If you start with the oppressor-oppressed worldview and then add the proceduralism of the HR mindset, you end up with the modern organizational leader, exemplified by the elite university president. They don’t have the moral authority to lead or educate the “children without chests.” The best they can do is establish a new policy, such as “Calling for the killing of Jews violates the university’s code of conduct,” and then wait for HR to resolve the situation. Christians can offer a better way. We can be salt and light (Matt. 5:13–16) by committing to two related tasks—exemplifying moral leadership and making men and women “with chests,” that is, helping them develop the emotional heart needed to act morally and be fully human.

“Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?”
That was the question presented to the presidents of three elite universities—Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania—in a recent congressional hearing. Each of the three women took turns answering the question but their responses were the same: it would depend on the circumstances and conduct. None of them was willing to directly say students calling for genocide of Jewish people would violate their school’s code of conduct.
Most congressional hearings pass without much notice, but the backlash to this event was swift and angry. School alumni, politicians, and business leaders have called for the immediate resignation or expulsion of these university presidents. “Why has antisemitism exploded on campus and around the world?” asked Bill Ackman, a Harvard grad and billionaire hedge fund manager. “Because of leaders like Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth who believe genocide depends on the context.”
Rule by HR
How we should interpret speech often does depend on the context surrounding the speech. That principle applies not only to the speech of students on campuses but also to the speech of university presidents testifying before Congress.
What was their context? In a word, proceduralism. Proceduralism “justifies rules, decisions, or institutions by reference to a valid process, as opposed to their being morally correct according to a substantive account of justice or goodness.” As economics professor Tyler Cowen says, “Their entire testimony is ruled by their lawyers, by their fear that their universities might be sued, and their need to placate internal interest groups.” And as Katherine Boyle noted, “This is Rule by HR Department and it gets dark very fast.”
“Rule by HR Department” is an apt phrase to describe a type of proceduralism where an organization—a business, college, or even religious denomination—is excessively governed by its human resources (HR) policies and procedures to the point that these policies overshadow other considerations. While HR departments play a crucial role, an overemphasis on HR-style processes can lead an organization to forget the purpose is to serve people.
This was a problem for these university presidents, who seemed to have misunderstood why they were being called to testify. They thought their role was to justify their school’s “valid process.” They were being called before an HR proxy (the House Committee on Education and the Workforce) and proceeded to give the type of response one gives to HR in such situations: a defense of one’s actions based on compliance with written policies.
In that sense, from an HR mindset, their answers were likely to be legally and technically correct. What they overlooked, of course, were the people—their Jewish students who feel threatened and their students who are promoting genocide.
HR Mindset vs. Moral Leadership
In her clarification video, University of Pennsylvania president M. Elizabeth Magill talked about the mass genocide of Jews and said, “In my view, [a call for genocide] would be intimidation and harassment.” Yet instead of calling out the students who were making pro-genocide statements, she shifted back into HR mode. She said that because of signs of hate across college campuses and throughout the world, the university must “initiate a serious and careful look at [their] policies.”
While a policy change may be necessary, her response leaves the most pressing questions unaddressed: Why are there so many antisemites on your campus in the first place? Did they come as hateful freshmen, or were they radicalized at college? And how are students spending years at your school and yet still comfortable calling for genocide on campus?
It’s understandable why these university presidents were caught off guard. They were appointed to their positions to be administrators, to ensure the college complies with the rules, both the written policies of the school and the unwritten expectations of their students. Yet what they were being asked to do, perhaps for the first time in their careers, was to be moral leaders.
Moral leadership can be defined as the ability of a leader to attract others by virtuous character and lead them toward a specific objective based on commonly shared moral principles. For almost a century, such moral leadership hasn’t been a requirement in most organizations, whether in business, government, or academia. Indeed, aside from a few exceptions—such as pastor or football coach—it’s rarely the expected form for a leadership role. The most organizations expect today is for their leaders to adhere to the same basic standard of ethics as the people they lead.
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As a society, we should question why we’re extending social and government benefits to a group based on sexual behavior while excluding other, nonsexual unions that are more worthy. Why allow civil unions for the lesbian couple down the street but not for the widowed daughter and mother-in-law who live next door?

David French recently sparked a lively debate by addressing marriage in “Why I Changed My Mind About Law and Marriage, Again.” French, a conservative evangelical, explains his “flip, flop, and flip back again on civil marriage” (emphasis in original).
“I emphasize the word civil because my view on the religious nature of marriage has not changed,” says French. “It is a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman, sealed before God, and breakable only on the limited conditions God has outlined in his Word.”
