Last month I posted an article that raised some eyebrows—“Abortion is Gay.” Why would I say something so offensive and combative, especially after 20 years of leaving these issues almost entirely compartmentalized? That, of course, is what the article sets out to explain. Read or listen to it for the rationale, but here’s the gist. Homosexuality and abortion are fruit of the same tree. Two sides of the same coin. How? They each reject the most fundamental human equation. Namely, man + woman = baby. Homosexuality—and all its alphabetical compatriots—rejects the first half of the equation. Abortion rejects the second. Separate issues with a common result. The elimination of procreation. 

As expected, my conflation of abortion and homosexuality elicited some pushback. I lose moral credibility, it was asserted, when I suggest there’s anything wrong with being gay. I should stick to the issue of abortion. But then someone pointed out that though “our side” sees these as separate issues, the other side does not. To abortion advocates, the promotion of abortion and the promotion of gay, lesbian, and transgender ideology go hand in hand. It’s a package deal, which—if true—is something I may not have adequately reckoned with before. But is it true? Are abortion proponents also in the habit of pushing deviant sexuality, or is their purview limited strictly to abortion? Let’s start with Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion business in America.

When you visit the Planned Parenthood website, the first option listed across the top is a drop-down menu labeled LEARN—which offers access to a Sexual Orientation section (replete with a giant rainbow flag) and a Gender Identity section which blithely asserts that there are more than two genders. You cannot choose your sexual orientation, Planned Parenthood tells us, (and it’s “really common” to not even know what it is), but you can choose your sexual identity. Confused? That may well be what they’re aiming for, but perhaps this will help clarify—from the “For Teens” section of the Planned Parenthood website: “Sexual orientation isn’t a choice and can’t be changed.” Also from the “For Teens” section of the Planned Parenthood website: “Sexual orientation (sometimes) changes over time.”

So Planned Parenthood’s essential message to teens is this. You can’t control your sexual desires. You must simply yield to them. If those desires change over time, fine, but don’t try to manipulate them yourself. That’s unnatural. Unless, of course, you want to permanently maim your body through “gender affirming care.” Planned Parenthood is all for that—which also happens to be a new revenue stream for them. The abortion giant is “proud to provide” puberty blockers—with or without parental consent—to the growing mass of children who’ve suddenly realized they were born in the wrong body. Yes, it will do them permanent physical harm, compromising bone growth, bone density, and fertility, but it might make them feel more special in the interim—at least until the crushing weight of what’s been done to them finally sinks in.

So clearly Planned Parenthood is all in on transing the kids. Nor do they seem at all concerned that their unequivocal embrace of LGBTQ ideology might alienate those who support abortion but don’t believe that little boys can become little girls. The same goes for NARAL, America’s oldest existing abortion advocacy group. They have formally partnered with the LGBTQ Task Force et al to promote abortion rights, gun control, open borders, and the mainstreaming of transgender surgeries for children. Their joint policy doc declares that “transition-related care for transgender youth is vital, life-saving, and supported by major medical associations.” These are the same medical associations, by the way, which support dismembering tiny human beings in the womb and call it healthcare. 

So far as I can tell, there aren’t any mainstream abortion organizations that fail to promote LGBTQ ideology nor any mainstream LGBTQ organizations that fail to promote abortion. By all accounts, it is a package deal. But is it possible that this joint agenda is actually more sinister than I’ve yet laid out? How could it be any worse, you might wonder, since they’re already advocating for the mutilation and extermination of children? Consider this. If you were to ask parents for the worst thing they could imagine befalling their child, I suspect a fair number would respond with some variation of kidnapping and sex slavery. Yes, abortion kills children, but forced prostitution may be a fate worse than death. So, what am I saying? That Planned Parenthood wants to legalize child prostitution? Not Planned Parenthood, per se, though they have shown a repeated willingness to coach pimps on how to obtain secret underage abortions. No, I'm speaking of the ACLU—Planned Parenthood’s legislative bedfellows—who thinks children should be free to sell themselves for sex.

I know. I didn’t believe it at first either. Not even the ACLU would stoop this low.  But it’s all laid out on their website—hidden a bit—but it’s there. Granted, the first thing you’ll see when visiting the homepage of this hundred-year-old champion of civil liberties is a declaration of their joint support for abortion rights (so much for caring about the little guy) and transgender rights. These two issues get top billing, right below a headline declaring the ACLU’s commitment to “DEFEND THE RIGHTS OF ALL PEOPLE NATIONWIDE.” But not the rights of people in the womb. They don’t count. These tiny and helpless human beings don’t even qualify for a basic right to life, marking the only context in which it is perfectly legitimate to dehumanize a victim class so as to justify their execution. When this is done in other times or places, it’s called genocide. When we do it today, it’s called choice. But I digress.

