The Rundown: NHS England Bans Dangerous Puberty-Blockers for Children Experiencing Gender Dysphoria

Center for Christian Virtue's The Rundown is the most important political and cultural news for Christians in Ohio. Thanks for reading this biweekly newsletter!

What's Happening

Ohio

• One Down, One to Go: With Ohio's Presidential Primary now behind us and official election results coming soon, focus is shifting to the pivotal November 5 General Election. Keep an eye out at the end of the summer for Center for Christian Virtue's free nonpartisan General Election Voter Guide!
  

• Phones Down: Last week, Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted met with several school district leaders and principals to discuss their experiences with implementing policies to reduce or eliminate students' cell phone use at school. During their discussion, they highlighted a recent study from Pew Research Center that showed a majority of teens feel happy or peaceful without their phones. The goal of the meeting was to encourage school districts to pass their own phone-usage policies without government involvement. 

US

• Taking a Stand: 16 female athletes, including All-American swimmer Riley Gaines, have filed a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) for violating Title IX provisions by allowing men to play in women's sports and use their private changing spaces. This lawsuit is the first to fight back against the NCAA's anti-women, pro-transgender policies.
  

• A Bigger Win: Following the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision to upheld Texas' age-verification requirement for individuals to access obscene material online, PornHub chose to block access to its website for all users in Texas rather than implement age verification to protect children from being exposed to their explicit content, a move they've now chosen several times. With the known consequences of porn consumption, this could be considered the best possible, though unintended, outcome.
  

• Marriage is Back: The CDC released a report last week showing that there were 2,065,905 new marriages in 2022. The last time there were more than two million new marriages in a year was 2019. However, the marriage data includes same-sex couples. A deeper dive shows that same-sex married households increased by roughly 172,000  couples from 2019 to 2022, while married households between men and women increased by roughly  2,400,000 couples. The percentage of same-sex households only increased by about 0.29 percent out of the entire married household population from 2019 to 2022, meaning the marriage boom is primarily between men and women. At the same time, divorce and annulment rates have slightly decreased.
  

• A Child at Any Cost: The Department of Veterans Affairs announced last week that, for the first time, they are expanding in vitro fertilization (IVF) to all service members–regardless of marital status, sex, or gender identity–including those who are unmarried veterans or in same-sex unions. As Katy Faust from Them Before Us shared on X (formerly Twitter), this new ruling means taxpayer dollars will be used to intentionally create motherless and fatherless children, and, as the IVF process comes with a host of disastrous consequences, to potentially destroy millions of embryonic children.

World

• Way to Go, England! England's National Health Service (NHS) has decided that children will no longer be prescribed puberty blockers for the purpose of "gender transitioning." The decision comes after an independent review of gender-identity services for children following the dramatic increase in referrals to the Gender Identity Development Service run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which is closing at the end of the month because of their harmful practices. After years of saying the drugs were harmless, the NHS now states that there is not enough evidence of safety and clinical effectiveness to continue prescribing them. LGBT advocates, however, have been largely silent on this major development.
  

• Happy April Fools' Day? A new "hate crime" law is set to go in effect in Scotland on April 1, and includes "any crime which is understood by the victim or any other person as being motivated, wholly or partly by malice or ill will towards a social group." The new law says that "stirring up hatred" could include essentially any and all forms of verbal, written, online, or printed communications–public or private. Someone convicted of "stirring up hate" could face not only a fine, but also a prison term of up to seven years. With nearly half of all religion-aggravated hate crime reports in Scotland being against Catholics, it's likely religious persecution in the name of prosecuting "hate crime" will increase.

Listen Up

WPATH's Gender Medicine Scandal with Dr. Carrie Mendoza: Dr. Carrie Mendoza, an emergency medicine and toxicology physician, unpacks how we went from the opioid epidemic to the gender "medicine" scandal revealed by the leaked WPATH Files. 

Defy the Elites and Get Married with Brad Wilcox: Brad Wilcox, a sociologist and Director of the National Marriage Project, reveals the power of marriage to break the poverty cycle and create thriving, stable communities.

