Boo, Caligula!

Opponents of gender-affirming care sound a whole lot like their enemies on the pro-choice front. It's a nearly identical argument, just in reverse: Anti-GAC: "This one extreme example justifies criminalizing gender-affirming care for everyone." Pro-choice: "This one extreme example justifies legalizing abortion access for everyone."

But why are we letting the government make medical decisions for anyone? There are exactly two people who should be involved: the doctor and the patient. Not a senator, not a priest, and certainly not you and me—regardless of my, your, or anyone else's religious convictions.

Religious faith, by definition, is inherently illogical. But the statement "faith is illogical" does not equate to the statement "faith is stupid." It means "faith is a choice." By its very nature, faith is the choice to believe an idea, even in the face of very little evidence to support it. To use Christianity as an example: there are syllogisms created by writers like Thomas Aquinas that attempt to logically prove the existence of God, and there are historical records that suggest a prophet who taught what Jesus taught lived at about the right time in history.

But that's pretty much it. We choose to believe almost everything else Christianity teaches because the Bible says it, or a priest says it. Even C.S. Lewis, exploring the idea of the Holy Trinity in Mere Christianity, eventually reached the conclusion that the concept only makes sense up to a certain point, and past that...well, you just kinda have to roll with it. That's why it's called a "mystery."

We have that right: to choose to believe something even if it can't be proven. But the moment you're elevated to a position of power over millions of people, you also gain an ethical obligation to make decisions based not on an illogical conviction, but on concrete reality and demonstrable facts. That goes beyond any nation's constitution or belief system's creed.

There are certain things we've known as a species since before we could articulate them, as illustrated by the very first laws ever written (well before Christianity and almost as old as Hinduism), i.e., "killing each other is bad." One of those is that a leader should make just, fair decisions based on evidence (yay, Solomon!), and not be, as modern law phrases it, "arbitrary or capricious" (boo, Caligula!).

Anyway. Happy Saturday!