Homosexuality

Katie McCoy underscores the need for women grounded in theology to address misguided attempts in an increasingly hostile and broken world to conflate male-female equality with secular ideology.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- A survey claiming a decrease in Americans' comfort level with homosexual acts and individuals has met skepticism from two Christians who study sexuality and culture. But if the survey accurately reflects public sentiment, they say, it could indicate the Bible's lingering influence on society. The pro-homosexual advocacy group GLAAD released data Thursday (Jan. 25) indicating Americans' comfort level with a variety of situations involving lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender individuals -- including learning a family member is homosexual and having a child placed in a class with an LGBT teacher.

KENOSHA, Wisconsin (BP) -- For two years, the U.S. Supreme Court has been able to avoid the inevitable, but the justices will be asked, most likely this year, to define the meaning of "sex" in Title IX. Transgender schoolchildren and their attorneys argue gender identity is a protected class under the federal education nondiscrimination law, and judges mostly have agreed. A confluence of cases is headed to appeals courts across the country, pitting transgender students' demands for access to the restrooms and locker rooms of their choice against schools' attempts to maintain privacy for all students.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Scientists' claim that a researcher's sex can affect the outcome of experiments has been cited as corroboration of biblical teaching on gender. According to a Jan. 10 article in the journal Science Advances, volunteers for experiments as diverse as intelligence tests and pain sensitivity studies have been found to respond differently when they are dealing with a researcher of the opposite gender. At times, those gender-based differences have skewed the outcome of experiments, wrote a team of neuroscientists led by Colin Chapman.

WASHINGTON (BP) -- Transgender people will be able to enlist in the U.S. military beginning Jan. 1, the Department of Defense announced Monday (Dec. 11). The announcement followed a federal judge's ruling the same day that allowed a court order to remain in effect that blocked President Trump's ban on transgender people in the armed forces. Trump said in a series of tweets in July the federal government would not permit people who identify as a different gender than their biological sex to serve in the military.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Christians are just as likely to say that gender is determined solely at birth as are atheists and religious "nones" to say the opposite, according to newly released Pew Research Center findings. Nearly two-thirds of Christians, 63 percent, told Pew that gender is determined at birth; while 62 percent of atheists/agnostics and "nones," categorized as religiously unaffiliated, said individual gender can change from biological sex at birth.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Republicans are far more likely to believe gender is limited to one's biological sex apparent at birth, according to statistics Pew Research Center released after local transgender victories in U.S. elections Nov. 7. In Virginia, Danica Roem unseated 13-term incumbent Republican Robert G. Marshall to become the first openly transgender "woman" elected to a U.S. statehouse, The Hill reported. In Minneapolis, Andrea Jenkins became the first openly transgender African American "woman" elected to public office in the U.S. by defeating three opponents for a Minneapolis City Council seat, The Hill said.

Men and women, as God's image-bearers to the rest of creation, can trust His design "for how we fit together as the church," Candi Finch writes, listing key facets of His "blueprints" as found in Scripture.

Shea Hicks, an officer in the U.S. Air Force, reflects on her journey of embracing biblical femininity in a male-dominated profession.

WASHINGTON (BP) -- A federal judge's decision to block the Trump administration from enforcing a ban of transgender military service is "likely" to be overturned on appeal, says a former military attorney who serves as general counsel for the Missouri Baptist Convention. "The Obama Defense Department changed the longstanding policy just last year regarding transgender service in the military," Mike Whitehead, the Missouri convention's attorney and a former member of the Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps, told Baptist Press, "and President Trump merely changed it back.