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Welcome to the Family Beacon, your source for news and commentary on life, family, and religious freedom in Minnesota and beyond! 

• Watch or listen to this week's podcast! 
• Blog: The Surprising Link Between Abortion and Transgenderism
• ‘Gender Fluid’ Student Sexually Assaults Girl in Restroom – Virginia Public School Tries to Ignore the Incident

• Fewer Americans think marriage is needed to create strong families, new poll suggests

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The Surprising Link Between Abortion and Transgenderism

Recently a transgender activist claimed, “Abortion rights and trans rights are two sides of the same coin.” Jennifer Finney Boylan, a man who identifies as a woman, argued that

In many ways, the decision to terminate a pregnancy is not unlike the decision to go through transition: It is a fundamentally private choice that can be made only by the individual in question — a person who alone knows the truth of their heart, who alone can understand what the consequences of their choices will be in the years to come.

While Boylan is incorrect in how the two movements are two sides of the same coin, it is true that abortion and transgenderism are rooted in the same set of ideas. Both rest on the assumption that one’s “true self” or personhood can be separated from biological realities and both have a distorted understanding of the purpose of medicine.

Just as the abortion movement insists that an unborn child is not a person even though science has proven that life begins at conception, the transgender movement insists that a person’s “true self” can be separate from his or her physical body. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Anthony Kennedy infamously stated, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." In that statement, he captures the mindset that is behind both abortion and transgenderism — the idea that each of us has the “right” to define our own concept of existence.

The right to define one’s own concept of existence suggests that existence has not already been clearly defined by the One who created it. If there is such a thing as reality, then we do not get to “define our own concept of existence” and attempts to do so have life-altering and even life-ending consequences. The stakes could not be higher. A baby in the womb exists, is alive, and is a person regardless of how anyone else “defines their own concept of existence.” Similarly, male and female are realities that do not depend on one’s own concept of existence but on biological fact.

‘Gender Fluid’ Student Sexually Assaults Girl in Restroom – Virginia Public School Tries to Ignore the Incident

Via Daily Citizen

It’s a horrific story, a parent’s nightmare.

A ‘gender fluid’ male student, dressed in a skirt, allegedly entered a girls restroom at Stone Bridge High School and sexually assaulted a ninth grade girl. The incident took place in Loudoun County, Virginia, on May 28, 2021, The Daily Wiresaid in an investigative report.

At a school board meeting on June 22, the girl’s father made international headlines after he was hit in the face and dragged out of a Loudoun County Public Schools board meeting. Scott Smith intended to speak out about what happened to his daughter as the board debated “transgender” policies, before the board declared the meeting “an unlawful assembly” and he was forcibly removed.

As The Wire stated, “Minutes before Smith’s arrest, the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) superintendent lectured the public that concerns about the transgender policy were misplaced because the school system had no record of any assault occurring in any school bathroom.”

LCPS Superintendent Scott Ziegler said, “To my knowledge, we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms.”

Five months later, on October 6, the same student was charged with “sexual battery and abduction of a fellow student” at nearby Broad Run High School, where LCPS had evidently transferred him.

According to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, “The investigation determined on the afternoon of October 6, the 15-year-old suspect forced the victim into an empty classroom where he held her against her will and inappropriately touched her.”

Stone Bridge High School, where the first attack occurred, also downplayed the event. Smith was called to school after his daughter’s assault, and school administrators told him they were “handling the incident in-house.”

When Smith made a scene, deputies were called to deal with him – not the sexual perpetrator. He said, “Thank God that I drew enough attention to it, without getting arrested, that we got an escort to the hospital, and they administered a rape kit that night.”

Fewer Americans think marriage is needed to create strong families, new poll suggests

Via The Christian Post

Higher percentages of Americans view marriage as being "old-fashioned" as just over half believe that marriage is needed to create strong families, according to an annual nationwide survey released on Tuesday. 

The findings from the 2021 American Family Survey were revealed on Oct. 12 by Deseret News and the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University. The poll was conducted by YouGov, which initially interviewed over 3,200 respondents between June 25 to July 8 but drew results from a final dataset of 3,000.

Dating back to its inception in 2015, the survey aims to shed light on the experiences of Americans in their relationships, marriages and families and how those experiences relate to a variety of current events and public policy issues.  

The results of the 2021 survey show that only 45% of Americans agree that society is "better off" when "more people are married." According to a summary report, the 45% figure is the lowest percentage of people who think society is better off when more people are married in the survey's history. By comparison, 56% said the same in the 2017 survey. 

The new survey indicates that the number of people who believe marriage is needed to create strong families (52%) has declined by 10 percentage points since 2015, when over six in 10 Americans said the same.  

When asked if they think marriage is "old-fashioned and out-of-date," 19% of respondents said they "agree." In 2015, only 12% of respondents said the same. In the new survey, 64% said they "disagree" with that statement. 

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