Update on Litigation Re: Title IX (BYU and other Religious Schools)

[smac97]

October 27: Crucial new court ruling for Christian schools seals a leader’s legacy

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The potential danger this year to the religious freedom of American faith-based colleges and universities was beyond grave.

When the attorneys general of 22 states supported a lawsuit filed by 40 students asking a federal court to gut the religious exemption Congress included in Title IX, the threat was existential, many religious school officials believed. The LGTBQ+ students and the attorneys general wanted to cut off access to any federal financial assistance for students at schools that operate according to religious beliefs on gender and sexual morality.

“If we would have lost (the case), our students wouldn’t be able to get Pell Grants or loans. That’s checkmate,” said David Hoag, the new president of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities.

Yep.  Intentional checkmate.  The lawsuit was clearly intended to destroy religious schools.

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CCCU’s outgoing president, Shirley Hoogstra, reacted immediately when the suit was filed in 2021. She led her organization of 180 evangelical schools to intervene directly in the court case and to spend $1 million in defense of the religious exemption.

Money well spent, IMO.

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Brigham Young University leaders were concerned, too. Three attorneys in the school’s Office of General Counsel wrote and submitted an amicus brief to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to support their friends at the CCCU.

The BYU brief was joined by BYU-Hawaii, BYU-Idaho, Ensign College, Southern Virginia University, the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities and several other schools.

“One of the most beautiful things that we do in our work is interfaith work among people of faith,” said Steven Sandberg, assistant to the president and general counsel at BYU, during a campus Education Week presentation in August. “My friends at the CCCU are true disciples of Jesus Christ, and I know he loves them. I love working with them, and working with a group like this that was willing to stand up for things that are right is a beautiful thing to do.”

This is encouraging to me.  We have far more in common with other religious groups than we tend to think, doctrinal disagreements notwithstanding.

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On Aug. 30, the final day of Hoogstra’s decade-long tenure as CCCU president, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit of Appeals affirmed a district court’s previous dismissal of the lawsuit. The religious exemption in Title IX was safe.

Cool!  

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The lawsuit named the Department of Education as the defendant, and Hoogstra described the CCCU board’s decision to intervene in the case as courageous. She said her leadership on the issue was rooted in her belief that the Department of Education would defend the law supporting the religious exemption but would not fully represent the religious schools’ side.

“We knew that the Title IX exemption is the cornerstone of our ability to live our religious mission,” she told the Deseret News. “So our membership invested $1 million in order to make sure that the historical (court) record shows that Christian higher education enables all students, including LGBTQ students, to have a great education without harassment, without bullying, and that record should be made in this legal case.”

Yeah, I don't really trust the federal government, particularly its many embedded and ideological apparatchiks, to defend codified laws and decisional authorities which protect religious liberty.  We religionists have to look to ourselves to protect it.

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Why did the LGBTQ+ students ask the courts to strike down the religious exemption?

Congress included a religious exemption in Title IX, which is a federal law passed in 1972 that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs and activities that receive federal funding.

“That religious exemption allows us to continue practicing our faith free from interference by government regulators, in the context of Title IX enforcement, if the application of Title IX is not consistent with our religious terms and if we are controlled by a religious organization,” said David Andersen, university counsel at BYU.

The students who sued argued, according to the 9th Circuit Court’s opinion, that Title IX’s religious exemption:

• Establishes a religion in violation of the First Amendment.
• Violates the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment.

A judge in the U.S. District Court of Oregon dismissed those claims in February 2023, but the students appealed.

What did BYU’s friend-of-the-court brief say?

That’s when Sandberg, Andersen and a third BYU attorney, Madelyn Blanchard, wrote the amicus, or friend-of-the-court brief to support CCCU’s position.

CCCU argued that Congress, in creating the Title IX law, was allowed to rely on the First Amendment to adopt the religious exemption, something it has done repeatedly and that the courts have upheld across decades.

BYU’s brief made three arguments, according to a briefing Andersen and Sandberg gave this summer during BYU Education Week:

• One, religious institutions play a critical role in higher education that benefits the United States and the world.
• Two, religious schools shouldn’t have to choose between allowing their students to accept federal funds to attend school and practicing their religion. “That’s a false dichotomy,” Andersen said, “and the Supreme Court over and over has said religious individuals and organizations shouldn’t be forced to make that decision. The First Amendment protects you from having to make that decision.”
• Three, statistics show that students who identify as LGBTQ+ and remain religiously active have better mental health and financial outcomes if they attend religious institutions.

