This week the confluence of three things caused me to ask the question posed in the heading. Based on my evaluation of the conservatism that appears to have been expressed by the state Senate this week in relation to a major controversy, my answer is no. But not for the reason you might expect.

Most lawyers in America need a “remedial legal education” according to a legal scholar with whom I’ve been working in recent years. His point was proved by remarks made last week on the Tennessee House floor by a Republican Representative who is a lawyer. When you read what he said, you may laugh, but it is a serious matter. In this case, it makes a “hash” out of law and the U.S. Constitution. 

Last week the Tennessee legislature sent legislation to the governor allowing persons to sue health care providers for civil damages resulting from medical treatments administered for the purpose of gender transition. This week the sex-gender issue rises again with a bill running through the legislative committee system. Some in state government have made a mess of this issue, and it spells trouble. 

Last week the Tennessee House debated House Bill 1 addressing medical treatments provided to minors with gender dysphoria. Representative Bud Hulsey made perhaps the most significant statement I have heard on the House Floor in my 28 years at the state Capitol. It stood in stark contrast to everything else said by the other members, whether for or against the bill. The debate highlighted two different worldviews and two different ways to address gender dysphoria.

A recent Fox New headline trumpeted its new three-part series on America with this headline: “America ‘unrecognizable’ and on the brink of collapse, experts warn: ‘Turning on our own legacy.’” The series will look at the “pivotal changes that signal the nation's exponential decline in the last 30 years that created the country we see today.” I think C.S. Lewis will provide a far better understanding of the pivotal point than Fox News. I hope you benefit from it. 

Next Thursday, the Tennessee House of Representatives is likely to enact into law (absent a gubernatorial veto) a bill that would allow persons to sue and recover monetary damages from all health care providers involved in rendering “gender transition” services to that person while a minor. Its goal is a worthy one. But I did not realize until yesterday morning that the bill contains language regarding the nature of law and the power of state government that may be the greatest insult to God I have ever seen in my 28 years at the state Capitol. I hope you (and our legislators and governor) will now see what I failed to see.

Over the last few months, I have had multiple exchanges with Christian policymakers and lawyers around the country about legislation directed at stopping “transgender treatments” on minors. I found myself urging them to consider the same points made against Tennessee’s version of the bill by the American Civil Liberty Union’s lawyer last week. Was I siding with the ACLU or were my friends? 

Last week I put the LGBTQ movement and the Christian Nationalist movement “in the dock” to evaluate the nature of the love each professes. Today, I put my first book, The Politics of Loving God, in the dock. My purpose is to see if there can be any such thing as a “politics of love.” Many who have read it may be surprised by my critique of the book.

Legislation pending in Tennessee (Senate Bill 1/House Bill 1) and in several other politically conservative states will pit these two seemingly disparate and rival movements against each other. But I increasingly believe the two have something in common that is seriously wrong. I think both deserve closer inspection, and perhaps the best benchmark for starting that inspection is the LGBTQ movement’s catchphrase, “love is love.”