Recently, America’s foolish president issued a foolish Transgender Day of Visibility Proclamation in which he pledged support for a bill that will jeopardize First Amendment religious free exercise and speech protections for conservative Americans. In his Proclamation, Biden also called for all Americans to adopt his controversial beliefs on cross-sex impersonation. Once again Biden—the self-identifying unity president—has intensified division.

Ordinary Americans—as opposed to those who make millions by selling political influence—fret about how they will pay for groceries and gas. They worry about fentanyl and criminals pouring over the southern border and about illegal immigrants being dumped by the government in their cities in the dark of night.

What keeps Joe Biden awake in the afternoon? Does he worry about the 56,000 synthetic opioid—mostly fentanyl—deaths in 2020? Or about the 900,000 humans killed in the womb annually? Do the 21,000 murders in 2020 cause him sleepless afternoons? Not so much. It appears from his Proclamation that what troubles Biden is what he calls “the epidemic of violence” against cross-dressers. That would be about 50 people killed in 2021, many of whom were victims of domestic violence—not anti-“trans” hate crimes. While every murder is a tragedy, 50 deaths does not an epidemic of violence make.

The name “Transgender Day of Visibility,” is intended to convey the fiction that on all other days, cross-sex impersonators are invisible. This, my friends, is what is called “gaslighting.” As Chastity “Chaz” Bono, Jaron Bloshinksy (“Jazz Jennings”), Roderick “LaVerne” Cox, Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner, Richard “Rachel” Levine, Bradley “Chelsea” Manning, Ellen “Elliot” Page, Gavin “Laurel” Hubbard, William “Lia” Thomas, Larry “Lana” Wachowski, Andy “Lilly” Wachowski, and scores of drag queens and teens masquerade as the sex they aren’t, invading bathrooms where they don’t belong, leftists claim “transgender” persons are invisible.

In his Royal Proclamation last week, Biden declared his enthusiastic support for the ruinous anti-constitutional Equality Act. The Equality Act has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with advancing the alchemical superstition about the alleged ability of humans to become the opposite sex through desire, cross-dressing, hormone-doping, and mutilating cosmetic surgery.

In order to accomplish the end goal of eradicating all public recognition of sex differences, “trans”-cultists must eradicate the ability of free people to speak freely their beliefs about “gender” and sex.

Lawmakers in thrall to or terrified by the “trans”-cult stripped the Equality Act of religious protections. Numerous legal scholars have warned that the passage of the Equality Act poses the most significant threat to constitutional protections of the free exercise of religion ever in America’s history.

Mary Hasson, graduate of Notre Dame Law School and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., testified about this threat at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing:

The Equality Act threatens serious harm to religious believers and religious organizations. … The Equality Act attacks First Amendment rights as well, inserting language that attempts to tip the scales against believers if they assert claims under the First Amendment or Equal Protection.

The Equality Act … expand[s] “public accommodations” to permit discrimination claims wherever Americans “gather,” even virtually. The result? Churches, synagogues, temples, faith-based schools, soup kitchens, and shelters for battered women will be subject to government coercion pressuring them to compromise their religious beliefs or risk endless litigation.

Recipients of federal funds, including houses of worship, religious schools and other faith-based organizations are litigation targets under the Equality Act as well—even for something as simple as maintaining sex-segregated bathrooms. This means a Muslim food bank, Catholic homeless shelter, or Christian center for female survivors of domestic violence will be punished for doing good while following their religious teachings.

Similarly, any private school that enrolls students who receive Pell grants or who participate in school lunch programs are subject to the Equality Act’s sex discrimination provisions. Urban Catholic schools, for example, which provide life-changing education to low-income children would face an untenable choice: violate their deeply held religious beliefs about human nature, sexual difference, and marriage or close their doors to students who rely on federal help. Adoption and foster care programs run by religious believers who desire to serve the most vulnerable are also at risk.

Biden said one true thing in his Royal Proclamation. He said that those who identify as “transgender” are “made in the image of God and deserving of dignity, respect, and support.” Every human is created in the image of God, but that image is marred by our sinful desires and acts. Humans deserve respect by virtue of being humans—despite the sinful things we desire and do.

