OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma, June 21, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – The “Battle lines are being drawn very clear” in the clash between government overreach and morality Archbishop Paul S. Coakley wrote in a column published this week, noting the battle is between the forces of “Light and darkness.”
According to Archbishop Coakley, “It’s about more than restrooms.” He charges that the federal government is allied with “powerful economic forces” to change fundamental human relationships such as marriage and the family and use the public schools to do it.
The strategy is to persuade the next generation to “acknowledge and accept” that gender is a “matter of personal expression rather than biology. Consequently, if a boy self-identifies as a girl, then he ought to be allowed to use the girl’s restroom or locker room in any school that accepts government funding.”
Like many heartland states, Oklahoma legislators have tried to pass a “washroom law” restricting school washrooms and change rooms to people of the same biological sex (Oklahoma’s failed in committee). The state also joined Texas’s recent lawsuit claiming President Barack Obama’s threat to withdraw education funds from schools that refuse to let trans students into the rooms of their choice is unconstitutional.
The archbishop warned that already anyone who is “labelled a bigot, a homophobe and a ‘hater,’” will likely face economic and legal penalties. (When the state House of Representatives considered the bathroom bill, the two biggest chambers of commerce lobbied against the measure for fear of economic sanctions by big businesses).
Coakley said transgenderism flies in the face of “science, philosophy, theology and the accumulated wisdom of every culture.” Gender differences are objectively real, “rooted in biology and more fundamentally, they are rooted in the design of the Creator.”
Coakley termed the root motivation “demonic,” because people who are rightly considered creatures of God claim to create their own reality, and reject the bodies and genders given them by God.
The fight is not over human rights, summarizes the archbishop, but over humanity accepting its place in creation. “It seems clear to me that battle lines are being drawn very clear. And, these lines are about more than government overreach. This is a spiritual battle between Light and darkness.” He concludes: “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!”