Not surprisingly, French’s article has received considerable backlash. Dozens of articles, blog posts, and Twitter threads have pushed back against his change of heart. While some of the responses are motivated by personal dislike of French (some have said he’s not even a Christian), I think the general reaction is due to a broader frustration with evangelicals who share his viewpoint. And that group is growing larger every day.
A Gallup poll taken in May revealed that “support for legal same-sex marriage reflects steady increases among most subgroups of the population, even those who have traditionally been the most resistant to gay marriage.” One of the last remaining groups to hold the line are Americans who report they attend church weekly. But even in that group, 40 percent are in favor of such “marriages” and only 58 percent are opposed. Many of us are frustrated because we’re losing the argument even among people who share our faith and values.
The tide of public opinion is unlikely to be turned by publishing another article pointing out why French and the other 40 percent of churchgoers are wrong. Still, there’s a solution to the problem that is easily implementable and that should be acceptable to almost every Christian (and most secular Americans)—yet no one’s talking about it.
5-Legged Dog of Marriage Law
Before we get to the solution, though, we must point out why same-sex civil marriage is a problem in need of correction. The essential problem, as many people have consistently pointed out, is that there is not and can never be such as thing as same-sex “marriage.” This is true even for civil marriage. Here’s why.
As Abraham Lincoln was fond of asking, “If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?” “Five,” his audience would invariably answer. “No,” he’d politely respond, “the correct answer is four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.”
Like Lincoln’s associates, many of our fellow citizens—including many Christians—appear to fall for the notion that changing a definition causes a change in essence. The attempt to change the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions is a prime example. Simply calling such relationships “same-sex marriages,” many believe, will make them marriages. Such reasoning, however, is as flawed as thinking that changing tail to leg changes the function of the appendage.
Consider the change that must occur in our tail/leg example. A dog’s tail cannot perform the same functions as its leg. He can’t use his tail to run or swim or scratch an itch. In order to use the term for both parts, we must discard all qualities that make a tail different from a leg. The new meaning of leg will require that we exclude any difference in form (for example, we can no longer say that a paw can be found at the end of a leg) or function (for example, legs are not necessarily used for standing). In other words, by redefining the term tail we have not made it equivalent in form or function to a leg; we’ve merely stripped the term leg of its previous meaning and made it as generic a term as “appendage.”
The same is true with the attempts to redefine marriage. Because marriage requires the specific form of a union of man and woman (Gen. 2:24), applying the term to same-sex unions alters the very concept of what a marriage is for and what functions it takes.
Changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions doesn’t make it more inclusive but rather more exclusive, since it requires excluding all the functions previously believed to be essential to the institution of marriage (for example, permanence, fidelity, and sexual complementarity).
But doesn’t that fall back on a religious argument? Can’t governments determine the standard for civil marriages? No, they cannot, because marriage is both a prepolitical and prereligious institution that was instituted by God before any formal government or religious institutions were created.
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As Christians have been pointing out for more than 2,000 years, the reason Jesus never mentioned homosexuality is that his views on sexuality were already so clear that it wasn’t necessary…serious-minded people didn’t argue that Jesus would endorse homosexual relationships, much less same-sex marriage.
“Some words, like strategic castles, are worth defending, and evangelical is among them,” Michael Gerson wrote. “While the term is notoriously difficult to define, it certainly encompasses a ‘born-again’ religious experience, a commitment to the authority of the Bible, and an emphasis on the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.”
Gerson wrote those words in an article for The Atlantic in 2018. He ends his essay by saying, “This sets an urgent task for evangelicals: to rescue their faith from its worst leaders.”
Gerson, who previously served as a top aide and speechwriter for George W. Bush and is the author of Heroic Conservatism and coauthor of City of Man (a book edited by Collin Hansen and Tim Keller), has been an evangelical voice in the public square. It’s unfortunate, then, that he now uses arguments about sexuality that contradict Scripture and the church’s historic witness. As he notes, being an evangelical means being committed to the Bible’s authority—a position he seems to have now abandoned.
Has the LGBT+ Movement Harmed Anyone?
During Pride Month, Gerson used his forum in The Washington Post to write about “how the gay rights movement found such stunning success.” The article’s key thesis is that “in the conflict over gay rights, supporters have asserted a compelling view of human dignity, while opponents have struggled to explain how broadening rights harms others.” To support his claim, Gerson provides three examples.
For his first example, Gerson writes, “Some conservatives claimed that gay marriage would somehow weaken the institution of straight marriage. But the evidence that same-sex marriage increases rates of divorce, child poverty or children living in single-parent homes appears nonexistent.” His criteria reveals that he never truly understood the argument for how heterosexual marriages would be weakened by same-sex marriage.
