Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: A Response to its Passage
Michael Veitch
At Christmas we celebrate the coming of light and truth into our world in the person of Jesus Christ.
Yet in the days leading up to Christmas 2022, the Scottish Parliament devoted almost all its time and energy on passing the Scottish Government’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill, a piece of legislation that turns truth on its head and has the potential to cause deep harm to many.
Genesis 1:27 outlines that people are born male or female (as ordained by God) as a matter of objective truth. Yet, the core of the Bill is to erase this distinction by introducing a system of ‘self-identification’ whereby someone as young as 16 can change their legal sex on the basis of their feelings and nothing more.
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
There was something eerily prophetic about the fact that the first of two unprecedented late night sessions debating amendments was curtailed by the lights in the Holyrood chamber turning off at midnight. Light and truth were willingly silenced.
Christians and many others across Scotland and beyond will be deeply saddened and troubled by the passing of this Bill. God himself will be grieved. Yet we can be thankful for the 39 MSPs who voted against the Bill, and for those with the wisdom and courage to speak out over recent days.
Let us all continue to be persistent in prayer throughout the days and weeks ahead.