The sun was shining on the White House grounds last Saturday afternoon when President Joe Biden mounted a stage that had been erected there and delivered what turned out to be a very dark -- and awkwardly stated -- message.
"As Commander-in-Chief, I was proud to have ended the ban on transgester Americans -- transgender Americans serving in the military," Biden told the crowd that had assembled there to celebrate what they called "Pride Month."
Then he focused on his vision for what he called "transgender children."
"When families across the country face excruciating decisions to relocate to a different state to protect their child from dangerous anti-LGBTQ laws, we have to act," Biden said. "We have to act as a nation.
"We need to push back against the hundreds of callous and cynical bills and laws introduced in states targeting transgender children, terrifying families, and criminalizing doctors and nurses," he said.
"These bills and laws attack the most basic values and freedoms we have as Americans -- that's not hyperbole; that's fact: the right to be yourself, the right to make your own health decisions, the right to raise your own children," said Biden.
"I recognize for a lot of folks across this country, maybe it's not you, your kid, your family member going through whatever a transgender child and family is going through," he said. "But I think we all agree, if it were you, you'd want the space to figure it out with your family and your doctor -- not being told by anybody."
What is Biden's answer to these wrongs that he alleges state laws are perpetrating against "transgender children?"
"That's why the Congress must pass and send me the Equality Act to codify protections for the LGBT community," he said.
What specifically would this "Equality Act" do?
Among other things, according to its official summary, it would prohibit discrimination based on "gender identity in areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system."
"The bill," says the summary, "prohibits an individual from being denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual's gender identity."
As Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York explained when the House passed this bill in 2021, it not only would allow boys to use the girls' locker rooms and restrooms but also to compete in female athletic events.
"When it comes to athletics, the Equality Act ensures that LGBTQ students -- including women and girls who are lesbian, bisexual, or transgender -- will have the same opportunity to participate in sports as their peers," Nadler said in a statement inserted in the Congressional Record when the bill was debated on the House floor.
What would it mean if both the House and Senate ever did pass this bill and sent it to Biden for his signature?
It would mean that a 16-year-old boy who claimed to be a girl could enter the girls' restroom, locker room and dressing room. It would also mean, as Nadler explained in the Congressional Record, that a biological male could compete in women's sports.
Toward the end of his speech celebrating "Pride Month," Biden gave his unqualified endorsement to the "LGBT community" and "especially transgender children."
"So today, I want to send a message to the entire community, especially to transgender children: You are loved. You are heard. You are understood. And you belong!" Biden said.
"And as I've made clear," he said, "including in my State of the Union Address, your President and my entire administration has your back."
Then Biden said: "We see who you are: made in the image of God, deserving of dignity, respect, and support."
Yes, all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God -- and all human beings have the same God-given rights.
But were biological males made so they could pretend to be females? Were biological females made so they could pretend to be males? Were men and women created to engage in homosexual activity?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church sends a very different message than the one President Biden sent from the White House last Saturday. It states: "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."
The Catechism says this about human beings being male and female: "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."
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