One’s dignity—the state or quality of being worthy of honor—is undermined by sinful acts like cross-dressing and mutilating one’s God-created, healthy body.

“Trans”-identifying persons do deserve support, but life and truth-affirming support should never include participating in a delusion or facilitating artificially induced cessation of natural biological processes and surgical mutilation of healthy, properly functioning parts of sexual anatomy.

When promoting false beliefs about “gender identity,” the left talks a lot about “authenticity” without providing their definition—or redefinition—of the term. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “authentic” as “conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, and belief.” As such, a man seeking to pass as a woman is the antithesis of authenticity, and celebrating cross-sex-passing robs men and women of dignity.

Leftists have also redefined “identity.” Homosexual activists first transformed the concept of “identity,” and then seeing how effective a propaganda tool the revised concept of identity was, cross-sex impersonators culturally appropriated it.

Homo-activists sought to recast identity as something intrinsically inviolable, immutable, and good. They sought to refashion identity in such a way as to make it culturally taboo to make judgments about any constituent feature of identity. They re-imagined identity in such a way as to move homoeroticism from the category of phenomena about which humans can legitimately make moral distinctions to one about which society is forbidden to make judgments.

Identity in its former incarnation was merely a way of describing someone. Identity when applied to individual persons denoted the aggregate of phenomena constituting, associated with, experienced and affirmed by individuals. Identity was “the set of behavioral and personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group.”

Identity was not conceived as some intrinsically moral thing, because identity could refer to either objective, non-behavioral, morally neutral conditions (e.g., height or skin color) or to subjective feelings, beliefs, and volitional acts that could be good or bad, right or wrong. Prior to the new and subversive conceptualization of identity, there existed no absolute cultural prohibition of judging the diverse elements that constitute identity.

By conflating all the phenomena that can constitute identity, “progressives” demanded that society should no more make judgments about feelings and volitional acts than they should about skin color.

In short, this is what “progressives” think about identity (except when it comes to those whose identity is found in Christ):

• All phenomena that make up identity are off-limits to moral judgment.
• Cross-sex impersonation is part of identity.
• Therefore, cross-sex impersonation is immune from moral judgment.

But if all conditions constituted by powerful, persistent, unchosen desires and the behaviors impelled by such feelings are part of this new and culturally destructive understanding of identity and, therefore, immune from moral judgment, then zoophilila/bestiality, “minor-attraction,” “Genetic Sexual Attraction,” and polyamory/promiscuity are immune from moral judgment.

Biden announced that “We celebrate the activism and determination that have fueled the fight for transgender equality.” Presumably, he is using the royal “we” since not all Americans celebrate “trans” activism, which is destroying all respect for and public recognition of sex differences. No more biologically based clubs for boys and girls, no more single sex bathrooms, no more girls’ sports.

Equality means to treat like things alike. As such, “trans”-cultists and their collaborators like Biden are promoting anti-equality. They are demanding that unlike things—that is men and women—be treated as if they’re alike in every context, including contexts in which sex differences matter.

When Biden refers to the “discrimination that the transgender community continues to face across our Nation and around the world,” he is using the word “discrimination” to describe moral beliefs about cross-dressing and mutilating cosmetic procedures with which he disagrees. If moral disapproval of ideas or volitional acts constitutes discrimination, then Biden’s disapproval of the beliefs of Christians on “gender” and sex as well as the acts impelled by those beliefs constitutes discrimination.

Applying consistently leftist redefinitions of authenticity, identity, and discrimination would mean that no one could express disapproval of any beliefs, desires, or volitional acts. These redefinitions pave the broad way to moral anarchy.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to our U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth to urge them to oppose the federal Equality Act (H.R. 5) which seeks to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections for an individual’s perceived sex, “sexual orientation,” or “gender identity.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Biden-the-Unity-President-Divides-Again.mp3

For those who have watched Fox News over the years, it is no surprise that they announced the hiring of Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner with great fanfare and hype. In the words of CEO Suzanne Scott, “Caitlyn’s story is an inspiration to us all. She is a trailblazer in the LGBTQ+ community and her illustrious career spans a variety of fields that will be a tremendous asset for our audience.”

Perhaps these words could be used as an epitaph on Fox’s legacy? Mark the day carefully.

