Battles within the LGBTQ Movement – Glenn Stanton, 9/8/26 (2511)

0:00This is Molly Hemingway, encouraging you to listen to my favorite podcast, Issues, etc. Every day you get in-depth interviews with host Todd Wilkin asking expert guests, substantive thought-provoking questions on all of the important news and issues of our day. The expert guests are in culture, law, ethics, philosophy, theology, and apologetics. Expert guests, expansive topics, always ex-staling Christ, issues, etc. The more you go to church, the more you sit in a pew, the more likely you are to vote for culturally conservative candidates. You're never God. Whenever you say that you are divine or you have this divine inner spark or this divine inner self, it's actually the devil persuading you, tricking you into thinking that you are God.

1:02When they got into the boat, Matthew records, there was a great call. The arc, the ships, they're all pictures of the church. And I like to tell my members that I always feel the safest from the assaults of devil, world, and flesh when I'm in the divine service. In most secular worldviews, suffering is an ultimate evil and it's to be avoided at all costs. It's a senseless interruption to a life of flourishing, but contrastingly, St. Paul redefines suffering as an intrinsic marker of Christian identity and of ultimate glorification. Grandmothers love listening to issues, etc. while changing cheeks on the bed for the grandkids visit to the farm. The rift has been brewing for several years. In 2026, it has kind of come out into the open. We have LGBT activists, both Andrew Sullivan and Matthew Vines, saying,

2:07well, we get off more than we can chew or we're concerned that our movement that the gay and lesbian movement has been hijacked, maybe is being undermined by the Q and the T of the LGBT Q. Greetings and welcome to issues, etc. back live on this Tuesday afternoon, September the 8th. I'm Todd Wilkin. Thanks for tuning us in. We're going to talk about battles within the LGBTQ movement with Glenn Stanton, a focus on the family, Wesley Smith will join us for a bioethics update. We'll spend some time responding to your listener email, the issues, etc. Comment line. And then we'll remember Richard the lion heart of England leader of the third crusade who was born on this day in 1157, Dr. Matt Phillips, professor of history at Concordia University in Nebraska. We'll be our guest. Glenn Stanton is director of family formation studies for focus on the family author of a recent column for public discourse titled gay pride 2026. Leaders confessed losing control of their movement. Glenn, welcome back.

3:09It's good to be with you Todd. Glenn, let's begin because we use this acronym LGBTQ all the time without defining the letters unpack the meaning of each of the letters in that acronym. Yeah, it's interesting Todd because I always say LGBT or LGBT and don't have the Q and many Christians say, oh no, it's cute because they want to be inclusive. These letters do not cohere together. The else in the G's do not get along together. L is lesbian. It means you're a woman attracted to women and you're not attracted to men. If you're a G, it means you're a man who's attracted to men. You're not attracted to women. Bisexual by meaning you're both attracted to male and female. So those are fundamentally binary things. The T and the Q comes along. It used to be T. If I told you that I was a T, anybody in the movement would say, are you an FTM or an MTF? That means male to female or female to male. Definitely binary.

4:09But now the Q has taken us into this rainbow of different opportunities and that's why nobody can agree on how many different genders there are. Just Google that question and every gay site that comes up will tell you there's 33 genders. There's 88 genders. There's 99 genders. There's 120 genders. They're just making it up as they go along and they cannot agree on how many different genders there are because they're making it up moment by moment. So even these letters themselves show you that they do not cohere. How would you describe the current state of the queer pride movement today? It is in complete disarray and it's in complete disarray because the incoherent anthropology that it has, what it means to be human, is finally revealing itself as the incoherence that it is. And that's the state of the movement today. You say that the first three letters of LGBTQ require and are squarely built upon the human binary while the added T and Q are ever evolving other gender identities to overturn it. What do you mean by that?

