts, and spotlighted donations to LGBTQ rights groups. But in June 2025, many retail chains and brands are going quiet. Companies are treading lightly, avoiding prominent campaigns and visible public support. Thirty-nine percent say they plan to scale back public Pride Month engagements this year, according to a survey of more than 200 corporate executives by Gravity Research, a risk management advisory. That includes sponsoring Pride events, posting supportive messages of LGBTQ rights on social media and selling Pride-themed merchandise.”

This is not the case in Major League Baseball where a Pride night is scheduled this month for 31 of 32 teams. Only the Texas Rangers have opted out, saying they provide baseball entertainment for everyone. Individual states, cities, and institutions have issued their own declarations or recognize the month independently, some to sidestep their states or now possibly this federal proclamation. For example, Salt Lake City – the home of Mormonism – and Boise passed city resolutions making Pride flags official city emblems, thus skirting state flag ban laws.

I mentioned earlier the 72 and counting gender identities. I say “counting” because once the divinely created binary door is opened, there is no end to experimentation and a pursuit of happiness that morphs into a pursuit of sinful invention, along with the desire of so many to become an online sensation or influencer, to maintain one’s relevance by signaling you are stepping into a brave new world. Think Kourtney Kardashian recently declaring herself “autosexual,” defined by a therapist as “a trait wherein one is turned on by engaging in their own eroticism.” Or think singer Ariana Grande saying she did not feel the need to label her sexuality but she likes men and women, thus sparking bisexuality rumors. Or think singer, rapper Janelle Monáe, confirmed she is nonbinary and identifies as "beyond the binary," not seeing herself solely as a woman.

The inbred drive to be “other” can be seen in the evolution of the original Pride flag that coopted the biblical rainbow to feature 8 colors declaring sexual independence. Then the flag was expanded to represent people of color, those lost to HIV/AIDS or facing stigma or marginalization, the transgender community, and now intersex individuals. The latest Intersex-Inclusive Progress flag features 13 colors.

In his book, Our Civilizational Moment, Os Guinness quoted Fyodor Dostoevsky, who “wrote in The Brothers Karamazov, If God is dead, everything is permitted.’ You can be as free as you desire to be. The only limits are the limits of your own thinking.”

But demeaning the biblical rainbow, which God created and set in the sky after the Great Flood as a promise to Noah’s family that God would remain committed to his creation, is the center of audacity of the Pride movement. As Guinness noted, “Whatever humanity does, the rainbow is the reminder that God will keep faith with humanity. God's faithfulness will overshadow the worst that humanity can ever do. For the sexual revolution, on the other hand, the rainbow stands quite literally as the symbol of Pride. It stands for the revolution and its stated objective of repudiating the Jewish and Christian understanding of the created order. Which understanding of the symbol is to prevail? The rainbow as a reminder of God's promise? Or the rainbow as the assertion of human pride?”

I’ve addressed the Pride Month issue no less than three times before: Speaking to June Pride Issues, June Pride—What Really Is Being Celebrated?, and What About Pride Month? Frankly, I did not want to talk about this again. I am tired of the topic, weary of seeing same-sex couples in commercials, sickened by the debauchery and vulgarity I read about or see in Pride parade videos, and do not want people, including LGBTQ+ individuals to think this is the only behavior I think God addresses in the Scripture.

But how can we avoid this topic when it is literally everywhere? There are nearly 150 days in the calendar year with LGBTQ “observances.” This includes not one but three full moths: Pride Month, LGBT History Month, and Trans Awareness Month, plus 60 other days. Meanwhile, we celebrate those who gave the last full measure of sacrifice to secure our freedoms on one day, Memorial Day, and those who served on one day, Veterans Day. So, no, we cannot just keep our head down and ignore the unignorable.

In his 2015 book, We Cannot Be Silent, R. Albert Mohler, Jr., says, “This is a revolution of ideas—one that is transforming the entire moral structure of meaning and life that human beings have recognized for millennia.”

“We are facing nothing less than a comprehensive redefinition of life, love, liberty, and the very meaning of right and wrong.” “Yet explicit Christian truth-telling is the church’s reason for being.” “People seem to have lost their identity. They’ve lost their sense of belonging.

