In a 20/20 interview with Diane Sawyer in April 2015, Bruce Jenner announced he is a “transgender woman,” saying that he had dealt with gender dysphoria since his youth and that, “for all intents and purposes, I’m a woman.”

In the summer of 2017, Pastor Paul Williams, who led the conservative church-planting organization Orchard Group for 20 years, announced he is a “transgender woman.”

We see co-ed bathroom policies in many school districts and in corporate giants like Target. So, does biological sex matter?

The term “transgender” was invented by the homosexual and “trans” community to refer to a person who pretends to be the sex he or she is not. As Christians, however, our starting and ending points for understanding human sexuality is the Word of God:

He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female….’ (Matthew 19:3-6)

God fashions each of us. He is the one who created us male or female. Our feelings about our God-given sex do not change reality.

He created the two sexes for particular roles and functions within the home and the church. For example, Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11 explain men are to be leaders in the home. Genesis 3 states what rational people should not need to be told, which is that women alone bear children. In other words, there is no such thing as a “pregnant man.”

Some proponents of the “trans” ideology point to Galatians 3:28 as a justification for their beliefs:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Such a claim takes the passage out of context. The passage is talking about how we are all equal when it comes to salvation. It does not mean there exist no distinct sexes. The verses leading up to this passage say that we were held captive under the law but since Jesus’ coming, we are now justified by faith. Salvation is given freely to all without respect to external factors such as ethnic background, economic status, or sex.

Biological sex matters to God. Therefore, what should persons who want to be the sex they are not (and never can be) or who feel as if they were “born in the wrong body” do?

They should surrender those feelings to Jesus.

They don’t need to fly another flag. They don’t need to march in another parade. They don’t need surgery. They don’t need another court ruling.

They need the healing hand of Jesus Christ.

Those who desire to be the sex they are not can be freed from bondage to those feelings through faith in Christ and continued reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit. Sin can be overcome and lives changed through the salvation that Jesus freely offers.

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A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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A hundred major corporations, ranging from Target to American Airlines to Best Buy, have signed on to an LGBTQ activist coalition supporting the “Equality Act,” which would federalize homosexuality and transgenderism as “civil rights” categories in the law.

The homosexual-bisexual-transgender lobby group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) says the bill, HR 2282, is about “letting Americans live their lives without fear of discrimination,” but pro-family organizations counter that the “Inequality Act” (as Family Research Council calls it) would expressly undermine people’s religious freedom to act against homosexuality and extreme gender confusion (transgenderism), e.g., by declining to participate in same-sex “marriages.”

The sweeping legislation, introduced by openly homosexual U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island, has 194 Democratic co-sponsors and two Republican co-sponsors. With little action on the bill likely in a GOP-dominated Congress, HRC is taking its campaign for HR 2282 to the corporate world, where its institutional influence and power greatly exceeds that of social conservatives.

HR 2282, as described by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), “amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity among the prohibited categories of discrimination or segregation in places of public accommodation.”

The bill prohibits employers with 15 or more employees from “discriminating based on sexual orientation or gender identity, subject to the same exceptions and conditions that currently apply to unlawful employment practices based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” according to CRS.

The bill’s far-reaching impact would greatly expand the potential for lawsuits against private individuals who choose not to affirm behaviors they regard as immoral before God. Already, using state and local “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” laws, LGBTQ activists and their allies have made life difficult for people opposing “gay marriage” and “proud” homosexuality and transsexualism — from wedding cake makers and wedding photographers to t-shirt makers and even bar owners.

The CRS summary of HR 2282 states:

“The bill expands the categories of public accommodations to include places or establishments that provide:

— exhibitions, recreation, exercise, amusement, gatherings, or displays;

— goods, services, or programs, including a store, a shopping center, an online retailer or service provider, a salon, a bank, a gas station, a food bank, a service or care center, a shelter, a travel agency, a funeral parlor, or a health care, accounting, or legal service; or

— transportation services.”

Noting the expanded definition of “public accommodation” under the proposed legislation, FRC states: “Thus, if the Inequality Act passes, attorneys will likely be required to represent homosexuals in dissolving their same-sex ‘marriages,’ Christian schools will likely be required to offer transgendered students the bathroom of their choice, and Christian homeless shelters will likely be required to accommodate same-sex couples.”

According to the CRS, HR 2282 defines “gender identity” as “gender-related identity, appearance, mannerisms, or characteristics, regardless of the individual’s designated sex at birth.” The bill states that the Department of Justice (DOJ) “may bring a civil action if it receives a complaint from an individual” who claims to be “denied equal utilization of a public facility … (other than public schools or colleges) on account of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”

Thus, under HR 2282, a “male-to-female” “transgender” activist could sue an amusement park if it refused to let him, as a biological male, enter the public women’s restrooms (since amusement parks would be covered under the Act as “public accommodations”).

HRC quotes Dow Chemical employee Cory Valente in defense of the “Equality Act”: “No one should be fired, evicted from their home, or denied services because of who they are. Supporting inclusion and equality is the right thing to do – for business and for society.”

But FRC states that by expressly stripping away the protections of federal “Religious Freedom Restoration Act”–designed to protect citizens’ conscience rights–the pro-LGBTQ “Inequality Act” “would force people to affirm homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and transgenderism, despite their religious objections in various situations, including the provision of public accommodations.”

“This is the antithesis of religious freedom,” the pro-family group asserts.

