California’s ‘You Must Stay Gay’ Bill Reflects Rebellion Against God

By Tom Gilson Published on April 26, 2018

California’s Assembly is on the verge of passing AB 2943, which Michael Brown has dubbed the “You Must Stay Gay” bill. It would prohibit any activity intended to change gay and transgender persons’ attitudes, orientation or even behavior.

Its wording is broad enough to make many Christian books illegal for sale, to outlaw pro-family Christian conferences, and to restrict pastoral speech and counseling. In fact, it could shut down a large portion of biblical Christian speech. Greg Koukl, host of the Stand to Reason ministry based in Signal Hill, California, says it could realistically bankrupt his ministry.

LGBT Activists’ End Game

Could you have imagined such a thing five or ten years ago? And the bill is practically on the governor’s desk, a bill he is sure to sign.

Here we see something of the end game gay activists have in mind: to shut the mouths of Christians. It’s worth retracing some of the steps that have brought us here, so we can see better what we’re up against and know what to do.

Where It Began

You could trace its beginnings to the sexual revolution in the 1960s. Or maybe it began with the feminist movement, which rightly challenged some rigid gender stereotypes, but went to seed when it started redefining real sex distinctions.

It begins with rebellion against God.

Both are major precursors to our current sexual extremism, but the true roots go back much, much earlier. It begins with rebellion against God.

In Romans 1, the apostle Paul described the descent into sin and and foolishness that would inevitably follow from suppressing the truth about God (1:18), refusing to glorify Him or give Him thanks (1:21) and looking to other sources of ultimate meaning and direction. There’s an end game to that set of errors, too. It including sexual perversion (1:26-27) and a debased mind bearing rotten fruit in every area of human interest (1:29-31) — even to the point of giving hearty approval to it all (1:32).

Replacing God With Ourselves, and Ourselves With “Experts”

That’s where it ends, and that’s where we are today. But it all begins by removing God from the center, by replacing Him with other sources of ultimate meaning and direction. In the ancient world that meant idols. In today’s world it means elevating ourselves to the place of God. For how do we determine what’s moral these days? We ask ourselves. 

We cite them. We rely on them. We think they’ve got it solved. … They speak, we follow.

But here the history of this rebellion takes an interesting turn. We have trouble trusting ourselves. We know the world is full of experts who know things we don’t know. So we turn to the “experts.” They’re almost always disconnected from God, but still they claim to know something. We cite them. We rely on them. We think they’ve got it solved.

Sigmund Freud was an “expert.” Well, he was a persuasive writer, anyway. For decades the Western world bought his sexualizing of the human psyche wholesale. But that was then; this is now; and his intellectual descendants in the American Psychological Association reject almost all of that.

But they‘ve inherited his role as collective experts in human morality. And now they’ve declared homosexual and transgender desires perfectly normal. Hey, they’re the experts, right? They’ve got all the science behind them, so they must know. They speak; we follow.

The Embarrassing Non-Expertise of the “Experts” We’ve Chosen

Except for one rather embarrassing problem: The reason the APA normalized LGBTQIA had nothing to do with science, but with politics. There was no new science supporting the APA’s normalizing of homosexuality or transgenderism. There is still no solid science for it. The APA, of which I was once a member, ignored prior research showing poor life outcomes for LGBT persons. Since that time it has suppressed a large body of  more recent research supporting similar conclusions.

So which expertise are we supposed to be following, scientific or political? The answer in this case is neither. You already know why politics can’t give us the right answer. As for science, the APA isn’t using it. And even if they were, they aren’t experts in morality. Far from it.

At Least We Can Still Rule Reality Ourselves, Right?

We only have groups like the APA who claim expertise, but on hollow political grounds, and with leadership that tells us to lead ourselves wherever we choose. We’re suffering a complete vacuum of real moral leadership. 

But that’s okay, right? We’ve rejected God and we have no experts. But we still have ourselves. In fact, with no one telling us otherwise, we can add one final ingredient to the mix: a false view of human freedom that we think gives us the “right” to decide what’s right for ourselves.

Everyone has the power to set himself, herself, zyrself or whoever/whatever-self in the place of God. Every individual is a god. We fill the vacuum with ourselves!

Two Kingdoms, and What Christians Are Up Against

It’s hard to overstate how far from Christianity that is. It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of what we Christians are up against. This is no mere difference of opinion over sex or gender. Our differences run very deep, almost as if we lived in two different worlds. 

Indeed, the Bible speaks of two worlds, that is, two “kingdoms,” one of light and one of darkness. It’s a question of who rules reality: ourselves or God. So when Christians say there’s a real God — a transcendent, creator God who is Goodness and Love, we threaten the other kingdom’s sovereignty, its denizens’ false view of moral reality.

It is a battle of two kingdoms, two massively different views of reality. It is a spiritual battle.

Which brings us back to the gay activist end game. We represent a threat to their individual godhood, their rulership over their own reality. We threaten their “freedom” to choose what they wish without consequences. So they’re doing all they can to choke off our message completely. 

AB 2943 is a political and Constitutional matter, but it’s far more than that. It’s a battle of two kingdoms, one based in reality, the other in distortion and illusion. It is a spiritual battle.

That has at least five implications.

Five Implications of Seeing This as Spiritual Battle

First, we must pray. That’s where most of our spiritual battle must be waged.

Second, we must study and learn to speak truth, and speak it well. There’s spiritual battle in that, too (2 Cor. 10:3-5).

Third, we must walk in the light (1 John 1:7), demonstrating the goodness of Christ and His way, so that all can see the good effect of yielding to His Kingship in light.

Fourth, we must remain fully aware of the magnitude of the battle. We seek to invade and overturn a drastically different kingdom, one that stands opposed to the God we love and serve.

Finally, we must retain hope and joy. Yes, AB 2943 is an ominous development. But Jesus tells us the gates of hell will not prevail against God’s Church (Matthew 16:18). He Himself will prevail. Or, as the beginning of John’s Gospel tells us, the darkness could not, and never will, overcome or even comprehend His light. We have reason to worry about what man is doing, but we have every reason to hope in God.

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