I caught a snippet of former Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner’s interview about his transgender journey—not to mention its exaltation by the networks, even ESPN.  One thing Jenner said however, I did appreciate.  He said that he and anyone else ought to have the right to pursue their goals (a paraphrase) as they choose.  He apparently supports genuine toleration.  We haven’t seen that much lately.  I certainly do not support his decision (and it was a decision to go with his tendencies, despite his claims that he essentially has a “female brain”), but I do believe he got the notion of toleration right.

And this gets to my point.  Toleration is in its true sense a mutual affair.  If I extend toleration, I expect to receive it.  This is especially true about my beliefs about deeply held religious (Christian) doctrines.  This is the problem with the radical (not all) LGBT movement.  They do not want toleration.  They want everyone else not only to not oppose their beliefs and practices, but to accept their ideas and practices and to sanction them.  Some on the political Left seem now to want the same thing.  Hillary Clinton has apparently changed her mind on religious freedom.  What they want is tyranny.  Some have looked back to the 1990s when the LGBT movement really began to emerge.  They point out that what the advocates then asked for was just toleration.  We gave it.  But it was really a Trojan Horse, it appears.  Now they demand that we accept their lifestyle and affirm it.

But worse, many (again, not all or even most) in the LGBT seek to force those with religious scruples to not only ignore their consciences but to deliberately violate them.  Does religion mean anything to this radical element?  I wonder.  Do they know what a conscience is, or have they so “seared” theirs that it simply doesn’t work anymore?  This is a scandalous injustice to Christians—and also to many Jews and Muslims.  Moreover, I thought the free exercise of religion spoke to that very issue.  The fact however that I think it does, does not mean the courts will side with that view, no matter how reasonable it is.

Perhaps I am missing the forest for the trees.  Perhaps the LGBT issue is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, a symptom of a greater cultural decline.  I am not a prophet.  But I don’t hesitate to say that things do not look all that good now.

At any rate, I am not sure what Christians can do.  On the other hand, we can and should take great encouragement that our sovereign God controls all things and orders them for his ultimate glory.  We may pray for God’s grace and His justice to triumph—which it will in the end.  Short of that, I suppose we must continue to make our case, reasonably, and trust God that our arguments may begin to prevail.  And, let me not forget to add that we ought to pray for those caught in the sin of a homosexual life, and especially those who are doubly caught in the radical LGBT movement, despite the temptation to respond with evil for evil.  God does change lives.  Each of us believers are ample testimony (I hope) to that fact.