All the talking points are in order in Scott’s short, effusive statement: Jenner’s transition from Bruce to Caitlyn is “an inspiration to us all.” This famous biological male is “she.” And LGBTQ+ activism is something to celebrate. You go, girl!

Surely this is the death knell for Fox, even if it remains large and influential for decades to come. It has lost its voice and sold its soul. And with what moral authority can Fox call on Jenner to speak against “Lia” Thomas competing against women? Is this Fox’s new message? “Transitioning is fine and sex and gender are whatever you perceive them to be. Just play fair!”

But, to repeat, this should come as no surprise to those who have watched Fox over the years. Although some of the biggest names on the station were Catholic (such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity), it was clear that O’Reilly’s views were hardly Bible-based.

The same with Megyn Kelly and others, whose names I mention not to demonize them but simply to say, “They are hardly basing their worldview on the Scriptures.”

As for Hannity, as much as he identifies proudly as a Christian, he had no trouble having Jenner on as a guest last year, not to criticize him but to interview him as a California gubernatorial candidate.

To quote Jenner’s words during the interview, “For me as a trans woman, I think role models are extremely important for young people.”

What? Jenner a role model for young people?

The transitioning of young people is nothing less than child abuse. (More on this in a moment.) And Hannity didn’t object?

Jenner continued, “Trans issues people struggle with, big time. Our suicide rate is nine times higher than the general public. And for me to be a role model for them, to be out there, I am running for governor of the state of California. Who would have ever thunk that? We’ve never even had a woman governor.”

So Jenner, already crowned “Woman of the Year” by Glamour, would be California’s first “woman governor.”

The cat has long been out of the bag when it comes to Fox’s core values.

In fact, without mentioning specific names here, a friend of mine who is a publicity agent told me a few years ago that, while he wanted to land me an interview on one of the biggest shows on Fox, it would be hard for him to get past some of the show’s gay producers.

In short, just because Fox was pro-Trump doesn’t mean Fox was (and is) pro-Bible (as if support for Trump equated with support for the Bible).

And just because Fox is more conservative politically and fiscally than CNN or MSNBC doesn’t mean that Fox is conservative morally or spiritually.

But again, this should not come as a surprise.

So, if you want biblically based views, go to people who base their lives on the Word of God. If you want news that is more conservative on some issues than the left-leaning networks, go to Fox (and some others). But by all means, do not confuse the two, especially at a time when trans activism threatens to undermine the very nature of male and female, not to mention threatens women’s sports and even our fundamental freedoms of speech.

Last week, I was talking with a well-known conservative media figure who told me that, above all, we must undercut the agenda of the left, and that meant working together with gays like Dave Rubin, even though my colleague personally rejected same-sex “marriage.”

In a similar spirit, a friend of mine who is an Orthodox rabbi had Jenner speak at one of his gatherings because Jenner is such a strong ally of Israel.

And what of Trump having Peter Thiel speak for him at the Republican National Convention, despite Thiel being openly and proudly gay?

The truth be told, I recently interviewed a female-to-male trans person to unite our voices in speaking out against the transitioning of children, which we both agree is child abuse.

But in our case, we began the show by making categorical statements about our differences. We laid that out clearly so there could be no doubt or question as to where we each stood. (Watch here when you can. The interview is a real eye-opener.)

This is in stark contrast with Fox’s celebratory embrace of Jenner as an iconic trailblazer in the LGBTQ+ community.

Ironically, despite Fox’s incessant (and often well-placed) criticisms of President Biden and his administration, Fox made its unfortunate announcement on the same day that the Biden administration announced its aggressive support for radical trans activism – beginning with the transitioning of children.

Mark the day.

(For my relevant 5-minute video, “What Does It Mean to Be a Conservative,” click here.)

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

America was very far from perfect in the early 1960s. In much of the nation segregation was the law of the land and women certainly had far less opportunities than men, just to mention two of society’s inequities. And I’m quite aware the first issue of Playboy, featuring Marilyn Monroe in the nude, was published in 1953. At the same time, there’s no denying that America back then was a far more innocent, family friendly country than it is today.

And so, 55 years ago, when we sat together and watched Leave It to Beaver, we didn’t say to ourselves, “How corny! There’s not a family in the nation like the Cleavers.” Instead, it was as normal to us as it was entertaining.

