Open Bathrooms and California’s War on Kids: A Daddy’s Perspective

In June, the United Methodist Church’s militantly liberal-dominated Desert-Southwest Conference, without any expressed concern for the safety implications, adopted a resolution calling for “open bathrooms” in churches, basically inviting people to use the bathroom of their choice, regardless of the genetic, physical sex God has created them to be. This month, California has adopted a state law similarly promoting “open bathrooms.” 

Rev. Matt O’Reilly is an adjunct professor of New Testament at Wesley Biblical Seminary and Asbury Theological Seminary as well as pastor of First United Methodist Church in Union Springs, Alabama.

In this guest post, originally written for his personal blog, he offers his thoughts on this latest front in the sexual revolution, not primarily as a biblical scholar or a pastor, but rather as a father of a young daughter. 

This is not the sort of post I normally write, but I have a daughter. So, here goes. California Governor Jerry Brown signed a law yesterday establishing an open bathroom policy in the state’s public schools. This policy is the first in the nation to allow students to choose which bathroom they will use based on their gender identity. So, little boys who consider themselves transgender are now allowed to use the little girls’ room at school. I won’t get into the details of the law; you can read that at CNN. I’ve got more important things to say.

First, as a daddy, there is no way – let me say that again – no way! – my little girl will ever – ever! – attend a school in which little boys, particularly of the adolescent variety, are given entry to the girls’ bathroom. No way. No how. No sir. Any father who allows his daughter to darken the doors of such a place is colluding with the powers that have abandoned their responsibility to protect children in favor of putting children at obvious risk.

Second, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there will soon be a significant escalation in the number of pubescent boys who are suddenly experiencing confusion about their gender identity and discovering, after all, that they themselves are transgender students. “Yes, yes,” Johnny will say, “I’m beginning to feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body. May I have the hall pass? I need to use the restroom.” We are fools, if we think boys who have no question about their gender identity will not abuse this law in order to take advantage of girls.

Third, given what I’ve just said, we must conclude that California has it out for its children. This law will not only create further confusion for students, it will also create situations in which kids will get hurt. And it comes from the halls of the state legislature. Make no mistake. California has codified its war on children.

Finally, I’m not really surprised by this, and you shouldn’t be either. You can tell a lot about a society by the way it treats its kids, and in this society we’ve been sacrificing children to the false gods of convenience and consequence-free sex for decades. We now have laws on the books that will make it easier and easier for children to inflict exceedingly significant (sexual) damage on one another. Truly, we have received the penalty for our error. We have been given over.