Kansas Republican Party Votes to ‘Affirm God’s Design for Gender’

TOPEKA, Kan. — The Kansas Republican Party voted over the weekend to approve a resolution on human sexuality that affirms “God’s design for gender.”

The proposal had been submitted by Eric Teetsel, who serves as president of the Family Policy Alliance of Kansas and is also a Republican Party State Committee member. Teetsel is the son-in-law of former Gov. Sam Brownback.

“[A]ll persons are created in God’s image and, therefore, have inherent dignity and inalienable rights,” the resolution, approved on Saturday by a voice vote, reads. “God’s design was the creation of two distinct complementary sexes, male and female.”

It laments, therefore, that society has sought to make that which is a distortion of God’s creation acceptable and normal.

“[M]any have sought to normalize transgenderism and define gender according to one’s self-perception apart from biological anatomy,” the resolution states. “[S]ome Kansas schools are encouraging parents and teachers to affirm the feelings of children experiencing gender dysphoria.”

It says that some states are even taking steps to stop counselors from helping children who have gender dysphoria to accept themselves the way were created.

“[T]hese cultural currents run counter to God’s created order and violate the dignity and every human being,” the resolution notes. “Therefore, be it resolved that the Kansas Republican Party recognizes the dignity of every human being, including those who identify as LGBT; that we affirm God’s design for gender as determined by biological sex and not by self-perception; that we oppose efforts to surgically or hormonally alter one’s bodily identity to conform with one’s perceived gender identity; that we oppose all efforts to validate transgender identity…”

It also states that parents should have the right to control their parent’s education, and that schools should not undermine parents who don’t agree with transgenderism.

Read the resolution in full here.

The group Equality Kansas has expressed opposition to the resolution, claiming that it is hateful and “attacks schoolchildren in the name of religion.”

“Yesterday afternoon, the Kansas Republican Party adopted a hateful anti-science, anti-trans policy that demeans and dehumanizes transgender Kansans, particularly transgender children,” it wrote in a social media post. “The author of the resolution, Sam Brownback’s son-in-law, Eric Teetsel, claimed it was a matter of ‘dignity.’”

“No. Denying science and attacking schoolchildren in the name of religion is not a recognition of ‘dignity,’” the group remarked. “This is a cheap election year attack by Sam Brownback’s son-in-law, and yet another attempt to dehumanize those who do not fit inside the narrow world view of Brownback, his family, and his wing of the Republican party.”

However, Teetsel said that the burgeoning concept of conforming oneself to one’s feelings is actually harmful, and therefore, the loving thing to do is to speak truth out of care for the well-being of those with the diagnosis.

“[A]n ideology that says you can determine your own gender identity is broken and it’s going to lead to a lot of pain,” Teetsel told the Wichita Eagle, “and that’s why it’s important to bring us back to what we know to be true and good.”

“Ultimately, we are motivated by love. It is concern for the well-being of others that drives us to seek out what is true and not just for society, but for them personally,” he stated.

As previously reported, Scripture states that those who turn God’s creation “upside down” are like the clay telling the potter that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Romans 9:20 says, “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, ‘Why hast thou made me thus?’”

Isaiah 29:16 also declares, “Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay, for shall the work say of Him that made it, ‘He made me not?’ Or shall the thing framed say of Him that framed it, ‘He had no understanding?’”