The Supreme Court’s upcoming hearing of USA v. Skrmetti is set to address profound legal, moral, and cultural questions at the heart of our nation’s future. At issue is Tennessee’s law prohibiting medical interventions on minors experiencing gender dysphoria—specifically procedures that permanently alter or sterilize healthy bodies. The case has national implications, and the stakes could not be higher.
The Amicus Brief filed by the Family Action Council of Tennessee and ten other state policy councils offers an articulate and compelling defense of Tennessee’s law, which seeks to protect children from irreparable harm while affirming the truth of human nature and the family as foundational institutions of society.
The brief anchors its defense in centuries of common-law principles and constitutional history. It emphasizes that the state has a duty to protect vulnerable individuals, particularly children, from harm. As the amici write, Tennessee’s law is consistent with the “absolute rights enjoyed by all persons prior to the U.S. Constitution’s ratification,” including “personal security, liberty, and property.” These rights extend to the “legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health, and his reputation.”
In prohibiting harmful medical practices, Tennessee law “serves to instantiate, and thus reiterate and hold steady, the law’s proper and vital recognition of an objective sexed human nature.” This recognition is not a novel principle but a continuation of historical legal and moral traditions.
The brief highlights the unprecedented nature of the claims advanced by the Department of Justice, which seeks to invalidate Tennessee’s law under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This challenge, the amici argue, represents a “radical departure” from long-established legal principles. Specifically, the brief warns that accepting the DOJ’s arguments would “nullify State authority to protect children from avant-garde medical impositions that pertain to the historic common law duty of states to protect” the bodily integrity and health of individuals.
The amici are unequivocal in their rejection of the notion that minors can consent to interventions that irreversibly alter their bodies: “Medical professionals impose these interventions upon a child for the specific purpose of overcoming the natural processes and characteristics unique to a child’s physiology as male or female.” Such actions, the brief contends, exploit and perpetuate, rather than resolve, a child’s “transient though profound confusion” about identity.
These arguments powerfully articulate the importance of preserving the created order—that is, the recognition of male and female as objective and immutable categories of human identity. I share this conviction wholeheartedly and stand in defense of Tennessee’s law. It is a law rooted in timeless truths and an understanding of human nature that acknowledges the distinctions between men and women as foundational to our society and our faith. To deny these distinctions is to erode the very fabric of human identity, leading us down a perilous path of cultural and moral decay.
These actions are not medicine; they are a betrayal of the medical profession’s sacred duty to heal and protect life…This is not care; it is harm.
We are witnessing an evil in our time that disguises itself as compassion and progress. The medical community, driven by profit and a distorted ideology, has embarked on a campaign to exploit vulnerable children. They administer puberty blockers and perform surgeries that mutilate healthy bodies, all under the guise of affirming gender identity. These actions are not medicine; they are a betrayal of the medical profession’s sacred duty to heal and protect life. As the brief aptly states, these procedures “attack healthy bodies to halt or destroy natural physiological processes.” This is not care; it is harm.
When we allow such practices to proceed unchecked, we reject the wisdom of our legal and moral traditions. The law has long recognized the state’s duty to protect the vulnerable, especially children, from harm. Tennessee’s law does exactly that. It serves as a bulwark against a culture that increasingly seeks to redefine truth and impose its lies on the most impressionable among us. The amici are correct when they warn that abandoning this duty would “nullify State authority to protect children.”
But this battle is about more than just the law. It is about the soul of our nation. As we continue to drift away from biblical societal standards, we risk losing not only our moral compass but also the blessings and protections that come from living in accordance with God’s design. The family—rooted in the union of one man and one woman, grounded in their God-given roles as father and mother—is the foundation of a just and thriving society. When we dismantle the created order, we dismantle the very institution that sustains human flourishing.
The brief warns that rejecting the truth of human nature would “drain legal meaning from body and its natural functions” and, in doing so, undermine the concepts of motherhood, fatherhood, and family itself. I believe this is not just a legal issue but a spiritual one. We are witnessing the consequences of a society that has turned its back on God’s design, choosing instead to exalt a lie above the truth. The results are chaos, confusion, and a generation of children paying the price for our collective moral failure.
Now is the time to make our stand. This case is not just about Tennessee; it is about the future of our nation. We must defend the truth that male and female are not interchangeable constructs but divinely ordained realities. We must reject the false compassion that leads to harm and embrace the true compassion that protects and nurtures. Most importantly, we must return to biblical principles as the foundation of our laws and policies.
As December 4, 2024, approaches, I urge every person of faith to pray fervently for the justices of the Supreme Court. Pray that they will have the wisdom to see the truth and the courage to uphold it. Pray for the families and children affected by this issue, that they might find healing and hope. Pray for our nation, that we might turn back to the standards of righteousness that have sustained us in the past.
This is our moment. If we fail to protect our children, we fail to protect our future. Let us stand firm in the truth, trusting that God will honor our efforts to uphold His design and defend the most vulnerable among us.