With the passing of California Assembly Bill 2943 last Thursday, we have quickly reached a new level of legislation of against gender.
It is likely that the bill will pass swiftly through the California senate (with its Democrat supermajority) and then be signed into law by the governor (whoever that may be after the election this year). At that moment, I will become an outlaw in the state of California and my book will be illegal to sell there.
Startling? Consider the language of the bill, which bans any professional advocacy of intergendered relationship for those who would not follow their same-sex attraction (SSA), and of the reality of gender for those who seek alternate answers about their gender dysphoria. It seeks to do this by extending consumer fraud law, making it an “unlawful business practice” to engage in “a transaction intended to result, or which results, in the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer” that advertise, offer to engage in, or do engage in “sexual orientation change efforts with an individual.” It also adds in vocabulary about transgenderism.
Thus, selling my book in California, which clearly outlines the way people with same-sex attraction do, in fact, determine themselves differently, will be consumer fraud. Wow.
This kind of movement is just too important to let pass by without comment. Bill 2943 is particularly disturbing in how most of it is taken up with quotations of various scientific fellowships stating that “no evidence exists” for the efficacy of any efforts for people with SSA to go in a different direction than those desires, to not just-be-gay. But this is simply 
not true. I reviewed many studies about this, most notably the one published by Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse in 2007, probably the most rigorous longitudinal study on attempted change in sexual desire ever done, which indicated a higher success rate for those seeking a different life than pharmaceutical treatment of depression. I actually explain the history of these studies in my book (page 169, p230notes). But, I guess you can’t find that out if it is illegal to read it.
Which means, further, that the statement crafters of these various scientific organizations are no longer being scientific. They are just not reading all the literature, or just ignoring what does not fit with their weltanschauung. If actual scientists in a society begin wearing these kinds of blinders, it does not
bode well for that society. These kinds of things have happened before in civilizations, and they cannot last long. Adolf Hitler used science to establish Aryan supremacy. He would publish results of scientific skull measurements showing how negroes were an inferior race.
I know what you may be thinking: California is one thing, but this will never play in Peoria. Ordinary people will never accept such a criminalization of something that helps people who want it. But consider Pennsylvania Senate Bill 613 & House Bill 1410. These are bills in the Pennsylvania legislature right now that, if passed, would add special classifications for so-called sexual orientation and self-chosen gender expression to state anti-discrimination laws (see my post on SOGI). Once that happens, as it has in states like Massachusetts and Illinois and about twenty others, California dreamin’ will soon follow. Common sense is more fluid than you think.
As for people like me, I guess this means that I may soon be donning a black mask, and riding around in the dead of night on a black horse or something like that. I mean, it borders on the ridiculous. I see many people helped by receiving God’s gift of gender. If helping such people with the light of Christ is becoming illegal to do, so be it. We cannot just stop doing it.
There will always be the catacombs for those who want the help that Jesus gives. It is where we have been in the past. It may be where we will soon be again.