Introduction
So we survived another goeth-before-the-fall month. Not only did we survive it, but a number of factors have conspired to turn the once proud and brightly-colored symbol of Pride into a puddle, or perhaps a smudge, or something more like a stainbow.
I think it would be good if we considered two aspect of this—first, the good things the Lord has done for us, and secondly, the things that the Lord has arranged for the alphabet people to do to themselves. After that I want to move on to a third issue, that being what the Lord is most willing to do for the alphabet people. The gospel of free grace must absolutely be extended to them, and on the same terms as it was offered to all the rest of us. Free grace.
A Kindness Undeserved
This last June marked the first anniversary of the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe, and had the effect of turning the abortion issue back over to the states. In the course of this first year, almost half of the states have taken steps to significantly restrict access to abortion. Things are somewhat complicated because there are court challenges and whatnot, with the other side fighting back, but the tide has certainly shifted. Because we are smash-mouth incrementalists, and not of a mind to share Jerusalem with the Jebusites, we must never forget that our final objective has to remain a total ban on all human abortion.
There are some incrementalists who might want to settle for “some” restrictions, but that is incoherent and unacceptable. And at the same time, there are some abolitionists who are too grouchy to acknowledge that it was incrementalists who gave them a much bigger toolbox for their work, and with a lot more tools in it. Would it hurt to say thank you? Apparently for some. And then there are some former conservatives who don’t want to celebrate any of this because it might give some indirect credit to Donald Trump, who is to be thanked for those three justices on the Supreme Court. But regardless of these poor reactions, I think it undeniable that things have taken a good turn. We’ll take it.
Not only so, but in the providence of God, June is a month when the Supreme Court hands down decisions, and this June, they gave another huge victory to social conservatives. In effect, they decided that you don’t have to bake that cake if you don’t want to. This means that the sexual revolutionaries can no longer impress bystanders to serve in their armies and navies. No longer able to draft conscripts, they have to move to an all volunteer army. This will be much more difficult for them because their ideas are of such a caliber that they have to be made mandatory for everyone. They rely on coercion, not on persuasion, and now their central coercive weapon has been shattered. We’ll take that too.
There were some other marvelous SCOTUS decisions as well, but as regards June, this month of rebellious sexual pride, those two will suffice quite nicely. The lesson should be plain. Previous Supreme Court travesties are not irreversible. It is possible to do what Hillary Clinton has described as unthinkable, which is to “turn back the clock.” But this is a most sensible thing to do . . . when the clock is manifestly wrong. As it was with Obergefell.
In celebration of the Dobbs decision, a number of folks in our community took the month of June to display the Christian flag. And this was another telling thing. I was expecting some sort of outrage, and a goodish bit of vandalism . . . but there was nothing. I was flat wrong about that. But my error was not because I had misjudged the nobility of the opposition. No, no, not that—there has been plenty of vandalism in the past. But for some reason not this time. Not only so, but the usual pride displays were significantly and visibly muted, and in one instance, some tranny flags were dialed back to simple pride flags.
I think some of the explanation for all of this lies in what we must consider next.
Judgment Deserved
Let me begin with an illustration from a parallel issue.
One of the reasons why the pro-life movement was able to maintain traction during a time of great spiritual disintegration was the result of great strides in ultrasound technology. When someone is dealing with a teenage girl in trouble, who never did that well in high school biology, and she is told that it is “just a clump of cells,” it is relatively easy for her to accept the lie. She is still culpable for believing such a lie, but she is believing a lie nonetheless.
Now ultrasound technology was just coming in when Nancy and I were expecting our third, but the level of technology at that point, speaking of smudge, was not all that great. The ultrasound image looked like a bad xerox copy of a black and white photo of a distant galaxy. But today the images are strikingly good, and you can even see that your son has his grandfather’s dimples. In short, the “clump of cells” argument has now been revealed for what it is, a murderous lie, and it put a lot of people in the position of having to sin against far more light than they were yet prepared to sin against.
How does this apply to the rainbow smudge? People can be coaxed into great sin, and they can be brought to the point where you can get them to sin against great light. But you must begin by getting them to sin against dim light, with the consequences of the sin far enough away as to seem unreal or abstract. This is why drone strikes are easier on the fastidious than on-the-ground massacres, but either way the victims are just as dead, and the sin is the same—even though the impact on the conscience is not just the same.
So complete hardness of heart cannot be accomplished in an instant. Seduction is a perverse art form, and requires great patience, which is a trait that creepers at pride parades manifestly don’t have. So I would argue that the rainbow brand has been enormously damaged by the insistence of more than a few of these pervs that they be given free rein to twerk naked in front of kids. It’s in the Constitution, baby!
They were hauling a ten-pound fish in on a five-pound line, and in their impatience, they yanked.