“We wanted to get that in front of the court and share that evidence and show why the religious exemption is so critical to what we do,” Andersen said.

Andersen said BYU does not discriminate on the basis of sex.

“We’ve taken the position that the term sex does not include sexual orientation or gender identity,” he said. “We all the time are facing issues where we’re trying to promote nondiscrimination based on sex.”

"{T}he term sex does not include sexual orientation or gender identity."

Yep.  Arguments to the contrary are pretty bad, and wholly disconnected from biological fact.

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The 9th Circuit Court’s ruling

The 9th Circuit panel upheld the Oregon district court judge’s dismissal of the lawsuit.

“This case addresses, among other issues, the question of whether Congress’s attempt to balance the important interests of religious freedom and gender-based equality violated the Constitution,” the panel wrote in its opinion. “Because we hold that Congress did not exceed its constitutional boundaries, we affirm (the district court ruling).”

The judges said the federal funding to religious schools through the Title IX exemption does not establish a religion.

“We ... hold that, on the merits, the Title IX exemption does not violate the Establishment Clause,” they wrote, adding later, “Title IX’s religious exemption does not violate the Fifth Amendment’s Equal Protection guarantee.”

"{T}he Title IX {religious} exemption does not violate the Establishment Clause ... {or} the Fifth Amendment’s Equal Protection guarantee."

Beautiful.  Wonderful.  This precedent will, I hope, hold for a long time, and will be a strong bulwark against threats to religious liberty in the United States.

And it looks like the partnership between BYU and CCCU will continue in the future.  From today: New president of Christian college coalition will continue to work with BYU, Latter-day Saints

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This week, the Deseret News reported about a court ruling for religious colleges and universities that included some high-level joint efforts by evangelicals and Latter-day Saints.

The decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals protected federal funding to students at religious schools, a win for the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, which spent $1 million to defend it, and for Brigham Young University’s general counsel’s office, which wrote a friend-of-the-court brief in support of CCCU.

The Deseret News story said the victory was considered the linchpin in the legacy of the CCCU’s freshly retired leader, Shirley Hoogstra.

There is more to the story.

The CCCU’s new president said he will continue the decade-long association with BYU and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

David Hoag, the incoming president, said he values the relationships Hoogstra cultivated with senior Latter-day Saint leaders and the church commissioner of education, Elder Clark G. Gilbert, a General Authority Seventy.

Hoag specifically pointed to the Latter-day Saint model of the Church Educational System, with its overarching board of education leading six institutions — BYU, BYU-Idaho, BYU-Pathway Worldwide, BYU-Hawaii, Ensign College and Seminaries & Institutes.

Hoag said that model could be a boon for evangelical colleges and universities that might band together similarly as like-minded institutions. Not only would it provide cost efficiency at a time when rising prices is making private school tuition more challenging for parents and students, but the CES system also makes it easier to reach the Department of Education’s thresholds for Title IX protections for religious schools, since one factor is demonstrating that a school is controlled by a religious organization.

Good to hear.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

30 minutes ago, smac97 said:

The lawsuit was clearly intended to destroy religious schools.

Only if they didn’t comply.  I think preference would be compliance as that would eventually likely change hearts and minds as the presence of LGBTQ+ open relationships on campus would lead to normalizing them for the students if they weren’t already, which meant the next generation of leaders would be less likely to see such as against God’s commands.

Actual destruction of the schools and kids being forced to attend elsewhere when they would have preferred a Christian school would likely lead to further entrenchment and resentment and slower change of hearts.

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My friends at the CCCU are true disciples of Jesus Christ, and I know he loves them. I love working with them, and working with a group like this that was willing to stand up for things that are right is a beautiful thing to do.”

I am glad to see the positive comments towards BYU and the CES leaders, but I wonder if the top leaders at CCCU feel the same as the above.

Edited November 2 by Calm

[smac97]

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

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The lawsuit was clearly intended to destroy religious schools.

