Back in 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins entered Jack Phillips’ business, Masterpiece Cakeshop, and asked if Phillips would design a custom cake for their same-sex wedding ceremony. Phillips explained that he could not participate in their ceremony through unique artistic expression due to his Christian beliefs concerning sex and marriage. However, Phillips said he would be happy to provide any other ready-made item in his shop to the couple. The couple left the shop and filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which ruled against Phillips and ordered Phillips to make custom cakes for same-sex wedding ceremonies
This week, an ABC News headline referred to Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian nonprofit committed to defending religious liberty in the legal system, as an “anti-LGBT hate group.” ABC reported on a speech delivered by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the following manner: Sessions addressed members of the Alliance Defending Freedom, which was designated an ‘anti-LGBT hate group’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2016, at the Summit on Religious Liberty at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, in Dana Point, California. What ABC News failed to report was the Southern Poverty Law Center’s clear bias in designating hate groups. The
Yesterday, I described the dangers of “puberty blockers,” powerful drugs prescribed off-label to prevent gender dysphoric children from undergoing natural puberty. In that article, I focused on the implications of these drugs for children and parents. Today, I would like to highlight the problems these treatments will eventually present for physicians. As puberty blockers become more mainstream, not only will more parents pursue these treatments, but more physicians may be asked to prescribe these drugs off-label to their patients. This presents a serious ethical and legal dilemma. Can physicians who object to the treatment due to its side effects, long-term
Despite popular reception by LGBT advocacy groups, the efficacy of puberty blocking drugs in treating gender dysphoria is questionable at best, and outright dangerous at worst. Before conceding to the hype, take a look at five important facts about transition-affirming hormone therapies: 1.) There is no medical consensus on transition-affirming treatments for gender dysphoria. The term “gender dysphoria” replaced the term “gender identity disorder” in 2013. This change represented a seismic shift in how we think and talk about gender. “Gender identity disorder” indicates a deviation from the norm where one’s mental state is incongruous with reality, whereas “gender dysphoria”
Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Jack Phillips: Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, was found guilty of discrimination by the Colorado Court of Appeals after he declined to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex wedding ceremony due to his Christian faith. The Court of Appeals ordered Phillips’ family business to create cakes for same-sex couples in the future. They also ordered Phillips and his staff to undergo “re-education” in order to comply with Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Policy and required the shop to file quarterly reports on their
A new scientific study published by The New Atlantis details the dangerous effects of puberty suppression in treating gender dysphoria, challenging the ideological claim of the LGBT movement that pre-pubescent children should pursue such therapies as early as possible in order to realize their “true” gender. The paper, “Growing Pains: Problems with Puberty Suppression in Treating Gender Dysphoria,” was written by a team of three experts: Dr. Paul W. Hruz, a professor at Washington University School of Medicine; Dr. Lawrence S. Mayer, a scholar in residence at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a professor at Arizona State