by Larry Peterson

I thought I would get a bit controversial this time and  jump into murky water.  It is definitely “cloudy”  so plan to keep your eyes wide open before  jumping  in.

On June 21, the President of the United States once again bypassed  the Congress of the United States and signed an executive order barring federal contractors (including faith based agencies) from discriminating based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Here was my problem with this:  I have no understanding of  what “gender identity” is.  I mean, how can a guy think he is a girl or a girl  think she is a guy?  Deep down inside me I knew there had to be  much more to this phenomenon than a simple choice of lifestyle preference?  But it was so bizarre to me I just could not handle it.  Some folks might call that “denial”.  Maybe it was.

I am a Catholic man who tries to stay true to his faith and not pass judgment on others, (especially those whose behavioral lifestyle I do NOT fathom).  The truth is I have personally avoided this topic because it just always seemed so “out there” to me.   After all, I am a man and I know it.  My wife is a woman and she knows it.  All the men I know and have known knew they were men.  Same for the women. How can you NOT know what you are?  The worst part was it was being politicized.   That was deplorable.  So what kind of ambiguous term is “gender identity”?  What does it mean?     Finally, I kicked  the strange fear of confronting this subject to the curb and I decided I should look into it.

It did not take me long to realize that I truly had kept my head in the sand when it came to this subject.   In so doing I had failed myself.  I have now come to realize that among the great enigmas in our society today is the paradoxical condition known as Gender Dysphoria (aka: Gender Identity Disorder).  This is real and this is a fact of life and it has existed for a long, long time.  I have also come to learn that this is  a  medical “disorder” and not simply a “lifestyle” choice.  I also admit that I am a bit ashamed I never had the guts to confront the subject.

Evidence shows that besides psychological and behavioral causes, biological ones (genetics) play an important part in a person having this condition.  A person who is born with Gender Identity Disorder has a very high mountain to climb.  They live in a society that, for the most part, looks at their condition as nothing more than a perverse lifestyle choice.  I cannot imagine a person having to live every day pretending to be a gender they knew they were not.  The alternative for them would be to live the way they knew they really were and be treated as one of society’s aberrations constantly facing rejection and derision .  I now understand the desire for hormonal treatments and  transgender surgery.   I also understand that these people need our compassion and understanding.  But, like it or not, this Great Enigma brings forth the other side of the story.

President Obama’s executive order seems to place “gay rights” above all other rights, including religious rights as set forth in our Constitution.   In 1994 the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was proposed by Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts.  It has been proposed in ten sessions of Congress and has never passed.  Obama’s order is his way of passing his own ENDA.  It provides no protection for religious groups, even though civil-rights laws recognize these rights.  The laws have recognized that religious employers have the right to hire people who share their faith and moral standards.   ENDA proposals exempted these groups.  Not anymore.

The president’s order has bypassed all of this and permits federal agencies to cancel contracts with “noncompliant” employers, including faith based agencies, who can also be ‘blacklisted” from future contracts. This will effectively shut down many faith based agencies.  Look at how Catholic Charities has already been declared “unfit” to place children for adoption in Washington, Boston, San Francisco, and the State of Illinois.  I believe that the executive order of July 21, 2014 will usher in a new wave of religious intolerance and persecution the like of which has never been seen in the United States of America.  The people who suffer from Gender Dysphoria are simply pawns in a quagmire of ideology.  Theirs is not so much a sexual problem as it is a correctable medical problem.  They deserve better from all of us, especially from a president who uses their condition to advance his own agenda.  More than anything, these folks with GD/GID need our prayers.

On June 27,  we Catholics celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.  The first word used to describe the Sacred Heart is MOST.  How proper.  The definition of MOST  is “greatest quantity, amount or degree”.   Holy Mother Church is sure  smart.  How fitting a word to use to describe the LOVE in the Heart of Jesus,  MOST.  That is because this is what the day is all about, LOVE.   And the LOVE in Jesus’ Heart is the MOST  LOVE there can ever be anywhere, anyplace, anytime.  If you could encapsulate all of the true love that exists in the world, it could never compare to the LOVE that exists in His  MOST SACRED HEART.  That is simply because GOD is LOVE.

