The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
This past Monday the US Supreme Court allowed a ban by the state of Idaho that prevents doctors from providing treatments that alter the sex of transgender minors. In case readers do not know what that means, a small percentage of babies are born with what might be called an incomplete gender identification. That is, as they grow and mature, some boys internally feel like girls, and some girls internally feel like boys, and they want physically to attain the sex with which they identify.
If you don’t understand this, that is not surprising. The only ones who can fully relate to this issue are those who are born with a transgender genetic identity and other members of their families. To use a common expression, the rest of us just don’t “get it.”
That is particularly true of the six conservative members of SCOTUS who sanctioned the Idaho law. They did not and do not seem to comprehend that it is unjust to approve laws that prevent individuals from exercising rights to take measures that may conflict with the personal opinions of Supreme Court judges. Clearly changing the sexual orientation of a transgender person is a personal matter, not a legal matter.
When a woman chooses to have an abortion, it is a personal and not a legal question. It is also a moral question, and carefully reasoned arguments can be made for or against abortion. Nevertheless, the ultimate decision must be decided by individuals, not courts.
Years ago, the Supreme Court declared that same-sex marriages are legal. Not only did they become legal in all fifty states, they became strongly affirmed thereafter by a majority of Americans in all fifty states. In essence, SCOTUS said that same-sex marriage is an individual right, and it must be recognized as such in the eyes of the law.
Then why would they say it is okay for Idaho to forbid transgender minors or adults from having a medical sex change they strongly want? And why does the Supreme Court take positions that approve state laws that ban abortions in most situations that make abortions all but impossible, legally?
They do it because a majority of the justices, personally, make decisions that negate rights that nature (and nature’s God, if you prefer to add that) give to every person. The Court determines too many ethical questions based on their personal opinions, and not really on legal opinions.
Personal rights shall be diminished as long as the Supreme Court has the present nine justices who comprise it. Four to six of its members seem oblivious to natural human rights, depending on what cases they accept for adjudication. Until some of those who decide legal precedents on personal morality rather than constitutional concepts of natural rights resign, die, are impeached, or are removed by term limits (which will never happen if the Supreme Court is allowed to have anything to say about it), then natural individual rights shall continue to be trampled on by justices whose personal thinking on Culture War controversies shall take precedence to rights that are inherent in the US Constitution. After all, they took an oath to defend it when they became members of the SCOTUS.
– April 20, 2024
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.