Passport to a Brave New World

    In a recent post, I wrote about how the Obama campaign has been touting the strides it has made on behalf of the "transgendered", the "T" in LGBT.  One such stride dates back to June 2010, and receives not one, but two mentions on the LGBT page of the campaign website under the heading "Trans Equality" [emphasis mine]:

• Ended the Social Security Administration’s gender “no-match” letters and allowed for true gender passports
• Ensured that transgender Americans can receive true gender passports without surgery

    It is unclear why this accomplishment is listed twice.  But even though the repetition would seem to indicate its level of significance, at the time the White House ignored this development.  There's no press release or statement about it on the White House website in June 2010 or since.  Even when President Obama addressed an LGBT Pride Month reception in the East Room at the White House on June 22, 2010, just 13 days after the State Department announced the rule change in a "Media Note," he made no mention of the new passport rule.  However, the change was reported more heavily in the media than the SSA's dropping of gender "no-match" letters that I noted in my previous post.  Time and CNN, for example, both covered this story.  So why the initial soft-sell from the administration?
    I believe it is part of an overall strategy (though not an organized conspiracy) to move the country leftward on social issues.  Conservatives and Christians must recognize that this slow but relentless push for amorality is not a slippery slope, but a carefully planned and staked out rainbow path to virtually complete sexual license.  Pioneers like Gore Vidal (as Albert Mohler wrote about the other day) are sometimes brash and confrontational, but the broader movement often follows a slow Obama-like"evolution", trudging down the path, dragging American culture and social mores behind them.  Unfortunately, the weak moral principles of much of American society and even American churches often do not even require dragging.  We simply lollygag back further on the path until fear of being completely left behind and labeled as intolerant haters goads us into reluctantly catching up.
    The increasing profile of transgendered issues follows President Obama's and Vice President Biden's switch on same-sex marriage.  Now that that bomb was dropped, it's time to deepen inroads in other areas.  The emphasis on the passport rule is a good example of the strategy.  The LGBTer have borrowed a page from the pro-choice handbook by couching transgender issues as "medical" matters best left to the individual and his/her doctor.  The State Department rule change says:

It is also possible to obtain a limited-validity passport if the physician’s statement shows the applicant is in the process of gender transition. No additional medical records are required. Sexual reassignment surgery is no longer a prerequisite for passport issuance.

Every type of abortion, from the earliest abortificents such as RU-486 to post-birth/partial-birth abortions, has been justified by a "health of the mother" exception.  "Health" has, of course, been expanded to cover mental, emotional, physical and any other type of "health" abortion advocates can squeeze in.  So labeling transgender as a medical/health issue says, "Hands off.  It's my body.  It's between me and my doctor."  As the faux religious compromise on the HHS insurance mandate shows, "medical" needs (birth control, abortifacients, sterilization) trump religious liberty in the Obama administration.  How long will it be before religiously affiliated institutions or even churches are barred from discriminating against the "medical" needs of the transgendered?
    While it was encouraging to see free speech and freedom of religion largely defended, even by some on the left, in the recent Chick-Fil-A dust-up, note this:  Chick-Fil-A and many of its defenders were quick to point out that Chick-Fil-A does not discriminate against customers on the basis of "sexual orientation," and regarding employment, Chick-Fil-A is "an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in employment decisions based on any factor protected by federal, state or local law."  But how far can those laws be pushed?  When will the North American Man-Boy Love Association break through and receive acceptance from the experts in the medical community?  Will we kick and scream for a few decades before falling into line?
    And does anyone think that "LGBT" is really the end of the line?  Try Googling "LGBTQIA".  That's right, 119,000 results as of today.  "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual."  And there are still 19 more letters in the alphabet.  Brave New World indeed.  But who will be the brave?