Response to Catholic Exchange

This whole article/article defense makes my head hurt just trying to wade through it. Not because of any conviction I feel after reading it, but from the poor science, questionable logic, and religious zealotry that is being passed off as objective journalism. As an editorial piece, which seeks to create an emotional response in favor of the mother church, this is pretty well written.

I contend, however, that once it departs from emotion it runs into trouble on Biblical as well as scientific grounds, and because the logic is flawed at key points. I am addressing just the theological issues I see as most pressing. The science has been addressed quite sufficiently, and the logic flaws are too much for this response.
At the outset, let me address the issue of titles and title usage to the author and the editor. Ms Kochan and Ms O’Leary, in my research into your backgrounds and positions, I have seen that you both identify as Catholic Apologists and journalists in the vast majority of the public record. That there is precious little in the way of biographical information, or professional credentialing is cause for concern, but there is a lot to be said from honest self education, so I will accept your self-identification as such. That is what you would want me to do, is it not?
In the same way, I and others like me who were assigned male gender at birth but have always known we were women, identify ourselves as transgender women (and the man who is pregnant identifies himself as a man). You do not like that, and you would prefer to call me a misguided, or surgically mutilated man, and the gentleman in Oregon a woman, but you have to know that there are also many who object to your calling yourselves journalists, they would rather call you political hacks, religious bigots and drivel merchants.
Do you think they have the right to call you those things? No, they do not. No more than you have a right to disrespectfully address us in the way you have in this series of articles/defenses. Changing the words does not change the issue. Showing respect is not a sin, but not showing respect is.
If this was an objective piece, rather than an editorial camouflaged as journalism, as the editor and as the author, you would not have felt a need to defend, quite vehemently in some cases, the veracity of the piece. To paraphrase the Bard, “The ladies doth protest too much, Methinks.”

Our Lord made no response in His own defense at any point in his life. In addition, he reserved his harshest rebukes, in fact His ONLY rebukes, while on earth, for the leaders of what constituted the equivalent of the church in that day. He did not push anyone away, he did not deny anyone comfort, he did not speak condemnation to anyone save the religious leaders.

I say this as a lead in to my point…it seems clear to me that the underlying premise to this article is the theological belief that there is a basic immorality in transgender people that makes them unclean and necessitates your efforts to get us to clean up our act or we can never come to Jesus. The truth is, I do not need to clean up my act and come to Jesus. I already came to Him, and He is cleaning up my act as a result, more some days than on others, but that is my fault. He is doing this in the order he sees most fitting, and he has not said anything about my gender change yet. IF that IS something on His list, then there are currently more important things that He is working on, and we have not gotten around to that one yet.

The part of this piece that bothers me the most is not the factual error, or the logic flaws, or the use of discredited pseudo research. It is that those who represent my Lord feel that they have to hide behind legal and scientific mumbo-jumbo. I see it in a lot of stuff the church does.

It has a name.

Hypocrisy.

Speaking the truth in love is a funny phrase, when you are using people like NARTH, Bailey, Dreger, and Lawrence for your sources. It is unfortunate that the only thing resembling scientific work you could find in support of your position is of highly questionable veracity.

I learned a long time ago to vet my sources, and make sure they don’t come back to haunt me and let me down when things get hard.

The American/western church has adopted a very bad habit. In order to keep our desire for a dominant church morality, those who call themselves our leaders have opted to frame every moral issue as a scientific or sociological issue. That is not what proclaiming the gospel is about. It is, in fact counterproductive. Jesus said, “Come unto me ALL who are weary and I will give you rest.” He did not say clean yourselves up, He did not say those of you who have been good this week, He said ALL who are weary and heavy laden. Prostitutes, come. Drug dealers, come. Junkies, Come. Gay people, Come. Transgender people, Come. Bankers, y’all must be worn the heck out, come. Priests and clergy, Come, but it is my way or the highway. AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST. Rest from having to sell yourself. Rest from having to sell drugs. Rest from whatever is wearing you down. Come ahead. We will figure it out, cause my yoke is easy, and my load is light. HE will change those who need to change in the way HE wants them to. No other man has that right to decide for me what I need to change, only Jesus.
Speaking the truth in love means being willing to tell the hurting that there is rest, in Jesus. That is the truth. It is judgment to tell those in pain they need to change anything before they come to Jesus. Maybe they don’t need to change their life like you did, because they may have junk you know nothing about that will kill them if they do it your way. IT IS GODS JOB to make those changes, and He is a whole lot better at it than you or some old white German guy. And as I read my Bible, He has reserved that task to Himself. He is patient and merciful now because He wants to give as many people as He can the opportunity to bring their burdens to Him and rest.

This is the age of grace, a time when God has ordained mercy through the cross. You cannot show mercy with a club.

It is just about time to end my response. I am not to address the remaining points, that has been done eloquently by others, and the pearls have been trampled, but you need to hear this little factoid I discovered:

2001, Dr. Bailey co-published a paper advocating abortion as an ethical means to terminate the pregnancy if the child was determined to be homosexual while still in the womb. It appears from that same paper that Dr Bailey believes that homosexuality is an evolutionary product and is inherited rather than a choice. (Parental Selection of Children’s Sexual Orientation, Aaron S. Greenberg, JD, and J. Michael Bailey, PhD Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 30, No. 4, 2001)

In the same paper, Dr. Bailey states, “playing God is a theological objection that derives its force, if any, from religious doctrine. It has no place in a secular moral and policy analysis.” It appears that in your efforts to show that the devil is at work, you embrace the devil himself. You are quoting people who think you have no place in their discussion.