They’ve lost their awareness of their Creator.” How else can we explain this irrational, inane and insane promotion of mangled language, erasing women, denying biology, redefining family, butchering young bodies in and out of the womb, forcing speech, yet all the while demonstrating an insatiable desire to be “seen,” accepted, affirmed or validated, included, allied, and more. Those who pursue these lifestyle choices reject traditional and biblical values re sexuality and family but want all the blessings biblical reality and God’s best affords. The movement rejects the moral will of the Sovereign God yet yearns for what he provides those who follow and obey him.

“We are told that to be kind, we must affirm. But Jesus never affirmed sin to make sinners feel safe. He loved sinners enough to die for them and call them to repentance. That is the model.”

“To those in the LGBTQ+ community: we do not hate you. We are not better than you. We are beggars pointing to bread. You are not beyond hope. But there is only one Name under Heaven given to men by which we must be saved. It is not tolerance. It is not affirmation. It is Jesus.”

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 09 December 2024

Does it amaze you as it does me, that in a generation, rainbow flags have become globally ubiquitous, that the LGBTQ+ movement is now visible in every subsection of society, including religion?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #182 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

In a few earlier podcasts, I’ve addressed what was once called Gay and is now called the LGBTQ+ movement, Pride month, and related issues like same-sex marriage.

Pride month, not just a day but an entire month, suddenly declared as a national if not global time of obeisance to immorality is particularly egregious because it is visual, “Out, Loud, and Proud” as proponents say, in your face.

In June, nearly nude people parade about on city streets wearing. chains, leather, animal fur, or artificial, exaggerated anatomical parts. This is not pride but perversion. It is not freedom. It is enslavement, bacchanalia, debauchery.

Add Drag Queen, people who now openly chant, “We’re coming for your children,” and you get human debasement on a level with anything you’ve read about in ancient pagan civilizations. Sodom and Gomorrah would feel right at home.

One highly successful marketing and messaging tool developed by the LGBTQ+ movement is the now near-ubiquitous rainbow flag.

The rainbow flag, also known as the gay pride flag or LGBTQ pride flag, is now a globally recognized symbol representing LGBTQ outward identity, support, and “pride.” The original creator of the pride flag is Gilbert Baker, a gay artist who wanted to make a proud statement through a symbol showing diversity. He believed that the rainbow was ideal because it is found in nature. The original gay pride flags flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade celebration on June 25, 1978.

The initial rainbow flag had eight colors, including pink to represent sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit. Today, the original colors remain except for pink and turquoise.

“On June 26, 2015, the White House was illuminated in the rainbow flag colors to commemorate the legalization of same-sex marriages in all 50 U.S. states, following the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision.” This was the Obama Administration virtue signaling.

In recent years, in the name of “inclusion,” the rainbow flag has been updated and redesigned repeatedly to represent the intersectional diversity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and Two-Spirit (LGBTQIA2-S) communities, progress, and social justice pride.

Christian apologist and social critique Os Guinness observed, “as Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov, if God is dead, everything is permitted. You can be as free as you desire to be. The only limits are the limits of your own thinking.”

Dostoevsky was half right. If God is dead, everything is indeed permitted but you are decidedly not free.In his 2024 book, Our Civilizational Moment: the Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds,Guinness goes on to say, “For Jews and Christians, the rainbow is the symbol of a divine promise–God's covenanted promise originally given to Noah after the flood as the sign of God's commitment to his creation (Gen. 9:8-17).

Whatever humanity does, the rainbow is the reminder that God will keep faith with humanity. God's faithfulness will overshadow the worst that humanity can ever do.

For the sexual revolution, on the other hand, the rainbow stands quite literally as the symbol of Pride. It stands for the revolution and its stated objective of repudiating the Jewish and Christian understanding of the created order.”“Which understanding of the symbol is to prevail? The rainbow as a reminder of God's promise? Or the rainbow as the assertion of human pride? The recent explosion of LGBTQ rainbows across the world is a deliberate inversion of its biblical and centuries–long meaning and a massive statement of where the West is today.”

