The Magic of Transgender Bathrooms

Several years ago, I spoke with an elderly lady who, as a youth, assisted her father in his magic act.  Her father had just passed away and she was talking about all of the tricks he had personally developed.  He guarded the secret to those tricks so jealously that even as the assistant she was only told what she had to know.  She told me that her dad was an incredible magician and showman.  I asked her what was it that made his shows so incredible.  Beyond his passion for keeping the trick a secret was his ability to get the audience to look where he wanted them to look. 

“If the trick was being performed by the right hand, he would have you looking somewhere else.  But every magician tries to do that.  What daddy could do was to get the person who knew the trick was in the right hand to look away for a moment.  People would be watching the off hand expecting to catch something and then, at the critical moment, he would do something with his head or foot or shoulder or with a prop.  The person would glance there just long enough to miss what happened.  They would see something, a flinch or a movement and think, ‘I’ve got him,’ but daddy would be getting them.  Sometimes he would have 2 or 3 diversions in quick succession, all of it just to get the audience to not see what was really happening.”

I believe that is the magic of transgender bathrooms.  Have you noticed a flurry of activity around the issues of human sexuality during the last few years?  These are not new issues, but suddenly we are being bombarded with news about gay marriage, those who will not participate in gay marriages, Minor Attraction aka pedophilia, or celebrities that have had sex change operations.  At the moment, it seems that all news broadcasts have to have an item about trans-gender bathrooms or the lack of it.  A transgender teen in a small community in a small western town made national news because he/she is running for the school board.  This student feels that the school system has not provided adequate bathrooms.  Who knows what is next on the human sexuality battlefront.  One possibility is the issue of poly-amorous attraction, which is just a new term for polygamy or open marriage.  I can almost hear the question now, “Why is there ONLY space for two names on a marriage license?  That is a discrimination against those in love with several people.  We demand blah, blah, blah…”

These issues are nothing more than distractions for the church.  Don’t get me wrong; I take a very traditional view of marriage and human sexuality, one man and one woman for one lifetime.  I also understand the role of the church as the conscience of society.  I believe that one of the roles of law is to teach moral codes and, therefore, our civil laws are important.  I signed and asked others to sign the Manhattan Declaration.  My credentials as a social conservative are impeccable.  But having read the Bible several times, I never recall the church being told to “Defend Marriage, fight for Traditional Values, teach Democratic or Republican Ethics, reverse global warming or fight against the inflationary cost of goats milk in the Himalayans.”  In my careful reading of scripture, I find that we are called both collectively and individually to love God and People (all people) and go and make disciples. 

If the arch deceiver can get the church distracted from the calling of making disciples by putting on a show about human sexuality, or anything else for that matter, he is well pleased and satisfied with the magic of gay marriage.  So, the next time you find yourself getting stirred up because you read news articles or tweets, see a Facebook post, or hear of another story about human sexuality issues, pause and check to see if the dark illusionist isn’t trying to distract you from your calling to make disciples.