 Bob Linn made a bold thesis, rebuking the spineless politicians and preachers for hanging a fine public servant out for media ridicule. | Dr. Everett Piper, of Oklahoma Wesleyan University; reposted an excellent thesis from Bob Linn; regarding the Oklahoma House Page program, and the effort made by it's director, to protect the children entrusted to our lawmakers, by the parents. Two weeks ago, a large group of known cross-dressing teens were coming to the capitol for the day. In anticipation of this, the page program's director made an effort to let the kids in her care know that they can have special access to some private restrooms, in the event that they are confronted with males being in the female restrooms. Sadly, the page program's director was publicly reprimanded for taking this initiative. Not one legislator came to her public defense. Not one clergy group came to her public defense.  Pages are selected from among Oklahoma's high school students. |
by Bob Linn
Capitol Cross-Dressers
There is a short supply of men in the Oklahoma Legislature these days. Parents must now question whether they should allow their minor children to participate in the Page Program at the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Do not blame Karen Kipgen who supervises the program. When seventy students who are confused about their sexual identity arrived from Tulsa, Karen realized there would be cross-dressers in the women’s restrooms. To protect her pages, who are underage girls, she made arrangements for the pages to use a private restroom. As a courtesy, she emailed a note to those legislative assistants affected, explaining why this permission was granted for the day.
Her motherly intercession on behalf of her charges was betrayed by one of the assistants, who turned her innocent effort into a public firestorm. The un-named assistant made Kipgen’s private email known to the visiting students and allowed it to be published, along with Karen Kipgen’s picture, by media outlets from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This, however, was not the most reprehensible reaction to her effort.
How would the Christian statesmen in the legislature respond? Would anyone defend Karen Kipgen? The awkwardness was palpable as Karen was left standing all alone under the national spotlight of condemnation, while the trouble-making assistant received a pass, her identity remaining anonymous. Rather than publicly supporting Karen in her stand for Biblical values, members of the legislature wilted before Oklahoma’s most vocal minority. But wouldn’t anyone? Activist sexual perverts have established a track record as the most hateful minority in the history of American society, seeking to bankrupt anyone who does not affirm their militant moral standards.
We have come to expect people like the un-named assistant and the media to froth at the mouth over opportunities to smear the innocent and to force their newly discovered moral absolutes on the entire culture. Drawing from the lessons of history, we learn that these new sexual morals are not new. They are ancient corruptions that have proven to be irrational failures.
Moral degeneracy has made great headway in contemporary American culture due to the decline of the American pulpit and the objective standard it is ordained to uphold. This greatest nation in the world, the beacon of Christian liberty, was founded in the midst of an enlightened culture made possible by the political sermons of its preachers, the Sunday afternoon Bible reading of its congregations1, and the leadership of those pastors who helped pave the way to the fight for our independence from a decadent England.
The gender disguising we witnessed recently in our Oklahoma Legislature is a part of the camouflage which French historian Arnold Toynbee indicated could never withstand the light of Biblical truth.2 Herbert Schlossberg, a leading scholar on the relationship between Christianity and societies, describes Toynbee’s camouflage as consisting primarily of the “myths of secularity that people have wrapped around academic disciplines.”3 Schlossberg goes on to note that, “Expelling the Biblical presuppositions that were the only ones that could provide a foundation for rationality, we unwittingly invited the irrational to join us.”4 He observes that while cultures have often survived the domination of wicked people in high places, they will not long survive the people’s insistence that wickedness be dominant nor the continual boast that evil is good.5
Are there any enlightened patriots in Oklahoma? Any real men who would do us the favor of occupying seats of leadership in our state? Is there a man anywhere who, in a position of elected leadership, would have praised Karen Kipgen for her foresight, decency, and leadership? Is there a leader in our midst who would have told those corrupt minds with loud voices that he stands between the vulnerable and those who pose even the hint of a threat?
It is long past time for Oklahoma’s preachers to preach absolute morality for the general culture, as did their Biblical predecessors. Men like Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the Apostle Paul (Romans 1) knew that God’s law extended to all men and should never be shut up behind the closed doors of religious institutions. Perhaps from among such preachers we will find men to light our way back to the Kingdom of Heaven. After all, it is that Kingdom, when all the dust settles, which will appear eternally glorious. Let us pray for men with the wisdom and backbone to lead us in the direction of the Kingdom.