5:26Well see that's the big big division is people like throw out these letters, the LGBTQ community and blah blah blah. But they are both built on something separate. And people don't understand the L, the G and the B are based on the binary. What does it mean to be an L? You're a woman who likes women, who do you not like? You don't like men. That's binary. The G is the same way. Gay is I'm a man. I'm attracted to other men. I'm not attracted to women. Holy binary. I mean essentially like we are at focus on the family, right? We just have a disagreement on the functionality of what male and female are about. But the B itself has binary right in the name bisexual. And so the L, the G and the B are established on the binary. They require an absolute definition of what it means to be male and female. But the T, the T used to be that. But now the T and the Q are about over ending what it means to be male and female in favor of just a rainbow of different possibilities.

6:35That's why we end up with 33, 88, 169 different genders. And so that's the great incoherence of the rainbow flag today is that very point. The nature of the binary does the binary exist or does it not exist? What was different during Pride Month this year, 2026? Well, Pride Month this year, 2026 was the first time that major leaders started speaking out about this divide that's happening in the LGBT community. And first of all, we need to understand there is no community. These people do not get along. The L's don't get along with the G's, the G's don't get along with the L's, the L's and the G's think the B's just need to stop pretending and pick a side already. And then you have the queers coming in and wanting to just overturn everything. So there never has been a community there. But now you have people publicly speaking out leaders within that community publicly speaking out about how incoherent the whole thing is.

7:43And that is what my article in public discourse highlights. Tell us about Andrew Sullivan. He's kind of a famous quote unquote conservative gay activist and columnist. Tell us more about his concern regarding the movement. Yeah, he's interesting. He's he's at equal times conservative, but also extremely radical. He wrote one of the first serious cases for the idea of same six marriage all the way back in 1989. He did that for the new republic. And he really laid the groundwork for founding the idea of same six marriage, which of course the Supreme Court did in the Obergefell decision of 2015. So he has been a radical trailblazer for gay causes. But starting about 2020 or so, he started speaking out very strongly about how incoherent the movement had become.

8:45He just wished that it would have been the else the geez and the bees. He's not really into the tease. He definitely is not into the cues. And so he has really been raising a voice kind of the grumpy old man of the gay movement saying we should have just kept it to the else the geez and the bees. I think he would have left off the bees as well. He's just angry that the cues have come in and are overturning everything. But that's the problem. That's what this movement sought to do from the very beginning was to overturn the basic understanding that humanity and the family is built on the cooperation of male and female. And once you start in doing that, the whole fabric starts unraveling. And Andrew Sullivan is just upset that the movement that he helped start has gotten too radical. But it was radical from the very beginning. And that's what he fails to understand.

9:46You have pride leaders respond to New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani's June pride statement that referred solely to queer and trans people. It did not talk about the LGB. No, and Andrew Sullivan brought that up in a big way. He says, you know, we've elected the socialist mayor of New York and pride month. He will not recognize the L's and the G's, the people who founded this movement. And all he can talk about is queers. And so I can't read you the language. Andrew Sullivan used some very salty language about mandami. But he's basically mandami and so much of the gay pride movement will no longer talk about gay. It's all cues all day all the time. And that's what some gay activists are worked up about. And in a way, they have a right to be worked up about it. But no, they're the ones that started this thing. They're the ones that started to overturn what it means to be male and female. And they're just reaping the world when now.

10:55Who is Matthew Vines? And what has he written recently for the New York Times? Well, see, this is another interesting angle because Andrew Sullivan had been complaining about the gay pride movement and how radical it is, gotten. But he was joined in June by Matthew Vines. Matthew Vines is a guy in 2014 wrote a book called God and the Gay Christian. Matthew Vines is basically, I'll say this just derisively, like a gay homeschool kid. He's like generally very, very conservative. But he wrote this book, God and the Gay Christian, to say what God says about homosexuality clearly and what 2000 years of Christianity has said about sexual ethics. Matthew Vines wrote in his book, God and the Gay Christian, that no, none of that is true. God's perfectly fine with homosexuality, with same-sex relationships, with same-sex marriage, all this stuff. He basically turned the Bible absolutely on its head.

