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Oprah Winfrey: Agent of moral insanity
September 13, 2004
By R. Albert Mohler Jr., President, Southern Seminary

Oprah Winfrey, widely cited as one of the most influential and admired women in America, showed herself to be an agent of moral insanity when she featured a program celebrating young children seeking sex-change procedures and transgender identities. In one episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the true nature of our modern sexual confusion was made clear, and the broadcast should long be remembered as one of the most frightening hours in television history.

The program, broadcast Aug. 24, began with Oprah introducing the children seeking a sex change. “This is going to be a very fascinating show, OK?” Oprah began. She then introduced her first young guest: “He is an 11-year-old child. He likes skateboarding and PlayStation. He listens to rap, studies hard, gets good grades and wears those trendy baggy pants. He was also born a girl.”

Oprah then moved to the broader theme of her program. “And right now according to experts, there are thousands of children who are living what appear to be very normal lives but deep inside they know something is terribly wrong or they feel that something is terribly wrong, and these children are saying that they were born in the wrong bodies. Their parents have to decide whether or not to let their children live as the opposite sex. Eleven-year-old Kayla lived for years with this secret.”

According to a video broadcast on the program, Kayla was born a girl in 1992, but her mother reported that “Kayla never played with girls’ toys, never played with dolls. About two years of age on, Kayla was more into dirt and bikes.... She would pick out baggy pants, boxer underwear. She didn’t like girls’ underpants.”

At some point, Kayla saw an episode of the Oprah show and was prompted to declare that she was now a boy. She told her mother that she believed she was a boy born into a girl’s body. Her mother, Angelina, responded in a way that left Oprah nodding in approval. “My first reaction was basically blowing it off. A few days later, I said, ‘OK, let’s find out more about it.’” As the show unfolded, the audience was told that Kayla, now “Kaden,” was facing struggles at school. Early puberty presented additional challenges, so Angelina put her 11-year-old daughter on Depo-Provera. Kaden told Oprah’s audience, “When I’m old enough to, I want to get testosterone and my surgery.”

The next child featured on Oprah was Dylan, a boy who at age 4 declared that he wanted to become a girl. Now, a couple of years later, Dylan is even more certain that he wants to be a girl. Dylan’s mom shared that this has become something of a stress point in the family. “Dylan’s dad has a real hard time accepting this. He’ll reprimand him.” As Oprah continued the questioning, it turned out that Dylan’s mom has been buying him dolls and painting his fingernails. Dylan’s dad, Derek, is indeed having “a real hard time accepting this.”

After a conversation with a “transgender therapist,” Winfrey then confronted Derek with his refusal to go along with his son’s desire for a sex change. Coming out of a commercial break, Oprah told her audience: “And as I -— I was saying to Derek during the commercial break, I was saying that this is your holiest hour. This will be your holiest hour as a parent, being able to allow your son to be himself and to love him as he is. Whatever that turns out to be, you know, that’s where, where you will be challenged emotionally, spiritually and otherwise, I think.”

After all this, Winfrey celebrated what she called an “evolution” in social tolerance and cultural acceptance of the idea of a sex change, even among children. “I have seen such a change in the way parents parent, you know,” Oprah declared, “even in the years that we’ve been here, 18 years, seeing such a — a difference — this generation, your generation, is so much more open to accepting children as they are instead of trying to — forcing whatever your own idea was.”

This isn’t “evolution,” this is insanity. Oprah and her guests were involved in an absurd and horrific exercise in moral insanity. What culture can survive such a rebellion against the moral order? What devastation and destruction will be brought into the lives of young children before some level of sanity is re-established?

The ideology of the homosexual movement has been subverting the reality of gender for decades. The very fact that human beings are created as male and female flies in the face of the utter rebellion against and rejection of the moral order that stands at the very center of the homosexual agenda.

Instead of helping these young children to grow into maturity as the boys and girls they were meant to be, growing into womanhood and manhood with the assistance and moral direction of parents and other authorities in society, these children are encouraged to “explore” their gender and sexuality in order to determine who they really are. The very idea that we “discover” our gender as a matter of interiority is itself an act of aggression against the moral order and a demonstration of human arrogance against the divine design of creation.

America learned a lot from Oprah’s sex-change program. We learned that we are in much deeper trouble than most Americans could ever have conceived. We learned that the moral revolution pushing a complete transformation of the sexual order has now progressed to the point that our children are being told they should explore their gender identity and, if inclined to do so, change genders. We also learned that Oprah Winfrey has taken sides in this revolution. After this show, there can remain little doubt that she is an agent of moral insanity.

 

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