Conservatives are Lying About Science. Are They Lying About the Bible Too?

by Evan Urquhart

an opinions column from David Gortler published by the Christian Post, evangelical Christian news outlet

Even in right wing media, clear and provable falsehoods are somewhat rare. More often, coverage of transgender issues on the right confuses readers by presenting half-truths, or by covering the sort of story that at first seems bad for trans rights, then drops all coverage once more details emerge.

This is not one of those times.

The first sentence is simply, literally, and unambigiously not true. I’m not saying it’s a matter of interpretation, or different ways of the left and the right using the same language. I’m saying it’s an out-and-out lie.

I believe I can prove it, too. Even the most anti-science conservative would have to agree that a dog is a mammal. Here’s a link to an article about the many conditions that lead to dogs that are neither male nor female. Yes, I’m talking about intersex dogs.

In fact, in all species of mammals conditions exist which lead to ambiguous primary and secondary sex characteristics. These “other categories” of mammal result in biologists using, well, other categories when they sort critters by sex. I know this firsthand because I was married to an entomologist and when her job required her to sex insects (not mammals, but they do it with mammals too) she’d have to sort them into male, female, and X. That’s right, intersex conditions are so common that biologists rarely sex large groups of animals without making sure there’s a box to sort the non-male, non-female ones into.

So, this raises the question: If Gortler is lying about the science (or perhaps he’s just honestly mistaken, I surely can’t say), why can’t he be lying (or mistaken) about the other things that he says? Maybe those bible quotes don’t come from the real bible. Or maybe his interpretation of what the bible says about women and men is as far off as his interpretation of what biology says about chromosomes.

Human beings in the US of A have a social tradition of sorting ourselves into two discrete sex categories. This tradition is so all-encompassing doctors regularly perform risky, unproven surgeries on babies and small children to ensure that their bodies conform to the ideology of only male and female, no in-between. Now, I’m no biblical scholar. I can’t tell you if the bible really says what Gortler says it does, or if he’s lying (or mistaken) about that too. But I have learned basic biology, and he’s lying (or mistaken) when he says nature produces male and female mammals, with nothing outside or in between the two.

The two sexes are culturally defined. Nature is messier by far.