11:58And he confused a generation of young people who wanted to believe exactly what he was saying. So he worked with very, very creative hermeneutics to say that God is just fine with all things homosexual. But he wrote a piece in the New York Times, which basically, it was entitled, I'm gay, not queer, it matters. And he wrote this at the very end of Pride Month this year. He had had enough of it. He was seeing what has been happening exactly what Andrew Sullivan has seen happening. And he just says, why can't we just go back to gay? Why do we have to have all this queer stuff? But he doesn't understand. His movement has moved beyond him. And he's uncomfortable with that. It's become more radical than even as radical as he is. And he's quite radical. So that's what he took to the pages of the New York Times to complain about in his article. I'm gay, not queer, it matters.

13:02What kind of reaction has violence, op-ed received from LGBTQ activists? Well, they are furious with him. The advocate, which is like the largest gay activist magazine, took him to task in a remarkable way, saying, why are America's largest newspaper stigmatizing queer people? And they cited Matthew Vines' piece that appeared in the New York Times. And then the Washington Blade, a very famous historic gay newspaper in the Washington DC area, they took Matthew Vines' to task as well. So he is even finding himself. He's been a trailblazer in the gay movement, turning the Bible on his head. Matthew Vines has. But now he writes this piece in the New York Times at the end of Pride Month, at the end of June, and finds out that many in the gay community are in the New York Times. And the gay community are against him because he doesn't think the queue is a very good idea. So again, this shows that the whole movement is kind of imploding, and it's imploding over the idea of the nature of the binary. And what does queer even mean? And what do these letters even mean?

14:19When Stanton is our guest, we're talking about battles within the LGBTQ movement. What has happened to that old argument I was born this way? Lutherans were live assists for life Christians in offering the hope and help of the good news of Jesus Christ to women who are in the same place.

15:19Women, men, and families suffering under the guilt of an abortion. Young people with questions and concerns about sexuality and the elderly and those with disabilities or terminal illnesses. Learn more about LFL resources and forming a life team or a life chapter or becoming a life advocate by calling 888-364-Light. That is 888-364-543 or by visiting LutheransforLife.org. Where Christianity meets culture, you're listening to issues, etc. This is Pastor Matthew Harrison, President of the Lutheran Church, Missouri, Senate. The LCMS operates the second largest procule school system in the United States. What can you expect from a Lutheran church, Missouri, Senate school? There's one race, the human race. And Jesus died for the sins of every man, woman, and child from every land and every nation. Life begins a conception. All life is precious from womb to tomb. And every student, parent, and teacher is created in the very image of God.

16:24There's right and wrong, and we know which is which from the Ten Commandments. There are only two sexes, male and female he created them. Marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman. There's such a thing as objective, absolute truth, and it's found in the person and work of Jesus Christ and His Word. To find a Lutheran church, Missouri, Senate school near you, visit LCMS.org slash schools. Welcome back to issues, etc. I'm going to stand and focus on the family as our guest. We're talking about battles within the LGBTQ movement. I think it's been, oh, Golly, maybe a couple decades now that we have heard this argument largely from the gay and lesbian community. I was born this way. What has happened to that argument?

17:25Yeah, see now that's another thing that Matthew Vines has really torked up about because he's like, oh my goodness, the queer theory people are acting like the born this way thing doesn't even matter. Well, it never did matter. It never was true. It was a fiction that they created so that they could say, God wouldn't judge people who he made this way. And so the born this way thing was, if I'm a gay individual, I'm gay because my body says that I'm gay. It's actually true. My biology says this. And that really is, it answered the political issues of like paving the way for them to force same-sex marriage upon all of us through the 2015 Obergefell decision. And it served in a very important political purpose. But as I detail in my article in public discourse, there are scholars like Lisa Diamond, who is a lesbian scholar, who she gave a famous TED Talk in 2018, saying why the born this way thing is not true. And it actually harms gay rights.