In a word, Americans in the late-1950s to early-1960s enjoyed watching Father Knows Best and The Andy Griffith Show. Today we enjoy watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Secret Diary of a Call Girl. (For the record, in contrast with Bruce-Caitlyn Jenner, the patriarch of the Kardashian family, Robert Young, who played the father on Father Knows Best, was never crowned “woman of the year.”)

In the late-50s to early-60s, Annette Funicello was a popular, young female star singing songs like “Pineapple Princes.” Today it’s Miley Cyrus, singing songs like “Wrecking Ball” – in the nude, riding a wrecking ball, on her music video.

Take an old show like Dennis the Menace, which aired from 1959-1963, and think of some of the things he got in trouble for. (After all, he was called a “menace,” right?) In the first episode, “Dennis successfully eludes a babysitter (whom he has never met) and sneaks out of the house and goes to a cowboy movie that his parents also go to while [his friend] Joey is left with the babysitter, pretending to be Dennis.” In the next episode, “Dennis and [his closest friend] Tommy replace a fallen street signpost but fail to notice they’ve put it up with the street names facing in the wrong direction.” Oh, what a menace!

Today, we would be following Dennis’s journey on reality TV, waiting for him to get out of the juvenile detention center after robbing an elderly man in broad daylight. Will Dennis ever change, or will he end up dead before his eighteenth birthday? And rather than Dennis having that old scruffy hairdo with that shock of blond locks always out of place he would be sporting a purple Mohawk, wearing earrings, an eyebrow ring, a lip ring, and adorned with tattoos galore. (If you think I’m exaggerating, watch some clips from Beyond Scared Straight.)

Or consider that on I Love Lucy, Lucy and her husband slept in separate beds. Could you imagine today’s version, where the show would feature partial nudity (after all, it’s a family show, so there has to be some modesty), mild profanity, constant sexual innuendos, and kids who do not show the slightest respect to their parents?

Or compare Andy Griffith to Stalker or Hannibal, or compare Lawrence Welk to the annual MTV Music Awards. Or watch an old Elvis movie where he shakes his hips – that was so controversial – and compare that to the latest crotch-grabbing, bootie shaking music video (those have been around for quite some time now). And be sure to compare the lyrics too!

If you’re a young person reading this and you’re not familiar with the older shows, take a few minutes to watch some of the episodes. They’re readily available on YouTube, and you’ll be amazed by what you see.

Watch an episode of Lassie, then switch over to American Horror Story, or compare West Side Story to Natural Born Killers. Then go back to The Flintstones cartoon show – remember, we would watch this together as a family – and compare it to today’s animated shows like South Park or Adult Swim. (By the way, if you say, “I’d rather pass on watching these newer shows,” you won’t get an argument from me.)

Recently, Matthew Walther, a national correspondent for The Week, wrote, “I used to watch Game of Thrones. Then I realized it was endangering my immortal soul.”

He came to this conclusion six-years (and six-seasons) late, but a recent episode jarred him into reality. “My goodness,” he thought to himself. “I’ve just spent an hour watching to see if a guy who raped a teenage girl at bow-and-arrow point is going to be eaten alive by the animals he has spent the last few seasons subjecting to forms of cruelty that make Michael Vick look like a PETA ambassador or beaten to death in the freezing cold by his victim’s half-brother. Thank goodness the guy who set his terminally ill daughter on fire in a pyromantic oblation to a heathen god at the behest of a witch who never seems to wear any clothes is not around to prevent justice from being carried out here — the woman whose size makes her the frequent butt of bestiality-related jokes killed him just in time!”

And on and on his description goes, more lurid by the line. The contrast between this and Lassie is the contrast between America today and America when I was a boy. The question is: Can America be saved? Is there any way to recover some of the innocence we have lost? I say the answer is Yes, and I believe that there is a prescription for radical change laid out in the pages of Scripture itself.

That’s the subject of my new book Saving a Sick America: A Prescription for Moral and Cultural Transformation (due out in September). You can download the first chapter of this book, from which much of this article has been adapted, for free, here. You can also watch the book trailer there as well.

Things are indeed dire, but not all hope is lost. The question is: Do we sense the urgency of the hour?

Article originally posted on Townhall.com.