“So a few quick words are needed on whether or not same-sexual orientation is “reversible” in this life. And the answer to that question is that you don’t work on people like pastors were mechanics and parishioners were carburetors. For various reasons, the effeminacy of some does lie pretty close to the bone, and that is the battle they will have until they die. For numerous others, their same-sex attraction can be successfully mortified in this life, and they can marry someone of the opposite sex and live a faithful Christian life in an ordinary way, and go to bed every night in a bed with heterosexual residents. What the Revoice project wants is for the church to leave a particular class of lusts and desires entirely alone. If someone is same-sex attracted, that is just the way it is. But if we are simply leaving that set of desires alone, the one thing we should not call it is a robust gospel response. It is more like a robust throwing in of the towel.”

“The satirist who doubles down is saying, in effect, that the presupposed norm is real. It is transcendentally grounded. It is fixed and cannot be moved. It was written in the spangled stars above us, before any of us were born, and the inscription read, “Thou shalt not allow trannies into the girls’ restrooms.” This is because the satirist is centered. He has a sense of the absurd. But he can only have a sense of the absurd if he knows and loves what plain old surdity is. You know, the normal. A red-checked tablecloth. An apple pie cooling on the window sill. A Winchester over the fireplace. Mom and dad holding hands to say grace with the kids. Norman Rockwell teaching a Sunday School class.”

“The satirist who doubles down is saying, in effect, that the presupposed norm is real. It is transcendentally grounded. It is fixed and cannot be moved. It was written in the spangled stars above us, before any of us were born, and the inscription read, “Thou shalt not allow trannies into the girls’ restrooms.” This is because the satirist is centered. He has a sense of the absurd. But he can only have a sense of the absurd if he knows and loves what plain old surdity is. You know, the normal. A red-checked tablecloth. An apple pie cooling on the window sill. A Winchester over the fireplace. Mom and dad holding hands to say grace with the kids. Norman Rockwell teaching a Sunday School class.”

“My point is that extremism used to be easy to identify by virtue of being, you know, extreme. But who is an extremist today? He is identified as someone who continues to hold to the plain old vanilla positions he was taught as a lad in the sixties. He was taught these things by his mom, his nurse, the public school system, and by “these things” I am including stuff like that XX and XY business.”

“My point is that extremism used to be easy to identify by virtue of being, you know, extreme. But who is an extremist today? He is identified as someone who continues to hold to the plain old vanilla positions he was taught as a lad in the sixties. He was taught these things by his mom, his nurse, the public school system, and by “these things” I am including stuff like that XX and XY business.”

“Religious liberty is not a secular value. Religious liberty is a religious value, and not all religions value it equally, or even at all. Those who prize religious liberty must therefore realize that many worldviews cannot or will not support religious liberty. There is only one faith that supports genuine religious liberty, but it does so because we adopted it because we believed that Jesus rose from the dead, and not because we were pursuing the idol of religious liberty. The Christian faith is true, and that is why good things grow there.”

“Religious liberty is not a secular value. Religious liberty is a religious value, and not all religions value it equally, or even at all. Those who prize religious liberty must therefore realize that many worldviews cannot or will not support religious liberty. There is only one faith that supports genuine religious liberty, but it does so because we adopted it because we believed that Jesus rose from the dead, and not because we were pursuing the idol of religious liberty. The Christian faith is true, and that is why good things grow there.”