The second reading of the Mass for the day was from 1 John 4: 7-16.  I am just mentioning lines #9-12:  “In this way the Love of God is revealed to us: God sent His only Son into the world so that we might have life through Him.  In this is LOVE: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as expiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we must also love one another.  No one has ever seen God.  Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us and His love is brought to perfection in us.”  Okay, please bear with me?  Before getting to the point of all this  I wish to quote lines #2-3 which are not included in the Mass reading. “This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God.  This is the spirit of the antichrist that, as you heard, is to come, but in fact is already in the world.”

Now we are in the year 2014.  And yes, finally, I am  going to get to the point.  The point of all of this is to ask how do we as Catholic writers confront the War between LOVE and HATE.  This war is rooted in the Bible, isn’t it?  If God is LOVE what is HATE?  It follows, SATAN  is HATE.  St. John has written, “– the spirit of the antichrist —is already in the world”.  The cunning and devious method that Satan is using to do his HATE work is having those who have joined his minions proclaim that they are serving God  in their evil work.  For example, the abuse, torture and  killing of men, women and children has been going on throughout recorded history and it continues,  unabated, to this very day.  How often are these atrocities committed in the name of God?

The 20th century alone has witnessed seven recorded and documented genocides that have taken uncounted millions of lives.  How many of those people died because their religion or beliefs were contrary to the ones killing them.  Killing out of hatred while using God as the reason is an abomination of all that is GOOD and pleasing to God.  It is the ultimate hypocrisy committed by men and women who have chosen to allow the Minister of Hate to enter their very souls.  People kill (not self-defense) due to pride, envy, anger,  greed and lust, and it seems that ‘pride’ always leads the pack.  Pride is the king of self-destruction and opens the primary portal for  the evil that lurks, waiting to embrace each and every one of us.  And what about all of our Catholic/Christian brothers and sisters who have taken their own road while still proclaiming their faith in Jesus.   Well now,  I pass judgement on no one because  I do not know what is truly in their hearts.  But I do NOT have to refrain from writing in defense of my faith out of fear of being called bigoted, fanatical, racist, and even hateful.  I am none of those things.

My writing has taken a definite turn.   I did not plan it nor did I see it coming.  I just started to pen more and more about different topics that defile our faith, like the atrocities taking place against Catholic/Christians all over the world.  I am also sick and tired of those in the atheist movement wanting to take our religious freedoms away under the guise of being “offended”.  I think I have had enough of  “cafeteria catholics” (especially the ones who hold political office) promoting their own agendas of “pro-choice”, “same-sex-marriage” , “married priests” etc.  And it is done under the guise of virtue.  Listen my friends, I am not intolerant if I am opposed to abortion.  I am not “homophobic” and do not need sensitivity training if I oppose “gay marriage”.   I am a traditional minded catholic man who loves his faith and resents seeing it vilified and spat upon by those who are only interested in their own agendas.  Enough is enough.  So I write to add an extra bit of protection, small as it may be, to that which we call Catholic.

I believe there is a self-centeredness and false pride that exists in all of us.  It is the gateway for evil to enter into us. Many reject this evil. Many have too much love in their hearts to be influenced by such temptation.  Many do not.  Lucifer is alive and well and using these open gateways that are available to him all over the world.  Quite often he is very successful at gaining entrance into these easily accessible souls.   Lucifer was the greatest and brightest of all God’s angels.  But his PRIDE made him him choose to challenge his Creator.  He lost that battle and was cast out of heaven.  He has been waging war with a  vitriolic, all consuming hatred for God and Love ever since.  I imagine he was screaming like a raving lunatic  as we celebrated His MOST SACRED HEART.  He was screaming and yelling because the MOST SACRED HEART is his reality check that tells him  he can NEVER win.