Ostensibly Christian enterprise “Sojourners” website publishes articles like “How the Pride Flag Speaks to the Promises of God” by an author who says he is a Christian and a gay man.

There is a long and growing list of Protestant churches that reject traditional biblical teaching as they embrace and promote LGBTQ+ lifestyles.

Some Christian colleges and universities now allow or embrace LGBTQ+ students and, for some, staff as well, what’s sometimes called “gay-friendly campuses.”

Christian colleges and universities are currently under enormous pressure and some are changing their view of LBTQ+ matters because they’ve concluded they will lose financial support if they do not, or they will be scrutinized by accrediting agencies, or they have recalibrated their doctrinal views.

Meanwhile, the Word of God has not changed:

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27).

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24).

In Leviticus 20, God lists several sexual sins, not just homosexual sins but several heterosexual sins. In God’s eyes, sexual sin is sexual sin. He is not singling out or somehow condemning only those engaged in homosexuality.

For example, “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death” (Lev. 20:10).

And then also, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination” (Lev. 18:22).

Or this, “If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them” (Lev. 20:15-16).

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul says, “For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men” (Rom. 1:26-27).

“Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 7).

While Christians assume different positions regarding LGBTQ+, in my understanding of the plain English of the Scripture, these sexual behaviors are matters of choice, they are individual and thus personal responsibility, they are spiritual rebellion, not mental illness. I, therefore, cannot embrace or promote heterosexual sin nor LGBTQ+ sin, but I offer these observations:

Teaching biblical doctrines of sin, or specifically not condoning same-sex relationships, is not ipso factohomophobia, insensitive, or intolerant. Such teaching could be presented in unloving, condemning ways but need not be. God defines sin but always offers love, forgiveness, redemption, and hope. Understanding the chains of darkness, no matter what the sin, is the first step toward understanding the liberty of light.

There is no biblical or logical justification for bigotry, hatred, gay bashing, bullying, or violence toward LGBTQ+ individuals. None. No room for tearing down rainbow flags that do not belong to us. Such acts are expressions of fear, not love and not faith.

Christians should support LGBTQ+ people in their civil liberties and civil rights as Americans, not special rights but constitutional rights.

Christians should avoid labeling people because labels can imply the existence of unalterable conditions. No sin, other than the ultimate and final rejection of Christ, is an unpardonable sin or an unalterable condition. In my view, LGBTQ+ persons are not defined by their sexual orientation or behavior. Consequently, rather than call someone lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender I’d rather say a person has chosen to express his or her sexuality in these ways. The Spirit of God always offers and can enable another Way.

While I cannot endorse LGBTQ+ moral choices and while I reject the perversion of the rainbow’s divine message, I recognize that each person is made in the image of God, that God loves them, and that Christ died for them as he did for me.

“Those people” are not our enemy.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 19 June 2023

Perhaps you have wanted to share your convictions about June Pride issues but were hesitant to speak because traditional Judeo-Christian values are no longer welcome.

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #92 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

One of the things I’ve felt about June Pride month, or rather all the issues that designation implies, is that Christians, or conservatives, two groups that overlap but are not the same, don’t seem to know how to respond or address these matters.

The Gay Rights—later LGBTQ+—Movement has gotten the upper hand in public discourse. Their messaging is better, winning the war for public opinion.

Since 1969, the date of the Stonewall Riots at a nightclub in New York City, an event generally regarded as the genesis of the LGBTQ+ Movement, activists and advocates of this sexual liberation philosophy have marketed, promoted, and politicked their social-political message with astounding success.

At first, their strategy took on culture, then later legal and political status, resulting in an unprecedented moral acceptance, or at least acquiescence, among the majority of the American public.

Representatives of the LGBTQ+ Movement constantly claim they are victims, are not accepted or affirmed, are in danger of violence, and much more, yet the Movement possesses documentable momentum in entertainment, academia, sports, business, and religion. No sector of American society has been left untouched or even allowed to sit quietly on the sideline.

In 1978, the Rainbow Flag was first used in a Gay Pride parade.

1979 – the first March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

1980 – American Psychiatric Association added “gender identity disorder” to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

1993 – “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” via Bill Clinton, allowing Gays to serve in military. This law was repealed under President Obama in 2011.

