Albert Mohler (0:00)

Foreign It's Thursday, April 17, 2025. I'm Albert Moeller and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. We should be thankful for any outbreak of sanity wherever it is found. I'm thankful thus for a decision just handed down by the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom that makes very clear that the definition of women in terms of that country's Equality Act Non Discrimination act, it has to do with biological women and that means it does not cover trans women as they are identified. Now how in the world did this happen and why is it going to matter? Well, it matters a great deal because this is the UK Supreme Court. Now it's interesting to note that court has really only existed after constitutional reforms in 2009. Why were those reforms undertaken? It is because the UK saw the need for the equivalent of the Supreme Court of the United States in terms of precedent and jurisdiction and basically lasting legal authority. And thus eventually a case on appeal can end up before the UK Supreme Court. This case did. The case was brought by a group known as Women Scotland Limited and they were officially suing the ministers of the government of Scotland and thus Scotland being a part of the United Kingdom, women with the constitutional revision. This eventually came before the UK Supreme Court. That Supreme Court handed down a ruling just this week saying that woman means biological female for the purposes of this law. Okay, this is really interesting. Now first of all, it is just reassuring that any court anywhere, not to mention a court of this authority, recognizes that biological definition of sex is absolutely necessary and you can try to find all kinds of ways around it. But at the end of the day, the Supreme Court there in the United Kingdom found for the group known as Women Scotland, saying that their charges about it being discriminatory to women to allow biological males to be covered by this act and thus have access, for example to changing areas and athletic teams and all the rest, that that was wrong is a great achievement. The fact that they brought the case and that now the Supreme Court has found in their favor, that is a big thing. As the BBC, that is the British Broadcasting Corporation reported about the decision, quote, judges at the UK Supreme Court have unanimously ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law. The next sentence, quote, it meaning the decision marks the culmination of a long running legal battle which could have major implications for how sex based rights apply across Scotland, England and Wales. So most importantly, this has to do not with just legislation that covers Wales or Scotland, in this case Scotland. It has to do with the entire United Kingdom, which is England and Scotland and Wales. The 2010 Equality act applies all across Britain or the United Kingdom. And as the chief judge said, in this case, the central question is how the words woman and sex are defined in the legislation. Thus, the unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in The Equality Act 2010 refer to biological woman and biological sex. Now, hedging his bets, at least in some kind of attempted way, the judge, Lord Hodge, came back and said, but we counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not. And indeed, there is hedging in this decision. The headline is right. This was a unanimous decision that woman in the 2000 legislation refers to a biological female. But as the BBC said, Lord Hodge reported, quote, that the legislation gives transgender people protection not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination in indirect discrimination and harassment in substance of their acquired gender. So, in practical effect, this court is trying to have it both ways. But I want to get to the ruling itself. And thus you can explain this ruling in one of two ways. You can say that all the court tried to do here was to parse the language back in 2010. Now, the reason why this is so important not only to listeners, but, say, in the United Kingdom, but also here in the United States and throughout the English speaking world, is because all of these decisions, all of these issues, all of these courts indeed, are more tied together than you might think. And so the same kind of issue comes down to Title 9 in the federal legislation here in the United States. When you have a reference to women or female, does that refer to biological female women, or does it refer to a newly constructed claim about transgender identity? Well, let's just point out that in both cases, history is history, text is text, words are words. There can be absolutely no doubt that when that legislation was adopted in the United States, everyone understood that woman or girl meant biological female. Everyone understood there was no subversion or confusion of the categories, that biological male meant boys or men. But we're in a situation now in which you have, just to give one example, a difference of opinion between the Biden administration and the Trump administration on this question. Let me be really clear. I think the Trump administration is not only right, it is fundamentally necessarily right. But you have the battle over definition, which is clearly an issue on both sides of the Atlantic. And the Supreme Court there in the UK did exactly the right thing in this sense, and they did the right thing unanimously in saying that for the purposes of the application of the 2010 Equalities act, female means biological female. Now, the case itself was brought by this group known as Women Scotland Limited. And that is a group that is an activist for second wave feminism. And that on both sides of the Atlantic, means that you're talking about feminists who know who a female is. The collision, as we have seen, with the transgender revolution is between second wave feminists who, after all, only care about actual girls and women and think that's the whole point. And that would include people as distinct