New Law Allows Government to Seize Children If Parents Don’t Affirm Their “Gender Identity”

Refusing to Affirm the LGBT Agenda Is Abuse?

The Minister of Child and Family Services who introduced the bill says

that he would consider parental discrimination on the basis of gender identity “a form of abuse when a child identifies as one way and a caregiver is saying ‘No, you need to do this differently. . . . If it’s abuse, and if it’s within the definition, a child can be removed from that environment and placed into protection where the abuse stops.”

You Can’t Raise Your Own Children by Your Beliefs

Rather than allowing parents to raise their biological, adopted, or foster children according to their own religious beliefs, this new law “requires a parent or legal guardian to ‘direct the child or young person’s education and upbringing in accordance with the child’s or young person’s creed, community identity or cultural identity.” This new bill went so far as to delete previous wording that protected the rights of parents to “raise their children under their own umbrella of faith.”

According to a critic of the bill,

Make no mistake . . . Bill 89 is a grave threat to Christians and all people of faith who have children, or who hope to grow their family through adoption. [Authorities are now able to] bust down your door, and seize your biological children if you are known to oppose LGBT ideology and the fraudulent theory of ‘gender identity,’ if for instance, some claim is made that your child may be same-sex attracted or confused about their ‘gender.’

An Attack on Families and Freedom

No longer are parents trusted to raise and actually parent their children.

This new law basically relegates parents to mere caretakers. No longer are parents trusted to raise and actually parent their children—they are just there to provide for their children’s physical needs while their children live by their own creed or ideas. This is an attack on the family unit, the rights of parents, and the freedom of speech and religion.

With this new law, the government is forcing its own beliefs onto parents. With apparently no accommodation for religious belief or conscience, they are effectively saying “our point of view is the only right one, and you must embrace it or else.”

We’re losing religious freedom here in the West, and much of the attack is focused on LGBT issues. But, as believers, we can’t adopt the views of the world. We’ve been called to raise up our children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6) and in the training and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4)—not the training and instruction the government hands down to us.

Amid threats to our families from the government, we must remember that earth is not our home (Hebrews 13:14). God is sovereign, and until he returns (Luke 19:13) we’re to do the business of the King by boldly preaching the good news of the gospel to a lost world.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.