Consider, for example, the issue of the redefinition of marriage. For almost all of human history, marriage has been considered the comprehensive union of man and woman that unites them for the purposes of procreation, family life, and domestic sharing. By simply redefining the term, it automatically devalued the institution.
If Gerson is looking for a more direct harm, he could look at the rise of nonmonogamous relationships. As I wrote nine years ago, being “monogamish” (i.e., when a couple is emotionally intimate only with each other yet engages in sexual infidelities or group sexual activity) has long been considered acceptable, even normative, within homosexual communities. As our nation embraces the acceptance of same-sex marriage, the idea that fidelity isn’t required within marriage has also been increasingly accepted.
A poll taken in 2021 found that the generation of adults most influenced by LGBT+ culture is adopting this view of fidelity. Four in 10 millennials (41 percent) said they’d be interested in having an open relationship. Among millennials who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or other, 52 percent would be interested in open relationships. Among married couples from every generation, 30 percent of husbands would be interested, while fewer wives (21 percent) feel similarly.
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The church must commit to speaking the truth of the gospel and how it applies to this issue. Specifically, we need to make it clear—especially to our neighbors in the pews beside us—that we cannot love our neighbor and tolerate unrepentant rebellion against God.
The Story
The U.S. House—including 47 House Republicans—voted to codify same-sex marriage into federal law, officially abandoning support for traditional marriage.
The Background
On Tuesday, the House voted to pass the Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA), a bill that repeals the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and provides statutory authority for same-sex marriages.
DOMA is a federal law that restricts federal marriage benefits and requires interstate marriage recognition only for opposite-sex marriages. The law passed both houses of Congress by large majorities and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996.
However, the Supreme Court case United States v. Windsor struck down one section of DOMA in 2013. Two years later, the ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges stripped away the remaining power of DOMA by requiring all states to grant same-sex marriages and recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states.
RFMA replaces the provisions in DOMA and defines marriage, for purposes of federal law, as any marriage that is valid under state law. The bill also requires all states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.
RFMA had been floating around Congress since 2009, but it gained more attention after Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the high court should “reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell.”
Of the 204 Republicans who voted on the bill, 47 (23 percent) voted in support. All 267 Democrats also supported the bill, including 11 who had voted for DOMA in 1996.
What It Means
There are four obvious takeaways from the vote on RFMA.
First, Christian politicians no longer look to the Christian view of marriage to compel them to support traditional marriage.
Perhaps in 2022 it’s naive to think they should, since, as one pastor famously said in 2017, we’re not electing them “to be a children’s Sunday School teacher.” Still, it’s shocking that an institution overwhelmingly composed of Christians would abandon even the pretense of supporting the Christian position. In the House, 88 percent of Representatives identify as Christian, and yet 63 percent voted to abandon the Christian view of marriage. (Whether you consider it a first, second, or third order doctrine, the orthodox Christian position on marriage is that we cannot endorse same-sex marriage.)
Second, Christian politicians may not be influenced by Scripture, but they are swayed by polling data.
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Based on the text of the [proposed] ordinance, counseling teenagers by telling them what God says about sexuality is a form of punishable heresy since it violates the sacred texts (e.g., statements by the American Psychoanalytic Association) of some West Lafayette city council members.

The Story
A proposed city ordinance in Indiana highlights why bans on “conversion therapy” can be a threat to the gospel.
The Background
The city council of West Lafayette, Indiana is considering an ordinance that would make it illegal for “unlicensed” counselors to counsel minors on human sexuality in a way that conflicts with LGBT+ orthodoxy. For example, if a teenager goes to a Christian counseling center about unwanted same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria, it would be breaking the law to give them answers based on biblical sexual ethics. The penalty for violating the ban on so-called “conversion therapy” is a fine of $1,000 per day.*
The proposed ordinance defines “conversion therapy” as any practices or treatments that seek to “change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.”
The law makes an exception, though, for counseling that affirms a minor’s embrace of homosexuality or gender identity. According to the ordinance, “Conversion therapy shall not include counseling that provides assistance to a person undergoing gender transition, or counseling that provides acceptance, support, and understanding of a person or facilitates a person’s coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, including sexual-orientation-neutral interventions to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices, as long as such counseling does not seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“Counseling,” as defined by the proposal, refers to “techniques used to help individuals learn how to solve problems and make decisions related to personal growth, vocational, family, and other interpersonal concerns.” “Unlicensed person” is defined as any person not licensed or governed by Ind. Code § 25-1-1-1 et seq. and the State of Indiana’s Professional Licensing Agency who provides counseling and/or psychotherapy. The ordinance makes no exception for pastors or other religious counselors.
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