as, say, novelist J.K. rowling or tennis star Martina Navratilova. They are absolutely clear that their argument for feminism depends upon females being defined by biological sex. On the other hand, you have people who say, of course it doesn't. It could include the transgender identity. But the clearest thing said by this court is that the 2010 legislation is clear. It's legislative intent. And that's a big issue with courts. What was the legislative intent? But here's what we need to note, that the court, basically by history and by rational analysis, just an honest analysis, had to come to say. In 2010, there was no question that women meant female, period, girl meant female, period. And so in the first sense, the only thing this court did was establish the honest statement that that was the legislative meaning. That was the definition that was understood at the time. Thus, it is illegitimate to claim that this act includes so called transgender females, because that clearly wasn't what was intended in 2010. The same thing here in the United States is true of Title IX in terms of the Civil Rights Act. But then the mischief comes on both sides of the Atlantic, where you have the judges here who say, on the other hand, you can't discriminate against transgender individuals. And clearly this is just going to open the floodgate of further litigation. The arguments in this case are really important. The group of feminists, Women Scotland, argued for what they called a common sense interpretation of the words man and woman. They referred to sex or gender in this case as an immutable biological state. Now, this is exactly what Christians understand, that God made us male and female, and that male and female are immutable biological states. They're not simply a state of mind, they're biological states. That is a refreshing definition. Not just a state of mind, not just a matter of self perception, not just a matter of socially constructed gender, but a matter of biology that in the vast majority of cases, can be almost instantaneously determined. And of course, you have not only physical realities in terms of the body. You also have the genetic realities that are even more basic. XY XX fairly easy to understand. You have to have a very powerful agenda to try to overcome that, and that's what the LGBTQ movement is. And so almost immediately, you had those in the current labor government, that's the more liberal party that is currently in power in Britain saying, well, we're going to have to fix this by legislation. If the supreme court says that 2010 Equalities act doesn't include transgender persons according to the gender they now claim, then we're gonna have to change the legislation. And one of the facts of the British parliamentary system is that since the majority party is indeed able to achieve any legislation in victory that it plots, there's nothing to stop the labor government from doing this, but some kind of public pressure in the United States. It is, at least in theory, more difficult because of the separation of powers. And. And because in this case, it's really clear that President Trump would veto any such legislation. But under Republican control in both houses of Congress, even minimal control, that is not going to happen. Given the filibuster rule in the Senate, it's unlikely to happen there. And that just points, again to the fact that you have those on the left who understand their only hope of attaining many of these aims is to go to the courts. And in this case, Britain's highest court ruled against them. They will not take this as a final answer, I can assure you of that. Speaking on behalf of the Scottish government, First Minister John Swinney said, quote, the ruling gives clarity between two relevant pieces of legislation passed at Westminster. He then said, we will now engage on the implications of the ruling. End quote. Oh, wow. They're now going to engage on the implications of the ruling. The implications are that male means male and female means female according to the 2010 Equalities Act. But I just want to underline the way of the world. And the way of the world, given the activism of our age, is that those who are pressing for the revolution will be ready to go right back into legislative chambers, especially with the labor government there in Westminster, and they'll be ready to go right back to the courts. At least for now, there is the assurance this was a unanimous ruling. But even now, we have to recognize it is an extremely limited ruling. On the other hand, limited though it may be, it is in the expression, even of the headlines in these articles, a refreshing affirmation of creation order. It is a refreshing clarification. It might not last, but right for now, it is a reassuring confirmation, just like President Trump's executive orders, a reassuring confirmation of the fact that it is not true, that all have lost sanity. All right, but now we've got to come back across the Atlantic. We've got to leave Scotland and go to Maine. That is the state of Maine, where Maine's governor, Janet Mills, a Democrat, has been standing against the Trump administration's orders executive actions having to do with prohibiting biological males from participating in female and girl sports, in particular in the school systems there in Maine, in girls sports. The governor simply said to the president, quote, see you in court. And no doubt they will soon enough see each other in court, or at least they will see themselves represented in court over this issue. The governor said, quote, this has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed. It's about states rights and defending the rule of law against a federal government bent on imposing its will instead of upholding the law. Well, the Trump administration will say it is doing exactly what she says it's not doing, and that is upholding the law. They will say that it is Maine's governor who is not upholding the law. It is just in an historical frame, very, very interesting to have the state