2013 – American Psychiatric Association changed “gender identity disorder” to a non-negative “gender dysphoria.”

2015 – Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 US 644 (2015), same sex marriage allowed by SCOTUS.

2021 – 2023 – The Biden Administration made sexual orientation and gender identity, one of its most prominent, oft-referenced issues, advocating for advancing the LGBTQ+ Movement in virtually every corner of American life.

By 2023 – Some 22 states passed laws protecting women and girls’ sports by limiting participation to biologically determined female athletes, thus banning transgender students from participating. These laws are consistently referred to by media and online not as protecting women and girls but as “anti-trans” and thus discriminatory or even bigoted or hate legislation.

Things can and will get worse. Who would have predicted that the Los Angeles Dodgers would honor an anti-Catholic hate group of Drag Queen “Nuns” called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as part of a “Pride Night” celebration? In doing this, the Dodgers not only exalt a perverted group, the Dodgers also attack Christianity.

The LGBTQ+ Movement continues to log one success after another in its push for social revolution affirming their views. Why?

Why have American institutions and the public so rapidly embraced the amoral and immoral views of the LGBTQ+ Movement, making them a virtual new cult religion in America?

The answer is in part because the Movement’s messaging tactics have been strategically, consistently, ruthlessly, and sad to say effectively pursued. The Movement

1) changes or hijacks the meaning of words. Word definitions are considered fluid, are weaponized, and leveraged against those who disagree.

2) demands its vocabulary be used in media or even by those who disagree such that when others do this, they’ve already conceded the argument. For example, being expected to use gender identity pronouns for trans individuals that do not align with their biological birth sex.

3) argues all criticisms or critiques are rooted in transphobia and are ipso facto intolerant, bigoted, hateful.

4) demands its views not just be allowed or tolerated but saluted, celebrated.

5) recognizes no truth but its own ever-changing “truth.”

6) argues immoral behavior is freedom of expression.

7) contends sexual behaviors are not choices as such but evidence of who LGBTQ+ people innately are in their identity.

8) co-opts the Civil Rights Movement and vocabulary, arguing all sexual choices are civil rights.

Meanwhile, many Christians have been asleep at the switch, seemingly unaware or unconcerned about this lie marching through American institutions.

Clearly, Christians need to respond. “We need to speak clearly and consistently about biblical norms. The title of Dr. Albert Mohler’s most recent book has it exactly right: We Cannot Be Silent. This means we need to ready and willing to engage in public debate and dialogue. We also need to present a compelling counter-narrative. If we fail to do that, the mainstream narrative will win by default; theirs will be seen as the only plausible position to take…(It) is our responsibility as Christians to promote the public good, especially when it comes to protecting children from damaging parental practices and destructive ideologies…(And) there is the need to preserve religious freedom—above all the freedom to preach the Bible and proclaim the gospel—which is increasingly threatened by the demand for LGBT rights (a demand that invariably translates into the suppression of those who continue to stand firm on biblical norms).”

Christians must support not simply the value of personal and public morality for the good of individuals but also for the ongoing potential of free government that cannot survive without citizens embracing moral restraint on their own.

Why? Because the less people voluntarily restrain themselves, the more the government must do it, and thus the less ‘freedom’ society will have, and the more ‘tyrannical’ government will become.

John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Recognize Pride month for what it is. Pride month is not about freedom. Those who pursue the lifestyles it references already have freedom. Pride is about promoting licentiousness and tyrannically demanding affirmation from anyone who disagrees, e.g., legally attempting to force businesses to display rainbow flags.

So, what do we do?

Well, remember this: No matter how rational, articulate, historically and biblically justifiable our presentation, we cannot argue people into right views, correct theology, or changing their sinful behavior. Because the other side rejects God and truth, they are virtually “un-convincible.” So this is not a “May the best ideas win” contest.

In his book, We Will Not Be Silenced, (2020), Erwin Lutzer said, “If we think we can fight against deceived culture by winning the war of ideas, we are mistaken.

The best ideas do not win very often in a culture obsessed with empty utopian promises.”

Only the Spirit of God can ultimately change hearts. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” Eph. 6:12.