In October 2020, the ACLU published a 34-page brief calling for the legalization of all sex work. Its opening sentence declares that they’ve been “advocat[ing] for the decriminalization of sex work” for “more than 40 years,” and they appeal to Amnesty International’s call “for all countries to fully decriminalize sex work” as proof that they’re not alone in this globalist objective. But surely they’re not including minors in this push to make prostitution legal! Actually, they are, and it’s not even a slippery-slope argument. They take us all the way there themselves. Here’s my best effort to summarize the policy goals that the ACLU explicitly supports.

Selling and buying sex should be entirely legal and entirely unregulated. There must be no requirement for sex workers to register with any type of licensing agency nor any mandated testing for sexually-transmissible diseases. Prostitutes with HIV should not have to disclose their condition to prospective clients. Any effort to regulate the sex industry unduly burdens and stigmatizes sex workers while harming their emotional well being. All existing laws which seek to limit the online marketplace for sex-trafficked children should be struck down since these laws also make it harder for sex workers to sell sex. There should be no laws that prevent children from having sex in exchange for money, food, or shelter. Children sometimes need to prostitute themselves in order to survive. This is especially true of children brought into the country illegally. They must be allowed to sell themselves for sex. Because of widespread bigotry, sex work is often the only job open to transgender children and adults. It must be legal. Laws against prostitution disproportionately harm the transgender community. Regulating the sex industry in any way is racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and aporophobic. It should be illegal for landlords and employers to deny housing or employment to sex workers of any kind. Minority communities—especially the black community—cannot survive without engaging in sex work. The police must be removed from areas where sex work is likely to occur, and police funding should be redirected to organizations that help facilitate sex work in minority communities. 

If any of that seems too sensational to believe, or you suspect I may have exaggerated their legislative objectives, here they are again, this time in the ACLU’s own words:

• Decriminalize all consensual sex work, including prostitution.
• Regulations on the purchase/sale of sex lead to lower and less stable income for sex workers. 
• End mandatory or coercive HIV/STI testing requirements as a part of sentencing or diversion for sex work offenses and remove criminal (non-disclosure) penalties for [sex workers] living with HIV. 
• Mandating registration and health screenings of sex workers may lead to lower emotional well-being and satisfaction generally among sex workers.
• Legal actions designed to reduce (sex) trafficking, such as SESTA/ FOSTA laws, have unintended negative impacts on sex workers.
• 99 percent of sex workers reported that [anti trafficking laws] did not make them feel safer; many expressed direct negative impacts of the law, including loss of income.
• Repeal SESTA/FOSTA and related laws or policies.
• Remove all criminal penalties for youth who participate in sex work, but not for adults who exploit youth. 
• Criminalization of sex work disproportionately negatively impacts immigrant sex workers. 
• Remove adverse immigration consequences, including deportation, for immigrants participating in sex work.
• Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people make up a large portion of sex workers. 
• Transgender people, particularly transgender women of color, are disproportionately harmed by the criminalization of sex work. 
• Transgender [sex workers] [have] difficulty finding other sources of employment due to discrimination based on their gender identity, and reported sex work as one of the few options for a livelihood.
• [Among] youth and young adults who engaged in survival sex — prostitution as a means of obtaining food, shelter, or money to survive — many LGBTQ youth, particularly transgender youth, reported resorting to survival sex after being kicked out of their homes.
• [Among] youth and young adults engaging in survival sex, multiracial, Latinx, and Black young adults reported the highest experiences of trouble with police and their clients.
• Enforcement of regulations provide reasons for continued surveillance and disparate sanctions on LGBTQ people, people of color, immigrants, and those living in poverty. 
• Eliminate barriers to accessing safe, affordable housing, public benefits, and employment opportunities, including restrictions based on past criminal records and other discriminatory policies and practices, such as those excluding transgender people. 
• Eliminate unwanted police presence within the sex work community. Limiting police presence will curb police contact, reducing the likelihood of police violence toward sex workers. 
• Reduce police funding and invest in resources that support [communities] disproportionately impacted by the criminalization of sex work, specifically Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), immigrant, and LGBTQ+ workers. 

And there you have it. A veritable smorgasbord of truly wretched policy objectives crowned by the belief that sex with minors is not intrinsically exploitative, so long as they consent. Gone, apparently, are the days when sex with a minor was understood to be inherently exploitative—replaced with a growing push to increase the culpability of sexually-abused children and decrease the culpability of their sexual abusers. We shouldn't stigmatize them with terms like "pedophile." We should call them “minor attracted” instead. It’s a natural progression, I suppose. If we’re going to argue that children have the moral wherewithal to consent to the mutilation of their sexual organs, then surely they have the moral wherewithal to consent to sex. And if children have the moral wherewithal to consent to having sex, then they must also have the moral wherewithal to consent to selling sex. Once you concede any single point in this chain of reasoning, there’s no stopping the rest of the train.

