Before I move ahead with that I want to explain some language. I want to talk about biological sex and gender. Many people that read this may think those 2 words are synonymous, but this is not correct. Biological sex is just you were born male or female. You have a penis or you don't. It means exactly what you think it means. Gender on the other hand is more behavioral characteristics such as masculinity or femininity. Based on the definitions it is completely possible for a person to be biologically male and their gender be female. When these things don't match it's what is referred to as gender dysphoria. There will be more about that later on but I wanted to at least explain that part first because I'm about to throw down with some pronouns here.
Okay, so back to this funeral home case. A transgender woman named Aimee Stephens had worked at this funeral home for 6 years. I'm assuming it was as a male. She then started dressing according to her gender. Well when she did that she got fired for it. The owner said that she was violating the dress code because she presented as a woman when she was actually male. The guy said that she was in violation of God's commands by dressing as a woman. I got curious about that because I'd never researched it in the Bible. Some of that can be looked at in different ways it's not always a slam dunk. Many times there are semantics and subtleties involved. So I did some digging and probably looked over 100 verses or more that were supposed to be relevant but found very few that met my criteria. I did find a few though. I'm going to show you those verses then talk about them a little bit. The first one comes from the book of Deuteronomy.
A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God
Deuteronomy 22:5
So I read this and it says what it says, there's no doubt about it. Does that mean he was justified in firing her? I would say no...he isn't. In reading it I think it's directed to the person reading the verse. In this case that would be the guy. So according to the scripture he's doing right by not wearing a dress. Unless he's concerned that by being around Aimee Stephens that he's suddenly going to feel the need to run to Victoria's Secret and get fabulous I don't think he has any need to worry. One thing that may also be relevant depending on what version of Christianity you subscribe to is that this is from the Old Testament. Many protestant religions believe that with the birth of Christ the old Law of Moses went away and a new law came into being. This would of course be the New Testament. Some believe that and others don't but it should be kept in mind. The distinction that I'm making here is that even though she may be violating God's commands according this this guy's Christian beliefs, she is not forcing him to violate them. For me that is a very important distinction when it comes to religious liberty. His liberty isn't really compromised by having her working there. In fact upon my research it leads me to believe that he may actually be violating biblical teachings by firing her.
You see according to the Bible you can judge people as long as you aren't being hypocritical or self righteous. What is not allowed is condemnation. As Christians we don't have the authority to do that. There are specific verses that prove this that I break down in a later commentary so I won't be covering them here. I'm assuming you know what those verses are if you have an issue with the previous statement. Just hang in there with me and in a later commentary you'll understand why "Judge not lest ye be judged yourself" doesn't mean what you think it means. Even through the Bible some things changed towards the end. We also have a separation of church and state that goes both ways. We aren't in the Book of Deuteronomy. We aren't going around smiting each other. When you teach people about God you teach by example. Actions speak louder than words. You aren't helping bring people to God by throwing them out on their ass so they can't pay their bills. They'll just think you are a prick and go get a job somewhere else. This isn't just my opinion there are verses in the Bible that support this belief. Here are a few of them.
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
-2 Timothy 2:22-26
And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.
-Mark 2:16-20
Therefore, I urge elders among you, as your fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and one who is also a fellow partaker of the glory that is to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not with greed but with eagerness; 3 nor yet as domineering over those assigned to your care, but by proving to be examples to the flock.
-1 Peter 5:1-3
There are other verses to back my points about leading by example. I'd also like to point out that keeping someone from earning a living, even if temporarily, is not "correcting with gentleness" in my humble opinion. Some Christians though they may be well meaning at heart don't always do the right thing. I'm just as guilty as they rest of them. No human is perfect, we are all guilty. Some Christians work under the notion that being around someone committing a sin is the same as condoning it. For those that would make that argument I would point to Mark 2:16-20 which is the middle verse. In this verse Jesus does what you should be doing. Jesus is not condoning sin because he eats with sinners. He instead is being that example and doing what he should do. You are not condoning transgender acts because you employ a transgender person. If you believe that gay and trans people shouldn't have rights because they commit sin then logically you would have to believe that none of us deserve rights because we all sin...including you. In my opinion this does not violate religious liberty.
The next one I want to talk about is housing discrimination. I won't spend as much time on it because many of the conclusions are the same. The original Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not contain anything in regards to housing. That came later in the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which I believe one of the main reasons for that was to end the racist practice of "redlining." Even that originally did not tackle gender discrimination. That was added later in 1974 as well as protection for people with disabilities. This is not a religious liberty thing for the exact same reasons as employment discrimination. The same Supreme Court cases would in theory cover the same language in this act as the other one. Some states already have laws on the books barring this type of discrimination but a lot of states don't have anything. Having a federal law should rectify the issue of lacking protections. These two things I've mentioned are really no brainers. Supreme Court rulings have already put these protections into existing laws. This is part of where I have my problem. Trust me I'm the last person to be one of these conspiracy people to me that is lazy thinking. If it was just about adding protections to previous laws I think it would be fine, but the Supreme Court has ruled that they are already there. So that is the thing that originally made me want to wade into this muck. It really moves to confirm the beliefs I've already voiced about politicians and their true motives. I can't tell you how many times I've seen some politician on the internet talking about how religion has been used to discriminate against this person and that person and harm these people. It's true that religion does get misused by people at times well meaning or not. But you know what? So does socialism, relativism, cancel culture, woke culture, postmodernism, previous laws, celebrity platforms, music, the media, and the entire entertainment industry but you bow at the feet of all of those when they suit your purpose. So pardon me if I suspect you may have ulterior motives and act in bad faith. I'm sure you may have some great ideas too. A broken clock is right twice a day. I just can't hear those through all the lies, hypocrisy, and psychological projection coming from your mouth. I believe in attacking bad behavior and not the person. Empowered people can change bad behavior as long as they choose to do so. Attempting to disempower someone does a disservice because it breaks down their will to believe they can change something. I believe the Bible is like the U.S Constitution in the way that it is an amazing document with great things in it that everyone should know. The problem is simply that the exponents of these documents fall short of the ideals held within them.
Ok so I'm going to wrap today's post up here. I don't like the spacing on here between paragraphs because it puts up that dialog box that I don't like, but I'll work it however I got to work it. Trust me when I write it in Word it is formatted better than this. So that'll do it for today. The next post will move in to how the Equality Act affects Christian Universities and if it is done in a fair way. Don't forget to upvote!