Only if they didn’t comply.  

"Compliance" being . . . capitulation of religious belief.  By religious groups.  To the coercive regulatory power of the State. 

"The LGTBQ+ students and the attorneys general wanted to cut off access to any federal financial assistance for students at schools that operate according to religious beliefs on gender and sexual morality."

Not much of a choice, that.  Not in the United States.

I am not a huge fan of the Federal Government being such a massive power broker in education.  Alas, we are where we are.

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

I think preference would be compliance as that would eventually likely change hearts and minds as the presence of LGBTQ+ open relationships on campus would lead to normalizing them for the students if they weren’t already, which meant the next generation of leaders would be less likely to see such as against God’s commands.

"{H}earts and minds" are changed through persuasion, not coercion.

I don't see such a change coming in the Church, and I think there are plenty of other religious groups who will likewise not abandon their doctrines so as to be in "compliance" with what the State wants them to believe.

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

I am glad to see the positive comments towards BYU and the CES leaders, but I wonder if the top leaders at CCCU feel the same as the above.

Apparently some of them do:

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The CCCU’s new president said he will continue the decade-long association with BYU and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

David Hoag, the incoming president, said he values the relationships Hoogstra cultivated with senior Latter-day Saint leaders and the church commissioner of education, Elder Clark G. Gilbert, a General Authority Seventy.

Hoag specifically pointed to the Latter-day Saint model of the Church Educational System, with its overarching board of education leading six institutions — BYU, BYU-Idaho, BYU-Pathway Worldwide, BYU-Hawaii, Ensign College and Seminaries & Institutes.

Hoag said that model could be a boon for evangelical colleges and universities that might band together similarly as like-minded institutions. Not only would it provide cost efficiency at a time when rising prices is making private school tuition more challenging for parents and students, but the CES system also makes it easier to reach the Department of Education’s thresholds for Title IX protections for religious schools, since one factor is demonstrating that a school is controlled by a religious organization.

He indicated he will continue the CCCU’s work with Steve Sandberg, BYU’s general counsel, who with his office has been providing advice and support for legal issues.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited November 2 by smac97

[Calm]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

"{H}earts and minds" are changed through persuasion, not coercion

Also by simple exposure.  Seeing something over and over, it becomes commonplace and easy to ignore or accept.  One reason why those growing up in a racist or sexist community usually don’t see their own views that way.

This was easily seen by me in Canada among the Asian immigrant population in my kids’ schools.  The older ones who grew up in Korea or Hong Kong had very different views of Canadians than did the ones whose youth was spent in Canada.  First generation kids usually picked up a lot of prejudices from their parents though and this appeared in high school where they started separating themselves.  2nd generation kids were less likely to feel the need to limit friendships to only other Asians even when their families were highly involved in the local Asian communities.

Edited November 2 by Calm

[Calm]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Apparently some of them do:

None of which describe us as “disciples of Christ”.

[smac97]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

None of which describe us as “disciples of Christ”.

All the more potent, then, the reality that we are getting past substantial doctrinal disagreements and working together on common goals and interests.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

27 minutes ago, smac97 said:

All the more potent, then, the reality that we are getting past substantial doctrinal disagreements and working together on common goals and interests.

Thanks,

-Smac

I am not as certain as you are.  I hope so, but if they are drawing the lines privately and just accepting the alliance as expedient rather than desirable, it would be disappointing.

I know a Saint attending a Christian college and having a very hard time of it.

[smac97]

23 minutes ago, Calm said:

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All the more potent, then, the reality that we are getting past substantial doctrinal disagreements and working together on common goals and interests.

I am not as certain as you are.  I hope so, but if they are drawing the lines privately and just accepting the alliance as expedient rather than desirable, it would be disappointing.

"Expedient?"  As in bad?  Not in good faith?  As in "(of an action) convenient and practical although possibly improper or immoral"?  I'm more inclined to think that the parties here are sincere.

In many respects as pertaining to educational institutions, the Church's interests align quite well with other religious groups.  These groups continue to have substantial theological/doctrinal disagreements with each other, and there is nary a hint of movement toward doctrinal/organizational ecumenicalism. 

