Common sense about sports and spaces

I recently attended a function where a friend said, “We have returned to an age of common sense!” He was referring to a statement made by President Trump in signing the “No Men In Women's Sports Executive Order.” Trump said men will play in male sports and women in women’s sports. This certainly sounds like common sense, but that can be a subjective and nebulous term to some.  

In Isaiah 1:18 God says “Come now, let us reason together.” God created human beings with the divine capacities for logic, reason and rational thinking. In fact, the whole of creation is engineered with these qualities. Engineering students quickly learn a principle called the Law of Design which states that things work well when they function according to the way they were designed, but they work poorly when that design is violated.

Our seventh president, Andrew Jackson (a Democrat) said, “Our country is founded on the Bible.” Today, however, it seems our country continues to wander further and further away from those founding principles and precepts found in Scripture. 

The very first chapter of the Bible states that “God created man in his own image... male and female he created them.” God designed all creatures to be able to reproduce and with a desire to do so. In our fallen state we put our intellect above the Creator’s, and try to unravel His created purposes. We might not like God's design, but we rebel against it to our own peril. 

At the request of Gov. Jim Pillen, Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha has introduced LB 89, which would require all public and private schools in our state, kindergarten through post secondary, to designate bathrooms and locker rooms based on one’s biological sex. The bill defines a male as one whose reproductive system is organized around the production of sperm, and for females as being organized around the production of ova. (This perhaps was included in case the law comes before our newest U.S. Supreme Court justice who famously said she could not define what a woman was because she was not a biologist!)

Testifying in favor of the bill in committee, Pillen, a doctor of veterinary medicine, called the measure “a reflection of commonsense Nebraska values.”  “The highest calling of the government is to keep us safe, to keep all our citizens safe,” Pillen said.  

LB 89 would do that by ensuring the safety of women and girls in bathrooms and locker rooms as well as in the sports arena. Under the bill girls, and girls only, may play in girls sports and boys, and boys only, can play in boys sports. Why is this considered a safety issue? Consider the fact that when a person pretending to be a different sex goes into a bathroom not of their biological sex, there is nearly a 2-1/2 times higher risk of sexual assault, according to the Nebraska Psychological Association. (They also reported that “transgender youth” have higher rates of depression and suicide than other teens, which begs the question as to why so many are so eager to normalize gender dysphoria among our youth.) 

One of those testifying in favor of the bill in committee was a young woman who had lived in a sorority house on the University of Wyoming campus. When a male student was admitted, she said she felt it violated the private, safe space the sorority house was meant to provide. She came home to Nebraska to get away from this invasion.  

Meanwhile, arguments against LB 89 rail against logic, reason and common sense. The Women’s Fund of Omaha questioned its necessity and said we need to focus on the “gender wage gap” instead. The Omaha Public School Board opposes the bill saying it should be a “local issue.” The Episcopal Diocese called it unkind and inflammatory and the League of Women’s Voters said it is “mired in discrimination.”  

Huh?  

God has a natural order and design of creation and when we violate that order, disorder follows. That's why I will be supporting Sen. Kauth's LB 89.