By Baptist Press
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has issued an order May 13 instructing all public schools to permit transgender students to use the restrooms and locker rooms of their gender identity instead of their biological sex.
The across-the-board directive met quick protests from Southern Baptist leaders.
Ronnie Floyd, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, described the federal guidance as “an outrageous attack on our Creator Himself, human sexuality and morality, and an advancement of the attack against religious freedom.”
“Gender is not fluid. … Gender is not a human choice, but a gift from God to each of us,” Floyd said in written comments for Baptist Press, adding the directive “contributes to the continual chaos in our society.”
“This is a flagrant and despicable attack on not just the present generation, but also the next generation,” Floyd said. “Every Christian in America or anyone who has any conviction about morality needs to rise up and say, ‘Enough is Enough!’ ”
Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, described “the decree from the Obama Administration [as] a stunning misuse of power.”
“Children are not pawns of the state, to experiment with on behalf of the latest fashionable ‘right side of history’ cause,” Moore said in a written statement.
Frank S. Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee, called the directive “an obvious attempt to obviate the will of the people to accommodate an agenda [President Obama] has sequentially followed since his election.”
“In one inappropriate and most likely illegal action, he has put children at risk and bears sole responsibility for any child harmed as a result of this order,” Page said in a written statement for BP. “My hope and prayer at this point is that somehow the Supreme Court might recognize the inappropriateness of this action. God help us all!”
The Obama administration letter, signed by officials with the Departments of Education and Justice, does not have the authority of law but includes the implicit threat of a lawsuit or the loss of federal money if a school does not obey the guidance, The Times reported.