of Maine come in the year 2025 and make this kind of states rights argument in historical terms. That's another demonstration of what goes around comes around. But the big news in the headlines just yesterday is that the Trump administration is now suing Maine over these policies. And the U.S. attorney General, Pam Bondi, said, quote, I don't care if it's one. I don't care if it's true. I don't care if it's 100. It's going to stop. And it's going to stop in every single state, meaning boys playing on girls teams. Now, the larger moral principles extended to men playing on women's teams. But they're not in the schools. In the schools, it is boys and girls sports. And the attorney general came back saying that the administration is filing suit against Maine. And not only that, but the administration is also threatening not to cut off funding to Maine's public schools if indeed there's continued obstinance from the governor. But let's just pause for a moment and remind ourselves of at least one reality of how politics works in a fallen world. This governor has taken her stand against the Trump administration and President Trump himself. She has said, meet me in court or I'll see you in court. So she's developing her own political brand. She has staked out her own ground, and it is probably to her political advantage, just in terms of the raw science of politics, to continue to oppose the Trump administration on this. Maybe she has some kind of national ambitions in terms of the Democratic Party or higher office. In any event, you're now looking at something that is of enormous importance, basic importance, creation, order, importance. But it is also going to be played out in what amounts to something like a child's play in the serious context of the nation's courts. There is more here than meets the eye, and we need to note what it is. It's not only biology, which Maine seems to be confused about. It is not only justice, which I think Maine is very confused about. It is also politics, where these issues are hammered out, and it is not always the case that the right side wins. Just finally, on this particular issue in Maine, a reminder to us that regardless of how a court rules, we as Christians have to be, if we're the last people on earth, we have to be the people who know what sex and gender are and what it means that God made us male and female, not merely as concepts, but as human beings made in his image. Well, all right. It is also helpful to know, just in terms of the global context. And we started out in the UK special reference to Scotland. We ended up just moments ago in Maine. Now we're going to go to the nation of Hungary. The headline in the New York Times says, inspired by Trump, Orban mandates limitations of two genders, escalating a culture war. And this reference to Orban means the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, who just a matter of days ago, quote, according to the Times, these are the words in the report, quote, escalated his culture war against what he calls gender madness after his governing party voted to amend the constitution to mandate that all Hungarians are either male or female. We're then told, quote, the amendment proposed by the government was endorsed by Parliament, where the prime minister's party has a large majority. It was the latest in a series of moves by Mr. Orban to rev up his conservative base and distract attention from economic problems and a surging opposition movement ahead of elections next year. The prime minister said, quote, the international gender network must take its hands off our children, end quote. Well, I think the Hungarian prime minister has clearly done exactly the right thing here, and in doing so, he's being accused of fueling or escalating a culture war. Well, here, I just want a moment of sanity. We just need to say this out loud and we need to let this sink in. It is not those who defend the ontological, objective reality of male and female who started this culture war. It is the enemies of biological truth who started these culture wars. It is those who wanted to overthrow the entire system of sexual morality and frankly, even biological understanding that had come with the Christian tradition. It is those who wanted to overthrow everything in names of a sexual and gender revolution who started this culture war. And so the way the media game is played is that if you will not join the progressivist leftist agenda, then you are fueling a culture war. It's like people shooting at you and then declaring you belligerent for shooting back. The other thing you find right in the New York Times introduction to this story is that this is serving a political agenda and Viktor Orban's making this a part of his political brand. Well, simply say, yeah, he probably is in both those cases. He probably is trying to, you know, draw attention to the cultural issues rather than to some economic issues. And I'll simply say, at least in the Christian worldview sense, we understand the cultural issues, the moral issues, the biological issues are actually prior to economics. That's incomprehensible to some people. I'm the last person to say that economics would not matter. Sometimes, especially in an electoral context, economics takes first priority. Voters vote primarily on economic matters. But you know what? Eventually the cultural and moral issues will not go away. And eventually an economic understanding will get you only so far. So anyway, we have had these issues erupt in Scotland, then dealt with by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in London. Then we went to Maine, then we went to Hungary. This confusion won't stay limited to one location. It is like a virus. It spreads elsewhere. So do precedents. That means legal precedents, political precedents, cultural milestones. These things are more important than we may even recognize at the time. But next for today, I want to make sure we talk about the controversy between the Trump administration and specifically Harvard University, often