bathroom signIf you have been following the news lately, you’ve probably heard about the push to let everyone decide their own gender, and then use whichever public bathroom matches that decision. I think that the real issue is being missed by those on both sides of this debate. I’ll share more thoughts on that in a minute.

Supporters of this new policy say that everyone should be able to choose the gender they want to identify with. They go on to argue that to do otherwise would discriminate against transgendered people (those who want to be a different sex than the one they were born with). They say this is important, even though the best estimates are that only three tenths of one percent (0.3%) of our population considers themselves to be transgendered.

I think these people are missing the point. By not discriminating against 0.3% of the population, they are potentially discriminating against the remaining 99.7%.

Those on the other side of this argument point out that allowing everyone to decide which bathroom they want to use opens the door (no pun intended) for perverts to have easier access to their victims. Most people, for example, don’t feel comfortable letting a man enter a woman’s bathroom or locker room just because he claims to feel like a woman at that moment. As Matt Sharp of the Alliance Defending Freedom puts it, “There is a right to bodily privacy that we have got to protect, particularly for a student at school.”

Both sides claim that they are promoting freedom, but I think that both sides are missing the real issue. It is important to talk about this because support for opening bathrooms to whichever gender you choose has become so widespread. This became obvious when North Carolina passed a law stating that a person must use the bathroom that reflects the gender of their birth certificate. That law has stirred up a huge firestorm. More than 100 corporations have strongly denounced the North Carolina law, including PayPal and Target, and so have entertainers, such as Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Buffet, Ringo Starr, Brandi Carlile, and Michael Moore.

Since about 98% of us can’t claim that we are being forced to use a different bathroom than the one we want, and since the traditional male and female bathroom distinction has worked fine for hundreds (thousands?) of years, why all the uproar?

Here is the issue hardly anyone else is talking about. The current bathroom battle is just another opportunity for our culture to reject the Creator and His guidelines. We don’t want God telling us what is right and what is wrong, especially when it comes to sex. Until very recently, everyone knew that your gender is fixed even before you are born. It is an intrinsic part of your DNA. It is not a choice we make. Instead, it is an unchangeable reality. DNA has not changed. Our rebellion against God does not change reality, either. It only leads to misery.

The Bible warns us about rebelling against our Creator’s right to make the rules. “Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords

[restrictions] from us!’ ” (Psalm 2:1–3). Our culture’s sexual “freedom” has made suicide the leading cause of death among Gay and Lesbian youth in our country. [See www.speakforthem.org/facts.html]

Much like Adam and Eve, we are falling for the lie that we don’t need God and that we can make up our own rules. The truth that many don’t want to hear is that God created mankind as “…male and female…” (Genesis 5:2). He did not give us a third option.

It only makes sense that if God made us, He has the right to rule over us. “… the Lord Himself is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100:3).

I know that God’s authority threatens the feeling that we are in control.We have to remember, though, that all of His rules are given to us for our good. Notice that when we are submitted to God’s right to rule we can, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations” (Psalm 100:4–5).

Trusting in the God of the universe is what gives us the greatest sense of fulfillment. “But let all who take refuge in You be glad, let them ever sing for joy; and may You shelter them, that those who love Your name may exult in You” (Psalm 5:11).

The main issue in this battle for the bathroom is not who goes into what bathroom. It is about the One Who designed us. God Himself became a human being in order to rescue our rebellious race. No matter how our culture rebels against Him, God still offers salvation to all who will forsake their sin and follow Him. When we come to Him and have been made clean by Christ’s work on the Cross we can, “Sing for joy in the Lord… ” (Psalm 33:1), no matter what others around us are doing.