What we are seeing, I think, is ecumenicalism as to generalized notions of religious liberty, particularly in relation to educational institutions.  Our interests align here, despite having some disagreements as to other matters.

The Church also has a long track record of working with various religious and humanitarian organizations on many different humanitarian projects.  Our interests align here, despite having some disagreements as to other matters.

The Church has also worked with the NAACP and the United Negro College Fund on humanitarian initiatives to benefit the Black community.  Our interests align here, despite having some disagreements as to other matters.

And so on.

23 minutes ago, Calm said:

I know a Saint attending a Christian college and having a very hard time of it.

I suspect some (many?) of the non-Latter-day Saints that attend BYU, BYU-I, etc., struggle with the culture, with the ingroup/outgroup prejudices/mistreatments, etc.  We all have room for improvement here.

Meanwhile, however, I am glad to see the Church and other religious groups coming together on good common causes.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited November 3 by smac97

[MiserereNobis]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

"{H}earts and minds" are changed through persuasion, not coercion.

Do you apply this principle to the civil rights movement and the removal of Jim Crow laws?

In other words, do you think the integration of schools and society, forced by federal coercion, did not ultimately persuade some people to be less racist?

There is the idea that if people are exposed to those considered "other," they will eventually realize that the "other" is a human, too, and will change their perceptions of them. Coerced exposure, as required by the various civil rights laws, might have had this effect on some?

[bluebell]

6 hours ago, Calm said:

 

Actual destruction of the schools and kids being forced to attend elsewhere when they would have preferred a Christian school would likely lead to further entrenchment and resentment and slower change of hearts.

 

I think you are right logically, but I don't know that we humans often operate on this level of logic. 

Like how when a felon has a job and a support system, they are statistically much less likely to return to a life of crime, yet employers and citizens routinely discriminate against felons when hiring and even in housing, regardless of what the crime was.  

Humans tend to be punitive and reactionary against people who do or believe things we don't like or find morally objectionable, even if it's actually against our best interests.

[longview]

Title IX is being abused by social engineers to force women to share locker rooms with biological males and to risk their health and safety in competition with them. Title IX was originally crafted to provide opportunities for women to have "a league of their own". To prioritize this kind of subversion is being very ANTI women.

Witness what occurred in the Paris Olympics women's boxing matches. Angela Carini of Italy was forced to quit her match only 46 seconds into the bout. She had to, otherwise she would have been killed. And that deadly 80 miles per hour volley ball spiker Blaire Fleming is a danger to all the other teams. See here

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The forfeitures follow Brooke Slusser, Fleming’s teammate, who just last month joined former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines and several other female athletes in suing the NCAA over its policies regarding transgender athletes that they claim compromise the fairness and integrity of women’s competitive sports while also putting women at risk.
Slusser also expressed safety concerns for opponents playing against Fleming. 
“Brooke estimates that Fleming’s spikes were traveling upward of 80 mph, which was faster than she had ever seen a woman hit a volleyball,” Slusser’s complaint said, via the Cowboy State Daily.
“The girls were doing everything they could to dodge Fleming’s spikes but still could not fully protect themselves.”

 

[The Nehor]

16 minutes ago, longview said:

Title IX is being abused by social engineers to force women to share locker rooms with biological males and to risk their health and safety in competition with them. Title IX was originally crafted to provide opportunities for women to have "a league of their own". To prioritize this kind of subversion is being very ANTI women.

Witness what occurred in the Paris Olympics women's boxing matches. Angela Carini of Italy was forced to quit her match only 46 seconds into the bout. She had to, otherwise she would have been killed. And that deadly 80 miles per hour volley ball spiker Blaire Fleming is a danger to all the other teams. See here

 

Imane Khelif who Carini fought is a cis woman despite the social media conspiracies about her somehow being transgender. She wouldn’t have been killed. She stopped the match to have her headgear checked. Also worth noting that Imane Khelif has been defeated in matches by other cis women. This is conspiracy drivel driven by transphobes. They couldn’t find a good enough story so they made one up. They picked a target and made up lies about her. So throw misogyny onto the pile too. Truly terrible people you seem to have aligned yourself with.