18:38So the gay movement is moving against this idea that brought it to the dance, really. This born this way theory. And they're replacing that with just a, no, you can be whatever you want to be and you don't have to give any explanation for who you are or why you are that way. So explain that. It's called sexual configuration theory. How does it go? Yes. So sexual configuration theory. It was published as an academic paper by a Canadian trans individual, Sarah Van Anders. And sexual configuration theory is really the theory that replaces the born this way idea. Born this way says, I am who I am. My genes tell me I'm this. My biology tells me I'm same-sex attracted. But sexual configuration theory is more of a queer thing where it just says, hey, I want to be this way. I want to act this way. I have these desires. And I don't need any biological or natural explanation for why I am. I just end this way.

19:48So it's choosing to be who you want to be. It's acting out of your desires at any given moment. And Todd, I mean, this is how crazy it is. I could have started this interview with you as a man. And at the end, I could declare myself a woman and say, Todd, I really feel like I'm a woman. And ever I you don't have many audience members from the LGBT community. But they would have to say we have to believe Mr. Stan when he says that he is a woman. I could just change at the drop of a hat. That's what sexual configuration theory says is that it's no longer rooted in a born this way. Configuration, again, which was made up, but it simply is based on how I feel at any given moment. And I need to be true to those feelings. And therefore, so does everybody else around me. That's what sexual configuration theory. That's how it replaces the born this way argument.

20:49So make the case, how do all the letters in one way or another amount to really the erasure of human nature? Okay, so this is basic anthropology to be human Todd is to be male and female. I just returned from a trip to Asia. I was in Asia speaking trip for three weeks. And they eat different food, they talk different, they do all kinds of different things. But you know what they have there? They have males and females everywhere you go in the world. In the most remote islands, the most curious places that national geographic goes and explores. We find that humans are male and female. Those are the only two options. If there is a human truism, it is that that to be human means to be male and female. But the LGBTQ wants to change all that. The Ellen, the G says that yes, there are male and female, but male and female are not essential for the family.

21:50You can create a family without a man, you can create a family without a woman. And we have to call that just as good as any other form of family. That is why it has an incoherent anthropology. It overturns and turns on its head the meaning of what it means to be male and female. And so that is why the LGBTQ really does erase what it means to be human. And that is precisely why people like Andrew Sullivan and Matthew Vines and others are so angry about what they think that their own movement has evolved. But it is devolved into exactly what they created which was the overturning of the human binary of male and female. What do you think the future of the LGBTQ movement looks like now that the old school leaders at least have admitted that T and the Q have taken over?

22:51You know what, that is such a great question Todd. And they are just going to get bold over. The movement is going to move in a radical, radical direction. I mean now you have furries. I saw somebody had posted a gay pride march that happened in England just like a couple weeks ago. And these men are dressed up naked underneath, but they are dressed up in like dog outfits. And somebody asks the question, which is this, the L, the G, the B, the T or the Q? You know like that exemplifies just how radical all this has gotten. And it is only going to continue to get more radical. And here is the thing. People like you and I Todd were called slippery slopers. Like oh my goodness, you are saying that gay marriage is going to lead to a slippery slope and there is going to be no end. And that is precisely what we are seeing today. And none of us could have overstated how radical it is getting. That is what is going to happen.

23:54The old school LGB people like Andrew Sullivan, like Matthew Vines and some of those old people who want to go back to the quote, good old days of when it was just LGB. They have absolutely lost control of their movement and it is moving in a more radical direction. But they need to understand they are the ones that started this. When they started arguing for the same six family, they are the ones that dismissed the meaning of male and female. And what they are seeing, what they are complaining about is just the whirlwind of exactly what they created. And that is the LGB movement today. Glenn Stanton is director of family formation studies for focus on the family. He is author of a recent column for public discourse titled Gay Pride to 2026. Leaders confessed losing control of their movement. You can read it on the talk on demand archives page at issuesetc.org. Glenn, thanks. Good to be with you Todd. Thanks.

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