“Whose Children Are They?”
Pastor’s Perspective Column, South Stevens County Times
May 2023
By Pastor Tim White
Whose children are they? Maybe you heard him, our current president, who recently stated that children do not belong to “someone,” but instead, they belong to “the Nation”? Interestingly, this is the same view held by dead authoritarians of the past whose ideologies ended in the destruction of their society and nation.
However, unlike any time in our nation’s history, a growing opinion within government and public education is that parents cannot be trusted to have their children’s best interests in mind.
So, to that particular career politician, with all due respect, I say that the Bible clarifies children as a gift from God to their parents (Ps. 127:3), who have the sole responsibility, before Him, of raising them (Deut. 6:6-8). And from this pastor’s perspective, all Christ followers should be on the front lines speaking up and defending our God-given parental rights to raise our children according to biblical values.
Sadly, our governor seems poised to sign SB 5599 into law (as of the writing of this column, this bill is sitting on his desk awaiting his signature), which enables shelters to hide minors (as young as 13 years old) from their parents who run away from home to get an abortion, sex change medications, or surgeries. In other words, if the parents do not conform to the state’s pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ ideology, then the state must “rescue” the children from their “non-affirming” parents.
Even runaway minors from other states can come to our state, and our government agencies will not disclose their location to their parents. In this single authoritarian act, the state strips those same parents of their right to say what happens to their child. This is pure evil!
I have some questions. Why are the majority members of our state legislature so determined to shape our children’s sexuality and gender identity? What kind of government is it that works overtime to end the lives of the unborn up to the day of their birth, to sexualize the minds of minor children, to defend adult female impersonators with small children, and lead them down the path to do irreversible damage to their developing bodies? What constitutional authority do any of them have to invade the oldest institution known to humanity (the family) and usurp the role of parents? It does not exist.
Furthermore, why, in multiple state legislatures, have the members of one political party voted in lockstep conformity against bills designed to protect minors from the irreversible consequences of these sex change drugs and surgeries? And how can these “progressives” attach the term “care” to this effort when it has already destroyed thousands of bodies and lives?
Jesus had something to say about children in any society: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea” (Mark 9:42 NASB). The Greek word for “stumble” is the root for our word “scandalize,” meaning to act scandalously by intentionally leading someone into harm and sin. This warning is for us today.
Check out your local (Washington State) school district policy list, and you will find Policy 3211P. The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) has mandated this policy, which encourages a student who expresses any confusion about gender or sexual identity to continue further into more sexual confusion and gender delusion. At no time are the teachers, coaches, or administrators directed to consider mental health as the issue instead of their body, and if the child does not want their parents to know, then all the “educated educators” bow in compliance.
This statewide mandated policy elevates the child to an almost divine status regarding their gender, biology, English grammar, choice of pronouns, and decisions about their body. However, these same children cannot get tattoos, buy cigarettes, open a bank account, or buy cold medicines without a parent present. The collateral damage is already coming to light as more “de-transitioners” come forward with their personal horror stories. How is the lunacy of this dangerous double standard not self-evident?
However, lunacy does not stop there. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), which oversees the public-school sports programs, requires all school district Board of Directors to sign an agreement to their “Gender Inclusion Policy” to participate in all sports. The WIAA policy puts boys in girls’ sports, restrooms, and locker rooms and warns against never misgendering the so-called trans-athlete. Whatever the gender-confused athlete wants, he or she gets.
However, if any public member were to sit down with these children and discuss these sex-related topics as they are taught in classrooms today, they would receive a visit from the Sheriff under the charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. This policy, 3211P, does one thing – it encourages (“grooms”) the children toward (never away from) sexually related ideas, choices, and behaviors for which they are not mature enough to process.
More than 70 years ago, Dr. David Martyn Lloyd Jones warned in his book “Truth Unchanged, Unchanging” about the dangers of equating passion with the truth. He wrote that humanity tends to put “feelings before faith” – he argues that “truth is still truth regardless of how you feel.” And he cautioned that the belief that “passion equals truth” is like “using the living room couch for a fireplace – it will likely burn the house down.”
Is it any wonder that this generation is now the most depressed, medicated, fragile, and suicidal generation, according to the CDC? And should we be surprised that our local school districts have failed to produce an acceptable number of graduates proficient in reading, math, and science for years?
Will you join this psalmist and me in declaring: “I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, as you know, O LORD. I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and salvation. I do not conceal your love and your truth from the great assembly” (Psalm 40:9-10)
It is time to “out” the unfathomable love of God by fearlessly proclaiming His life-transforming Truth to a godless society. It is ours to defend and protect the sanctity of our children’s God-given souls. They are counting on us, for we are the watchmen of this hour.