Blaire Fleming is not a danger. She isn’t even the top rated player on her own team. She has played for years rather unremarkably (though she is good). Then a teammate outed her as transgender and now there are stories about her hitting a ball at 80 mph and other amazing feats. It is amazing how just being outed as transgender changed her from being an upper tier but largely unremarkable player into someone who has broken women’s sports. It is almost as if there is a hateful agenda rewriting the story.

And gotta love the perpetual locker room fear. It is always about the locker rooms. I am beginning to suspect this is all projection. People really think there are people transitioning primarily to perv on people. The realization that there are much easier ways to do this never occurs to them. They aren’t very bright are they?

[sunstoned]

I read the article, but I'm still unclear about the student's motivation for bringing the lawsuit.  But then again, I was never the sharpest tool in the shed.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, smac97 said:

Expedient?"  As in bad?  Not in good faith?  As in "(of an action) convenient and practical although possibly improper or immoral"?  I'm more inclined to think that the parties here are sincere.

No, “expedient” as in convenient and practical but not necessarily desirable on all levels because in other ways they might view us as rivals because of our missionary work/sheep stealing from their POV or worse, sending people to hell by teaching false doctrines.

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I suspect some (many?) of the non-Latter-day Saints that attend BYU, BYU-I, etc., struggle with the culture, with the ingroup/outgroup prejudices/mistreatments, etc.  We all have room for improvement here.

I sincerely hope that BYU students mocking the Trinity or other religious beliefs, which would be the parallel of this individual’s experience at a Christian college, are rare at BYU.

I am not making the claim all Saints who attend Christian colleges are treated this way.

Edited November 3 by Calm

[Calm]

3 hours ago, longview said:

And that deadly 80 miles per hour volley ball spiker Blaire Fleming

If it’s deadly to women due to head injury, isn’t it deadly to men as well?  This occurred to me in reading the comments about this.  I was just watching a podcast dealing with dementia and one of the risks is head trauma and not just the knock out concussion type, but even stuff like headbutting in soccer.  The younger it happens, the worse the effect may be. As someone who cracked her skull a couple of times according to Mom climbing out of my crib plus having my head smash the dashboard at 60 miles an hour probably when I was 13, I am quite sensitive about this issue.  So grateful my husband never got to play football like he wanted and my son decided he didn’t like soccer and my grandson was not interested in football.

[The Nehor]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

If it’s deadly to women due to head injury, isn’t it deadly to men as well?  This occurred to me in reading the comments about this.  I was just watching a podcast dealing with dementia and one of the risks is head trauma and not just the knock out concussion type, but even stuff like headbutting in soccer.  The younger it happens, the worse the effect may be. As someone who cracked her skull a couple of times according to Mom climbing out of my crib plus having my head smash the dashboard at 60 miles an hour probably when I was 13, I am quite sensitive about this issue.  So grateful my husband never got to play football like he wanted and my son decided he didn’t like soccer and my grandson was not interested in football.

Women’s heads are softer or something. Look, these ludicrous assertions make much more sense if you just don’t think about them at all.

[webbles]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

If it’s deadly to women due to head injury, isn’t it deadly to men as well?  This occurred to me in reading the comments about this.  I was just watching a podcast dealing with dementia and one of the risks is head trauma and not just the knock out concussion type, but even stuff like headbutting in soccer.  The younger it happens, the worse the effect may be. As someone who cracked her skull a couple of times according to Mom climbing out of my crib plus having my head smash the dashboard at 60 miles an hour probably when I was 13, I am quite sensitive about this issue.  So grateful my husband never got to play football like he wanted and my son decided he didn’t like soccer and my grandson was not interested in football.

80 mph spike is not normal for men or women.  The fastest recorded spike is a little over 80 mph ( https://www.sportsrec.com/493024-what-is-the-speed-of-a-volleyball.html ).  for women, it is 70 mph ( https://olympics.com/en/news/volleyball-most-asked-questions-womens-volleyball ).

I highly doubt Fleming is hitting 80 mph.

[Tacenda]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

If it’s deadly to women due to head injury, isn’t it deadly to men as well?  This occurred to me in reading the comments about this.  I was just watching a podcast dealing with dementia and one of the risks is head trauma and not just the knock out concussion type, but even stuff like headbutting in soccer.  The younger it happens, the worse the effect may be. As someone who cracked her skull a couple of times according to Mom climbing out of my crib plus having my head smash the dashboard at 60 miles an hour probably when I was 13, I am quite sensitive about this issue.  So grateful my husband never got to play football like he wanted and my son decided he didn’t like soccer and my grandson was not interested in football.