Earlier this year, Tulsi Gabbard came under fire for criticizing the assertion—published by the Amnesty International backed ICJ report on sex and reproduction—that adolescents have an “evolving capacity to consent [to sex], in fact, even if not in law, when they are below the prescribed minimum age of consent.” Gabbard insisted that the U.S. stop funding the UN—who contributed a senior research associate to the report—until it “stops all promotion of pedophilia and sex trafficking.” A clarification was then issued by the ICJ asserting that The 8 March Principles (as they’re commonly known) “do not call for the decriminalization of sex with children, nor do they call for the abolition of a domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex,” but the language of the actual report was left unchanged. It still says that children below the “minimum age of consent” have an “evolving capacity to consent.” No mention is made of when this evolving age of consent begins nor of how old the recipient of that consent may be. Not surprisingly, the report also insists that the “law may not in any way impair the right to comprehensive abortion [or] gender-affirming therapy.” Isn’t that an interesting pairing?!

Something of the same thing may be afoot in Ohio, in the form of a constitutional amendment put forward by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. Ostensibly, it seeks to amend Ohio’s state constitution to include a guaranteed right to abortion, but at least some people are concerned that it may do even more than that. The basic language of the petition is this. “Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: 1. contraception; 2. fertility treatment; 3. continuing one’s own pregnancy; 4. miscarriage care; and 5. abortion.” Furthermore, the State “shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either: 1. An individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or 2. A person or entity that assists [them].”

Planned Parenthood and the ACLU would no doubt say that their proposed amendment has nothing to do with legalizing sex work—for minors or adults—but the language of the bill does not make that explicitly clear. In fact, it literally declares that its ramifications should “not (be) limited to” the stated applications. Add that to the ACLU’s underlying policy objectives regarding the legalization of sex work, and you’ll begin to see the problem. Yes, “reproductive decisions” generally refer to the decisions surrounding birth control and abortion, but what if they were more broadly construed to include anything related to reproduction, like, say, sex. Suddenly the petition’s blanket prohibition against restricting any “reproductive decisions” along with its failure to enact any type of age restrictions becomes an even bigger problem. Then there’s the prohibition against going after anyone who assists in these decisions. What if that protection is not just applied to abortionists, but also to those who aid and abett in the sale of sex? Can anyone say with certainty that this isn’t precisely what the ACLU has in mind?

When Sound of Freedom released in July, I remember thinking that it would be a hard movie to criticize—since I thought sex trafficking was the one evil we could all universally condemn. Turns out I was wrong. Despite outperforming the latest Indiana Jones and Mission Impossible, and garnering a 99% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, it has been roundly dismissed by the left. To be fair, some of the criticism is technical in nature. It’s “badly acted” in the eyes of The Guardian and “dull” according to The New York Times. But the vitriol doesn’t stop there—and it may not even be genuine. The Guardian gave Sound of Freedom just one star out of five, conceding that, yes, the sexual abuse of children is bad, but not as bad as Jim Caviezel makes out. The Observer deigned to give it two stars out of five, but called it “a thunderously crass and manipulative movie” with “an overfondness for shots of Caviezel weeping God-fearing, manly tears.” Salon described Sound of Freedom as “embellished… conspiracy-fueled mass hysteria,” and Rolling Stone called it “profoundly depressing” that “thousands of adults will absorb this vigilante fever dream, and come away thinking themselves better informed on a hidden civilizational crisis.” Actually, millions of adults have absorbed this vigilante fever dream, but you get the point. There’s also the fact that Donald Trump hosted a screening of Sound of Freedom—which may be the movie’s most unforgivable sin of all.

Planned Parenthood and the ACLU surprised some people last month when they came out against California’s Democrat-led attempt to become the first state in the country to enact an absolute marriage ban for children under 18. It’s not that Planned Parenthood is pro-marriage, of course. They’re pro-sexual-autonomy for children. Their fear, as reported by Newsweek, is that putting an age-restriction on marriage might lead to an age-restriction on abortion—or genital mutilation. God forbid. In the words of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, they cannot support any legislation that “impede(s) on the reproductive rights of minors and their ability to decide what is best for them, their health and their lives." So what happens if these minors decide that sex work is best for them and their lives? Would Planned Parenthood have any objections? The hardest thing for me to reconcile in all of this is the fact that only about 2.4% of American abortions are performed on minors. I’d actually feel better about Planned Parenthood’s relentless devotion to sexualizing children if it had a more substantial impact on their bottom line. At least then, we could attribute their fixation to mere greed. But this portends something darker. This is perversion for perversion’s sake. An unholy bundling of abortion, deviant sexuality, and now, it seems, child prostitution. So the next time we hear a chorus of bawdry drag queens singing, “We’re coming for your children,” we should probably believe them. And the next time we hear a fellow abortion opponent urging us to stick to the issue at hand, we can say with a clear conscience, we are.