1 Angelo Codevilla, The Character of Nations, P 226, 227
2 Arnold Toynbee, Reconsiderations, Vol 12 of A Study of History, P 67
3 Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, P 169
4 Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, P 169
5 Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, P 296
Capitol Cross-Dressers
There is a short supply of men in the Oklahoma Legislature these days. Parents must now question whether they should allow their minor children to participate in the Page Program at the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Do not blame Karen Kipgen who supervises the program. When seventy students who are confused about their sexual identity arrived from Tulsa, Karen realized there would be cross-dressers in the women’s restrooms. To protect her pages, who are underage girls, she made arrangements for the pages to use a private restroom. As a courtesy, she emailed a note to those legislative assistants affected, explaining why this permission was granted for the day.
Her motherly intercession on behalf of her charges was betrayed by one of the assistants, who turned her innocent effort into a public firestorm. The un-named assistant made Kipgen’s private email known to the visiting students and allowed it to be published, along with Karen Kipgen’s picture, by media outlets from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This, however, was not the most reprehensible reaction to her effort.
How would the Christian statesmen in the legislature respond? Would anyone defend Karen Kipgen? The awkwardness was palpable as Karen was left standing all alone under the national spotlight of condemnation, while the trouble-making assistant received a pass, her identity remaining anonymous. Rather than publicly supporting Karen in her stand for Biblical values, members of the legislature wilted before Oklahoma’s most vocal minority. But wouldn’t anyone? Activist sexual perverts have established a track record as the most hateful minority in the history of American society, seeking to bankrupt anyone who does not affirm their militant moral standards.
We have come to expect people like the un-named assistant and the media to froth at the mouth over opportunities to smear the innocent and to force their newly discovered moral absolutes on the entire culture. Drawing from the lessons of history, we learn that these new sexual morals are not new. They are ancient corruptions that have proven to be irrational failures.
Moral degeneracy has made great headway in contemporary American culture due to the decline of the American pulpit and the objective standard it is ordained to uphold. This greatest nation in the world, the beacon of Christian liberty, was founded in the midst of an enlightened culture made possible by the political sermons of its preachers, the Sunday afternoon Bible reading of its congregations1, and the leadership of those pastors who helped pave the way to the fight for our independence from a decadent England.
The gender disguising we witnessed recently in our Oklahoma Legislature is a part of the camouflage which French historian Arnold Toynbee indicated could never withstand the light of Biblical truth.2 Herbert Schlossberg, a leading scholar on the relationship between Christianity and societies, describes Toynbee’s camouflage as consisting primarily of the “myths of secularity that people have wrapped around academic disciplines.”3 Schlossberg goes on to note that, “Expelling the Biblical presuppositions that were the only ones that could provide a foundation for rationality, we unwittingly invited the irrational to join us.”4 He observes that while cultures have often survived the domination of wicked people in high places, they will not long survive the people’s insistence that wickedness be dominant nor the continual boast that evil is good.5
Are there any enlightened patriots in Oklahoma? Any real men who would do us the favor of occupying seats of leadership in our state? Is there a man anywhere who, in a position of elected leadership, would have praised Karen Kipgen for her foresight, decency, and leadership? Is there a leader in our midst who would have told those corrupt minds with loud voices that he stands between the vulnerable and those who pose even the hint of a threat?
It is long past time for Oklahoma’s preachers to preach absolute morality for the general culture, as did their Biblical predecessors. Men like Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the Apostle Paul (Romans 1) knew that God’s law extended to all men and should never be shut up behind the closed doors of religious institutions. Perhaps from among such preachers we will find men to light our way back to the Kingdom of Heaven. After all, it is that Kingdom, when all the dust settles, which will appear eternally glorious. Let us pray for men with the wisdom and backbone to lead us in the direction of the Kingdom.
1 Angelo Codevilla, The Character of Nations, P 226, 227
2 Arnold Toynbee, Reconsiderations, Vol 12 of A Study of History, P 67
3 Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, P 169
4 Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, P 169
5 Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, P 296