When homosexuality was first being mainstreamed and made acceptable to us all, in the Will & Grace kind of way, it was represented as quirky and offbeat, but no more quirky and offbeat than other sitcom heteros could be. Different strokes for different folks, you know, and as propaganda goes, it was enormously successful. But everything depended upon not getting too close, or looking at it too closely.
Back in the day, when a flamboyantly gay Liberace would perform for the straights, they would be entertained in much the same way that folks in the previous century would go see the bearded lady at the circus. It was a curiosity, and a bit naughty, and then they would go back to their normal everyday lives, feeling, of course, suitably urbane and sophisticated. But now, when the average straight housewife has to deal with a Dylan Mulvaney as her cashier at Safeway a couple times a week, it has all gotten to the point of being a bit tedious. A costume party can be fun, but just imagine trying to extend Halloween through February.
But the disturbed radicals of the sexual revolution have been unable to contain themselves, and when everything depended on normal people not getting too close, or looking too closely, the radicals got the idea that they should make us all get too close, and they insisted upon us looking quite closely. And so straight America did, and the overall reaction has been ewwwww.
And so in this department we need to extend our profound thanks to the creepers and the flashers. They have almost single-handedly made Pride Month toxic—too toxic for Starbucks, at any rate. Starbucks has dropped all the rainbow paraphernalia, and why? Because of all those drag queen story hours, and family-friendly drag shows, and porn for the kids in government schools, and naked men flashing the kids, and delusional suburban moms bringing their kids to be so flashed, the brand of Pride Month is now inextricably tied to pedophilia. And in those places where it still is not, it will be the work of five minutes for people like me to make the association.
This is why a lot of corporations, even the woke ones like Starbucks, are starting to think long and hard before trying to go Bud Lite in the Loafers. In previous years, they were willing to take a dip in revenue for the sake of the Cause, but things have now advanced to the point where boycotts don’t even have to be organized by anybody. The Bud Lite boycott was not organized—the Bud Lite boycott was something of an organism that had a life of its own. And because it was not organized, there is nobody to attack and vilify . . . except for all the customers you are trying to win back. To the astonishment of many, Bud Lite has even tried that.
We are talking about billions of dollars now, and a public awareness that does not need to organized by the ghost of Jerry Falwell. This is what happened to Target. And Fox News did not just fire Tucker, they also signed on to the sexual revolution, and the bottom line consequences for them have been severe. And Disney released Strange World, an animated daisy-cutter bomb—not just a bomb—of historic proportions, losing almost $300M at its release. Some might rush to the movie’s defense, saying that after all it had featured the “first gay teen romance in an animated feature film.” Ah, we might reply.
Forgiveness Extended
Some of the symbols and badges of rebellion can simply be dropped, changed, or removed. Upon repentance, you can take down a rainbow flag. You grow out a butch haircut. You can remove the outlandish piercings. You can even have those tattoos removed. But it is not so easy to walk back the gender-affirming surgeries.
To do as much as can be done requires beginning with repentance, and it has to be a repentance that goes down to bedrock. Perhaps your grandfather was a hippie back in the day, and when he got saved, he got a haircut, took a shower, bought a Bible, and started going to church. You might think you are not in a position to do anything like that because your genitals have been mutilated, or because your breasts have been replaced by an ugly scar. You think it was easy for him, but not really. Pride always dies hard.
You thought it was bleak before, and that surgery was your only desperate hope. That’s what the well-paid experts said. But now in the aftermath, everything is just doubly hopeless. You look at YouTube clips of detransitioners, and it makes you feel like you have swallowed a cinder block because you have started to understand—better than anyone—just how much of this folly cannot be walked back. What has been done cannot be undone.
That is correct. There is much that cannot be reversed. But here is the good news. It can be forgiven. And it can be forgiven today, as in, now. And in the resurrection, you will be restored.
Christ died on the cross, and rose again from the dead, in order that every manner of sin that men and women commit might be cleansed and forgiven. That includes your perverse sexual desires, your confused sexual identity, your willingness to believe flattering lies from the people making bank off your mutilation, and your attacks on the only people who tried to love you. You dismissed them as haters because of their love for you. All of it was sin and wickedness, and you need to name it as sin and wickedness.
You might bridle at this, with some of your old habits of thought trying to sneak back in. Do you think I hate you? I don’t hate you—but I do hate your sin. But in hating your sin, I am merely hating the thing that has been bent on destroying you. And believe me, your sin hates you far more than I hate anything. And the suffix -phobic doesn’t enter the picture at all.
Turn around. Turn away from the abyss. Stop listening to liars. There is far more mercy in Christ than there is sin in you.
Let go of that steering wheel on your ego. Your car is upside down in the ditch, and is not moving at all anymore. It won’t hurt anything to let go of the steering wheel. Are you still afraid of Christ taking control of your life? What? Are you afraid He might wreck it? Are you afraid He might flip your car and leave it upside down in a ditch? Isn’t that where you are now?