2018 | Week of July 9, 2018 | #1240

(Re-airing episode #1240 program from Week of January 29, 2018)

Ever heard the term “social construct”? I suspect lots of people hear the term but aren’t really sure what it means. The first time I ran into it overtly was in a public forum several years ago.

I had been asked to be on a panel to talk about adoption and in particular adoption by same-sex couples. I was the only panelist, of course, holding the position that what is best for children is to be brought up in the home of their married male dad and female mom, whether the children are biological or adopted.

As you can imagine, I wasn’t very popular that night since the crowd was roughly 90% rabidly liberal. As I was making a point about males and females parenting differently and that the difference is important in the rearing of children, a young obviously African-American and obviously female attendee glared at me and said, “Anyone with any intelligence knows that race and gender are just social constructs.”

To be honest, I had to work to not say what was really in my mind, which went something like this, “You think I’m the one without intelligence here tonight?  Really? I’m looking at you and reality tells me you are a black woman—and you are telling me what I’m seeing is really just what I want to see or what society has told me I’m seeing? I assure you, I’m not the one who’s nuts.”

By God’s grace, I held my tongue and actually ignored that part of her statement. But I have reflected on that comment in that setting many times over the intervening four years. Race and gender as social constructs. Wow.

Merriam-Webster says a “social construct” is “an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society.”  A liberal website says a social construct “is something that is not inherently natural but created by society.”

For this commentary, let’s stick to gender as the issue.  Is gender inherently natural? Is it an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in our society? In a sense it is—but only if you accept the definition of those who believe gender has nothing to do with biology and is not fixed but is rather a continuum with a person being able to change his or her gender even moment to moment.

If you accept those definitions or descriptions of gender as reality, then I agree. Gender is a social construct. It’s entirely made up. In fact, it’s fake science. Total fiction.

However, if you equate gender with biological sex, then gender isn’t a social construct. Rather, it’s a scientific reality determined at the moment of conception when the sperm contributed either an X chromosome or a Y chromosome to the egg, resulting in an XX, female, or XY, male, chromosome pairing. Society’s idea about it has nothing to do with this reality.

When it comes to gender, right now society is doubling down on this as a social construct. I know this because public schools are reading books about it to kids as young as kindergartners; because schools are passing policies that reinforce this lie; because communities are adopting ordinances that force everyone to at least act as if gender is whatever anyone wants it to be; because I’m seeing videos, magazine covers and tv shows exploiting confused children who are dressed and acting in outlandish ways as they seek to figure out their gender; and because I’m hearing more and more heartbreaking stories from Christians whose children are believing this lie.

The social elitists want to force all of us to accept their fairy tale, that biology has nothing to do with gender and that people can be whatever they want whenever they want on this gender continuum. And society is supposed to accept them and allow them—even encourage them—to do pretty much whatever they want as they live this kind of fake life, including letting men who say they are a woman use the women’s restrooms and changing rooms regardless of the danger that can pose.

Here’s the final word on the matter: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Genesis 1:27. God the Creator’s binary system of male and female is not a social construct. It’s a God-ordained reality and is for our good. Thinking we can make something up that improves on what God’s done is foolish—and so very harmful to very real people.

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