HRC’s rigged rating system pressures corporations

HRC has employed to great effect its skewed “Corporate Equality Index” “scorecard” system to pressure corporations to ratchet up their pro-homosexual and pro-“transgender” policies. Under the ratings system, companies get points for giving money to pro-LGBTQ activities but they potentially lose 25 points if they do anything that HRC considers to be a “large-scale official or public anti-LGBT blemish” (see page 8 here).

Thus, even neutral corporate giving policies — say, if a company’s executives wanted to avoid taking sides by financially supporting both pro-LGBT groups and organizations like the American Family Association — would be boxed out for any corporation seeking a perfect HRC “Equality Index” score.

And under the HRC’s self-serving “Index,” companies must comply with an ever-expanding list of pro-LGBTQ demands to continue receiving a “100 percent” ranking.

The strategy has been immensely successful for HRC, with even once-conservative corporations like Walmart joining its “100 percent” club — which includes paying for “transgender” employees “sex-reassignment surgeries” through company health insurance plans. Walmart now finances “gay pride” events like the annual New York City “pride parade.”

HRC reports the following 100 major corporations as members of its “Coalition for the Equality Act”:

Abercrombie & Fitch Co.

Accenture

Adobe Systems Inc.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Airbnb Inc.

Alcoa Inc.

Amazon.com Inc.

American Airlines

American Eagle Outfitters

American Express Global Business Travel

Apple Inc.

Arconic

Ascena Retail Group Inc.

Automatic Data Processing Inc.

Bain & Co. Inc.

Bank of America

Best Buy Co. Inc.

Biogen

Boehringer Ingelheim USA Corp.

Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.

Boston Scientific Corp.

Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc.

Brown-Forman Corp.

CA Technologies Inc.

Caesars Entertainment Corp.

Capital One Financial Corp.

Cardinal Health Inc.

Cargill Inc.

Chevron Corp.

Choice Hotels International Inc.

Cisco Systems Inc.;

The Coca-Cola Co.

Corning Inc.

Cox Enterprises Inc.

CVS Health Corp.

Darden Restaurants Inc.

Delhaize America Inc.

Diageo North America

The Dow Chemical Co.

Dropbox Inc.

E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (DuPont)

eBay Inc.

EMC Corp.

Facebook Inc.

Gap Inc.

General Electric Co.

General Mills Inc.

Google Inc.

HERE North America LLC

The Hershey Company

Hewlett Packard Enterprises

Hilton Inc.

HP Inc.; HSN Inc.

Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP

Hyatt Hotels Corp.

IBM Corp.

Intel Corp.

InterContinental Hotels Group Americas

Johnson & Johnson

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Kaiser Permanente; Kellogg Co.

Kenneth Cole Productions

Levi Strauss & Co.; Macy’s Inc.

Marriott International Inc.

MasterCard Inc.; Microsoft Corp.

Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams

Monsanto Co.

Moody’s Corp.

Nationwide

Navigant Consulting Inc.

Nike Inc.

Northrop Grumman Corp.

Office Depot Inc.

Oracle Corp.

Orbitz Worldwide Inc.

Paul Hastings LLP

PepsiCo Inc.

Procter & Gamble Co.

Pure Storage Inc.

Qualcomm Inc.

Replacements Ltd.

S&P Global Inc.

Salesforce

SAP America Inc.

Sodexo Inc.

Symantec Corp.

Synchrony Financial

T-Mobile USA Inc.

Target Corp.

Tech Data Corp.

TIAA

Twitter Inc.

Uber Technologies Inc

Under Armour Inc

Unilever

Warby Parker

WeddingWire Inc.

Whirlpool Corporation

Williams-Sonoma Inc.

Xerox Corp.

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This article was originally published at LifeSiteNews.com

Written by Chris Freund

In case you haven’t heard, apparently, despite nearly a year’s worth of scoffing denials by the retailer’s officials, Target isn’t doing so well.

Paint me shocked!

Plummeting sales and stock can be blamed on the weather only so many times before any thinking person starts to suspect that perhaps there’s more here than we’re being told.

Now comes a story in the Wall Street Journal where sources with Target claim that the announcement about a policy allowing men in women’s restrooms in the name of tolerance was never actually approved by the boss.  It was just a blog post that got a little out of hand.  And, oh, the CEO now claims he wouldn’t have approved the announcement because he thought, well, just maybe, there might be a backlash.

Ya think?

Of course, the CEO and others, along with the media and even many market “experts” claimed for the past year that there has been no backlash and that Target’s plummeting sales and stocks are due to the weather or other unusual market forces.  Weather and market forces that weren’t, however, having any effect on Target’s biggest competitor, Walmart.  Odd.

And that $20 million plan to add private restrooms to stores had nothing at all to do with the backlash that wasn’t really happening.  Just move along…

Now, I’m not a big fan of “boycotts” in general, and measuring their impact is pretty near impossible.  But you have to admit that when 1.5 million people say they aren’t going to shop someplace anymore, it might have a bit of an impact.  And that doesn’t include those who may have decided to not shop there but never signed any petition or pledge.  Regardless, the fact that the retailer’s sales have dropped in every quarter since the announcement can’t be simple coincidence.  Apparently, now, a year later, officials are starting to admit it.

Target’s biggest worry?  Those who figured out they never needed Target in the first place, and discovered online shopping at Amazon.  Not sure there’s a blog post correction that can fix that.

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This article was originally posted at The Family Foundation blog.