Gentile Madness

Gender Bender

When God gives a culture up to the ravages of its own sinfulness its mind becomes darkened (Romans 1:21).  The culture starts to do stupid, laughable things with all due solemnity and seriousness. 

Here is an example of Gentile madness:  US army solider, Private Manning stole state secrets.  He has been judged and found guilty, and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison.  But Private Manning is taken in self-absorbed lust.  He wants to be a woman.  He has made application for medical intervention that would change him into a woman.  This is serious stuff.  It is serious because medical "experts" have discovered there is a bona-fide disease named Gender Identity Disorder ("GID").  Wow.  A disease.  But that means its treatable--using hormones, the surgeon's knife, counselling and a truckload of other medical interventions.  Hey presto, Manning can be turned into a woman. 

But wait, there's more.  The issue here is not just the perverted fixations of a lost proud soul.  The soul that is lost includes the United States medical establishment.
  But more, there is another soul that is lost in darkness: the US judicial system.  It has declared that, since the Constitution of the United States forbids cruel and unusual punishment for criminals, the Supreme Court has cogitated within the winding corridors of its darkened soul and determined that the state must not be indifferent to the serious medical needs of prisoners. 

The application of the Eighth Amendment to prisoners is a relatively new concept. The Supreme Court first addressed the issue in 1976, but in doing so established that deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes the "unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain," which is covered by the Eighth Amendment's proscription against cruel and unusual punishment. (Danny Cevallos, CNN News)

So the issue comes down to this with respect to Private Manning: does his affliction with GID amount to "unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain" if "treatment" is withheld?  Arguably, yes it does.  The darkness deepens.  There are precedents. 

In 2012, a federal district court in Massachusetts held, in a groundbreaking opinion, that prison officials violated the Eighth Amendment by refusing to provide a prisoner sex-reassignment surgery. Even more fascinating, in the same case, Kosilek v. Spencer, the state was already providing feminizing hormones to the prisoner, but the court deemed this constitutionally inadequate treatment.

How did the federal court arrive at this decision? First, it reviewed medical literature, which provided that, in certain cases, sex-reassignment surgery is the only treatment for GID. That literature included the World Professional Association for Transgender Health's "Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People." Those standards provide that in persons with profound GID, "sex reassignment surgery ... is medically indicated and medically necessary." The standards also provide that such surgery is not "elective" or "optional" in any meaningful sense.

Once the court established that medical necessity, there was little to prevent prisoner Michelle (formerly Robert) Kosilek from making his case. The court concluded that Kosilek had a serious medical need; that sex reassignment surgery was the only adequate treatment for it; and that the Department of Corrections was aware of his "suffering serious harm ... if not provided such surgery." By this logic, Kosilek successfully established an Eighth Amendment violation, and the court ordered his sex-reassignment surgery "forthwith" -- legalese for "right away." Courts since Kosilek have arrived at different conclusions.

Behold, the madness of the Gentiles.  Judicial blindness is a divine judgement levelled on a culture.  It is a condition where white becomes black and black becomes white.  It is a consequence of man declaring himself the master of all things, and nothing human being foreign to us.  It's fruit is widespread, cultural Falstaffian idiocy. 

It's not certain that Manning will get is "treatment".  After all, we are at the cutting edge of legal evolution.  We might get some pushback.

So what will Bradley Manning's options be? Will he be entitled to sexual hormone therapy, or sex-reassignment surgery? Will he have the right to have the federal government (i.e., taxpayers) fund this treatment? The answer will turn on whether federal courts will choose to follow the logic of the Kosilek court, and hold that the government's refusal to allow and pay for sex-reassignment surgery for prisoners with GID constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment."

Odds, anyone?  Unless it pleases God to spare us and our culture from destruction, we back judicial blindness and its accompanying darkness every time.  It is a dark, dark comedy.