When watching football I think I'm watching human sacrifice. These players sacrificing their brains and bodies for a sport that draws millions of viewers. It reminded me of a tour at Chichen Itza Mexico years ago where the guide mentioned that in the particular sport on a massive field they were decapitated during play. I think of it while watching football. Now I'll add soccer to the list. I hope they figure out a way to prevent these atrocities on young brains. And the college aged players and older. I knew someone in high school that dated a BYU football player who has a form of dementia stemmed from his days in football. 

Edited November 3 by Tacenda

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, webbles said:

80 mph spike is not normal for men or women.  The fastest recorded spike is a little over 80 mph ( https://www.sportsrec.com/493024-what-is-the-speed-of-a-volleyball.html ).  for women, it is 70 mph ( https://olympics.com/en/news/volleyball-most-asked-questions-womens-volleyball ).

I highly doubt Fleming is hitting 80 mph.

Well a transphobe said she did so it must be true. I am sure this person broke out the measuring equipment and checked and weren’t just making things up. Transphobes are very careful about their accusations and don’t just scream incoherently about trans people every time they don’t think a woman looks feminine enough.

*looks at ostensibly grown adults screaming about young girls who don’t look feminine enough to them somehow being transgender at youth soccer games*

Oh……..OH!!!! Turns out they just hate women. I am shocked. Seriously, this is my shocked face. It just looks like my regular face.

Also Fleming has been on HRT (hormone replacement therapy) for years. It is unlikely she would be breaking spike speed records for any gender with her upper body strength.

[california boy]

Oh YEAH!  Let's all celebrate.  These schools can continue to embrace their prejudices against LGBT community by excluding them legally.  Because everyone knows if you are LGBT, you don't need religion or God in your life.  And after all the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about building walls.  

Now, how can we make those walls even stronger.  How about throwing in some transphobic stories.  They don't have to be factual, just something scary.  See, this story proves there are real reasons why we need to keep LGBT out of our schools.  If some manage to slip in, let's not let them date or hold hands or omgosh kiss.  Only straight students can do that.  It is our school and we want those kind of people kept in the shadows.

Congratulations on your victory.  You deserved that.  I am sure Christ looks at this as a complete victory as well given how much he spoke out against anything related to same sex attraction.

[smac97]

40 minutes ago, california boy said:

Oh YEAH!  Let's all celebrate.  These schools can continue to embrace their prejudices against LGBT community by excluding them legally.  

The Church is not prejudiced against LGBT folks, nor are we excluding them, legally or otherwise.

Thanks,

-Smac

[The Nehor]

19 hours ago, smac97 said:

The Church is not prejudiced against LGBT folks, nor are we excluding them, legally or otherwise.

Ummm……yeah……..no…….not accurate. Actually the church recently added an annotation for transgender people placing them in the same category as people who abuse children, practice incest, and embezzle money. Hooray for inclusiveness!!!!

[bluebell]

36 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Ummm……yeah……..no…….not accurate. Actually the church recently added an annotation for transgender people placing them in the same category as people who abuse children, practice incest, and embezzle money. Hooray for inclusiveness!!!!

Is his hyperbole or do you sincerely think that the church views them the same as those who practice incest?

[Dario_M]

Why is there yet again so much criticism about my beloved LDS community? Oh my. 💫 I agree with what smac just have said. 

Edited November 4 by Dario_M

[smac97]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

The Church is not prejudiced against LGBT folks, nor are we excluding them, legally or otherwise.

Ummm……yeah……..no…….not accurate.

Quite accurate.

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Actually the church recently added an annotation for transgender people placing them in the same category as people who abuse children, practice incest, and embezzle money. Hooray for inclusiveness!!!!

The Church needs to regulate behaviors in its facilities, meetings, etc.  Biological males in women's spaces does not work.

Moreover, the restrictions noted here are based on biology, not subjective perceptions of self, and they apply to everyone. 

Thanks,

-Smac