In Christians in a Cancel Culture, (2021), Joe Dallas reminded us that “to preach the gospel we have to speak the truth about man’s sinful nature and his need for salvation.” This is our “compelling counter narrative.” But it’s not about our arguments. It’s about the Word and Spirit of God.

So how do we do this?

Listen. No need for sermons. Listen for the hurt. People pursuing LGBTQ+ lifestyles experience a boatload of emotional, spiritual, mental, physical trauma. This is one reason they constantly talk about wanting “affirmation.” They are human beings made in God’s image and loved by him even if they do not know or acknowledge this truth.
Ground your comments in the Creator who loves and created human beings in a manner that granted them blessings via heterosexual marriage, not in other sexual behaviors that fall short.
Don’t be hateful, ever, but recognize that if you share the truth, you, not just your comments, may be rejected or despised.
Be honest, kind, speak the truth in love, but by all means speak the truth.
Share the Gospel, ultimately, the greatest transformative power on earth through which all sinners can become New Creations in Christ.

Then remember, our foundation is still the solid rock. The Word of God is our source of strength and hope.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Gal 6:9

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 12 June 2023

June Pride Month dates to the Clinton Administration. How is it that a month ostensibly dedicated to freedom is morphing into a month of demands, cultural repression, and even legal backlash?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #91 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

June Pride month has become a cultural tour de force. Despite LGBTQ+ advocacy groups proclaiming people who choose this lifestyle are somehow at extreme risk, their interest and ideology is making seemingly unstoppable headway at every level of society across the country.

No field of human endeavor in American life is immune from pressure to participate without reservation in a celebration of a percentage of the population’s decision to pursue immoral behaviors.

We celebrate Mothers on a given day and Fathers on another day. We salute Veterans on their day and remember their courage and sacrifice on Memorial Day.

Even the country’s birthday, July 4^th, is, well, a day. LGBTQ+ lifestyle choices somehow rate an entire month of societal observance.

LGBTQ+ is the only group, or community, or movement, as its proponents now claim, that is rhapsodized for a decision to engage in sin. Think about it? Is there a day or month celebrating adulterers? The promiscuous? Pedophiles? No there is not. Only people who decide to express themselves sexually in an LGBTQ+ manner are socially celebrated.

We could say, “Pride, who cares? It’s a free country,” with the corollary that people already enjoy the liberty to choose any form of sexual expression, short of harming others. While Christians believe it is immoral, for example, to cheat on one’s spouse in an affair, or pursue sexual gratification outside of marriage, or engage in homosexuality, still, these behaviors are not illegal, and I am not arguing they should be.

But while “It’s a free country” may allow for individuals to pursue LGBTQ+ behaviors, including celebrating their own Pride parades or festivals—

it is another thing to turn that “free country” upside down by demanding unreserved, cult-like affirmation—no disagreement tolerated—of LGBTQ+ lifestyles, including Pride activities, transgender ideology in grade schools, blocking parents from being informed about their child’s trans choices, legally demanding transgender males be permitted to participate in female athletic events, and forcing social institutions to provide “non-binary” options in bathrooms, locker rooms, and much more. There is nothing “free” about any of these expectations, only authoritarian, tyrannical ultimatum.

“The concept of Pride Month has been heavily commercialized; many companies incorporate Pride Month imagery in packaging, commercials, press releases, social media, and so forth. Even within the LGBTQ community, some object to these developments, seeing them as insincere pandering.”

In Manhattan, surrounding the plaza at Rockefeller Center, 193 flagpoles each fly a “Pride” flag.

The US Army Military Police Corp issued a meme featuring a rainbow flag behind the symbols of each branch of the Armed Forces.

The Department of the Air Force published a social media meme saying, “Celebrate Pride Month,” featuring a rainbow background, the seal of the Air Force, and a soldier in silhouette saluting. No American flag is portrayed. What, one wonders, is the silhouette soldier saluting? It is illegal for an armed services member to salute anything but the American flag.

The U.S. Dept. of Education issued a Pride month rainbow colored meme saying, “Happy Pride Month.”

San Francisco Police raised a rainbow flag along with the American flag and stood at attention saluting both.