Worldview Development

As a Christian, it can be hard to know how to engage with social-political conversations. Here are our top recommendations this week for developing your worldview to be equipped to tackle today's top issues:

• Resist Pelagian Parenting, a Review of ‘Family Unfriendly’ (Timothy P. Carney) by John Shelton
  "What if parenthood was a means of sanctification and could accelerate our progress toward something higher than self-satisfaction and hedonism? How would that change the way we view obstacles to parenting in our culture?"
  
  

• How Alabama’s IVF bill undermines the dignity of the unborn by ERLC Staff
  "...we must not fail to consider the moral problems that arise from IVF. A prime example is how the recent debate about IVF is forcing many people to answer the question, 'Are we truly pro-life or merely anti-abortion?' For Christians, the answer should be clear since the sanctity and protection of life, whether unborn or born, is deeply rooted in biblical teachings."

Legislative Update

With the Presidential Primary Election behind us, the Ohio General Assembly will resume Chamber legislative activity soon. However, right before the election, Reps. Al Cutrona (R-Canfield) and Gary Click (R-Vickery) introduced one CCV-backed bill:

• HB445–School Religious Released Time
  HB445 was introduced last week to change one word, "may" to "shall," in this line of law: "A school district board of education may shall adopt a policy that authorizes a student to be excused from school to attend a released time course in religious instruction..."
  
  Organizations like LifeWise Academy are legally allowed to provide religious instruction, such as Bible studies, to public school students during the school day, but some school districts have not permitted such instruction because the law said that they "may" do so. This single-word change would remove that loophole.
  
  The bill is currently awaiting assignment to a committee.

Take a moment to review where other CCV-backed legislation currently stands in the 135th General Assembly.

Click here to learn how a bill becomes a law in Ohio.

Resources & Opportunities

• CCV's OCEN Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO)
  Did you know that Ohio allows you to donate to a Christian or Catholic school scholarships, and receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit up to $750 per individual? CCV's Ohio Christian Education Network runs an SGO for our member schools.
  
  You can donate by April 15 and apply it to your 2023 taxes. 

Don't Miss

• CCV's Columbus Celebration Gala with Vivek Ramaswamy
  Join us for an evening of music, inspiration, and fellowship with Vivek Ramaswamy at our 2024 Columbus Celebration Gala on Tuesday, April 16! For more information on purchasing table sponsorships or tickets, and more, go to CCV.org/Galas. Details of our 2024 Cincinnati Celebration Gala will be announced soon!
  

• Persuasive Prolife: Apologetics Conference for Students
  "Are you scared to talk about abortion? Don’t worry, almost everyone is. Either we think the subject is too impolite, or we don’t want to be branded an intolerant fanatic, or we’re afraid we won’t represent the pro-life side well enough. Whatever the reason for this fear, it causes many of us to pass up opportunities to speak out on behalf of the preborn. This conference will help you overcome this fear and equip you to become a bold and effective apologist for life."
  
  CCV is a cosponsor of this event on Saturday, May 18, 10:00 am – 2:30 pm, on the campus of OSU. Learn more and register now at ohiolife.org/tickets.

Prayer

Scripture calls us to pray for those in authority and to have confidence that God hears our prayers. Join the CCV team this week in praying for the below intentions.

• Our elected officials: U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Chagrin Falls), U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo), Rep. Darrell Kick (R-Loudonville), Rep. Angela King (R-Celina), Rep. Roy Klopfenstein (R-Haviland), Sen. Stephanie Kunze (R-Hilliard), and Rep. Brian Lampton (R-Fairborn).
  

• Continue to pray for the churches that are planning to plant schools this fall.
  

• Pray for our policy team as the legislature comes back to the Ohio Statehouse. We ask for our team to be filled with the fruits of the Holy Spirit with all wisdom and courage, continually turning to the Lord for guidance and strategy.

As Ohio’s largest Christian public policy organization, Center for Christian Virtue seeks the good of our neighbors by advocating for public policy that reflects the truth of the Gospel. ###