2015 | Week of August 24 – #1112

“My daughter is 11 years old—and she has announced to her mother and me that she is a lesbian.” I could have wept when I heard this story from a heartbroken and very anxious Wisconsin father.  It’s everything that I have been long concerned about wrapped up in one young life and one devastated family.

This isn’t a non-Christian or unchurched family. It’s a family who is actively involved with a Bible-preaching and teaching church. The daughter does attend a public school—and I am more than confident that her conclusion has come as a result of discussions among both fellow students and even teachers in her school. Remember that at age 11, we are talking 5th and 6th grades.

Part of what those seeking to normalize homosexual behavior in our society have wanted to do is to get into our public schools and create an environment where homosexuality is safely championed and affirmed. In particular, they want young junior high-aged students who are removed from their parents’ direct influence for 6 to 7 hours a day to hear their message, their siren call, about how it’s normal for some to be attracted to the same-sex.  This is the “Q” in their acronym of LGBTQ–questioning.

Kids this young girl’s age are questioning—everything, but especially questioning about themselves, the maturation process, their sexuality. At school, especially now, they hear about how same-sex attraction and same-sex relationships and legalized same-sex marriage are wonderful, natural, normal, accepted, fun, exciting.

For some, like this young girl, they begin making conclusions about themselves, conclusions they are not at all prepared to make.  I doubt that this 11-year-old really understands what she’s saying. In fact, part of my grieving over this situation is that in a better world, an 11-year-old shouldn’t even have the word Lesbian in her vocabulary.  Alas, we don’t live in that “better world,” and today’s 11 year-old faces unusual and dangerous situations.

Some might say to the bereft parents, “Ignore this. It’s just a phase. She’ll get over it.” I wish I could offer that advice with a clear conscience. I can’t. Because I know that when school starts in a week or so, this young girl is going to be thrust once again into a captive-audience environment that will in so many ways affirm her misguided pronouncement.

Someone in the Gay-Straight Alliance, emboldened by the US Supreme Court’s recent audacious and dangerous redefinition of marriage, is very likely to begin telling or maybe even modeling for this precious girl how to act on her inclinations.

Planned Parenthood advocates may come to the school to tell her it’s normal to be physically involved with someone of the same or opposite sex—even at their young ages. They’ll proceed to give her, as they put it, instructions on doing so “safely.” In doing all of this, in addition to putting the girl in a dangerous situation, the homosexuality advocates are driving wedges between the girl and her parents, between her and her pastor—alienating wedges that foster misunderstanding, lack of trust, communication breakdowns and more.

Unless the parents get educated and equipped very soon to deal with this situation, I fear they will find their much-loved daughter caught in a web that will be very difficult for her to get out of.  The older she gets the more entangled and entrenched she will be. She’ll move from the “Q” to the “L” in the LGBTQ acronym.

This is the real-life fallout of the push in our culture to normalize what God calls sin and repeatedly warns us against. Children get hurt. Our loving Creator-God and Heavenly Father knows going down any path of perversion, whether it is homosexuality or any kind of heterosexual physical involvement outside of marriage hurts us, His children. He doesn’t want that. He sets up boundaries for our good—and His glory. Most assuredly, God does not want this 11-year-old girl hurt—or any 11-year-old hurt. Hurting children and setting up traps for them is the work of Satan, not God.

Parents, I hope this is a wake-up call for you. Don’t assume your child isn’t affected by all that’s going on in our culture today. That’s a risk neither you nor child can afford.

This is Julaine Appling for Wisconsin Family Council reminding you the prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”