LGBTQ+ activists have been masterful in developing both their plan and their messaging, the latter of which often twists constitutional, political, and religious principles to make it nearly impossible to disagree without sounding like a so-called “hater.”

But Pride month is not a harmless expression of love, freedom, and happiness, as its proponents and sycophants contend. Pride is not about freedom or “see me,” or “you are welcome here.” All those who pursue LGBTQ+ lifestyles are already free, seen, and able to do whatever they wish in American society.

Rather, Pride is about disavowing moral restraint in the name of sexual liberation, more accurately described as licentiousness. Pride promotes an ideology that is anti-God, anti-Christian, anti-family, anti-morality, anti-sexual fulfillment, anti-humanity-made-in-the-image-of-God.

Pride Month is modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, and if this seems like an overstatement, I challenge anyone to watch video of a Pride parade in a major American city and tell me it is not a public orgy of vile wickedness far beyond anything Mardi Gras or Carnival have contemplated.

Pride, “an ideology that triumphs human desire and power over a meaningful, embodied human nature eventually ends up targeting the most vulnerable: women and children. This is evident in the absurd and nihilistic way women are no longer able to be defined or defended in everything from athletics, to locker rooms, to Supreme Court confirmations.”

“The direct harm is also evident in Queer Theory’s calculus that exposing children to adult sexuality is a necessary part of social liberation. Videos went viral this week of provocatively dressed men dancing while young children pressed cash into their G-strings at a “Drag the Kids to Drag Pride” event. In the name of Pride, Kellogg’s put cartoon characters on their cereal box urging kids to pick their pronouns and reminding them that no matter who they love, they’re too awesome to fit in a box. Also taking a knee in obeisance to Pride, WaPo featured a salvo for why ‘kink’ is for kids too.”

This is resulting in “heart-breaking yet predictable chaos and disruption of childhood. The rapidly rising numbers of minors seeking to hormonally halt puberty and mutilate their bodies before they are old enough to drive a car should convince us that something has gone catastrophically wrong and that, regardless of any particular person’s good intentions, this is far from a benevolent movement.”

Pride “is a creed that reduces and redefines the human person and calls them by their sin.”

“Pride month is not about human dignity. It is about human deification.”

“We need to raise and influence children to be so secure in their identity in Christ that the world can scream at them, throw temptation in the path and subtly condition them… and it will all land on infertile soil. Because they know that they were created in the image of God.”

“At least four strikingly sinister ironies define the secular celebration of gay pride month.

First, is the false advertising that says we are devoting merely a month to the celebration of homosexuality when, in truth, our culture demands the near-constant celebration of homosexuality every day and every month of every year.

Second, is waving the banner of ‘pride’ over a lifestyle choice that is transparently sinful…

Third, is the insistence from our sinful culture that anyone who opposes the infinite manifestations of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is on the ‘wrong side of history.’…

Finally, the LGBTQ+ movement has attempted to steal from God himself, one of the most significant demonstrations of redemptive love in the Bible. When most people in our culture see a rainbow, they do not think of God’s patient determination to extend salvation to a sinful humanity but instead recognize a symbol of destructive sexuality.”

“The Christian responsibility in a confused culture…is to stand on the truth of the Word of God and on the grace of Jesus himself…The Bible says that Jesus came into this sinful world full of grace and truth (John 1:14). We must present ourselves to this sinful world in the same way.”

How can we respond to June Pride Month?

o Don’t hate, don’t be hateful—ever. Don’t speak the truth with anything but love, but by all means speak the truth. Only the truth of God’s Word can transform a sexually confused culture.

o Don’t participate. You need not attend Pride parades or festivals.

Certainly, do not take your children. If your workplace buys into Pride, you can opt for low key, polite and respectful ways to not participate.

o Learn whereof you speak. In other words, don’t “Just say No,” but Know why you say No, why you disagree, why, how, and what God’s Word offers that is immeasurably more hopeful than the message of false ideology coming from Pride activists. Know how to respond to non sequiturs like “love is love” with biblical understanding.

o Ultimately, Christians are called to be witnesses of the Way, the Truth, and Life (John 14:6; Acts 1:8).

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.