referred to as the world's most elite and certainly the world's most wealthy academic institution worth billions and billions of dollars and with much at stake. So, as you know, the Trump administration, using the power of the federal government, has been saying to universities, especially Ivy League universities, prestigious universities, but also others, but in particular, it has said to Harvard, if you will not accept the plan that we are presenting whereby you would be in compliance with non discrimination law, especially on issues such as anti Semit, then we're gonna cut off federal funding. And the Trump administration has come in this case against Harvard with a very comprehensive and I think, frankly, impressively ambitious plan where they're even saying there's some specific departments at Harvard that are so corrupt they're gonna have to be put under some kind of external supervision. Well, the academic community, just given its understanding of academic self determination, self definition, autonomy, academic freedom is the motto that's often used. They are responding, Harvard's responding by saying, we're not going to go along, we're not going to sign the agreement. You can take your federal regulations and, you know, take them back to Washington. And you have the Trump administration saying, well, there are about $9 billion at stake in terms of federal funding to Harvard, and they immediately cut off $2 billion of that funding. Now, is that the end of the matter? Of course it's not. Of course it's not. It's going to end up in the courts. It's going to end up all over the place, just in terms of this standoff between the Trump administration and Harvard. But I want to look at Harvard's response. That is Harvard's response to the Department of Justice. What exactly did they say? Well, they said that the Trump administration's letter, quote, disregards Harvard's efforts and instead presents demands that in contravention of the First Amendment, evade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court. They went on to say, the attorney speaking in this case, the university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government. Accordingly, Harvard will not accept the government's terms as an agreement in principle, end quote. Okay, all right. So the attorneys on behalf of Harvard have said, you are not going to be able to tell us what we can do because we're a private university. You can't tell us, given the principle of constitutional freedoms and in particular academic freedom. You can't tell us what we must sign, what we must do. We're not a government institution. But here's the issue. We're talking about government money, not a little bit of government money. We're talking about a lot of government money. We're talking about $9 billion plus currently at stake. And so I want to speak here as a constitutional conservative, and the application of what I'm going to say is wider than you might think. If you're taking $9 billion of federal money, guess what? You're a federal institution now. Not comprehensively and in every way. Harvard has a private charter. It has a self perpetuating board of trustees or board of governance. It operates in many ways as a private institution. But you know what? It is operating as a private institution with $9 billion of funding. And that's direct funding. There's also indirect funding. They're all the federal student aid programs and all the rest. The principle, which goes all the way back to, well, I'll just say the simplicity of the American Revolution is that if you take government money, you're basically under the control of the government. You are an extension of the government. That, by the way, is very well tested. It's not clearly adjudicated in every case as to what that means. But you know what? The federal government has the right to stop the payments. How in the world is Harvard going to deal with a loss of $9 billion in financial relationships with the federal government? The fact is I don't think Harvard can. And so Harvard's deciding is going to draw this line and it's going to take the administration to court. I'm not even sure that will be the end of the matter because we are talking about areas of ambiguity that need to be clarified. But this is a warning to Christian institutions. And so, you know, I was going somewhere, here's where I'm going. I'm president of a seminary and a college that takes absolutely no federal money and participates in no federal student aid programs. We have no federal or state grants, we don't take tax money. Because I want to be able to say to the government, we are a private institution. We have the right to hold to our beliefs and to teach those who are the students on this campus according to our convictions. But it's because you're not paying the bills. The problem for Harvard is that it, to use my mother's old expression that continued to confuse me, they want to have their cake and eat it too. And you know, that doesn't work with a piece of cake. It doesn't work with the US Constitution, it doesn't work with federal funding. And I'll just have to say I think Harvard is on very weak ground here. But you know what, who likes Harvard's statement? Other colleges and universities, because they are looking for shelter. They're looking for an umbrella. You know who else likes Harvard's determination, defined as courageous, to stand up against the Trump administration? Former President Barack Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law School, he said, quote, harvard has set an example for other higher ed institutions, rejecting an unlawful and ham handed attempt to stifle academic freedom while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let's hope other institutions follow suit. End quote. Well this is how Harvard got into the problem. These self congratulatory statements of how open minded they are. Just try to find a conservative. These blanket statements of academic freedom. Well yeah, as defined by Harvard for Harvard, we'll take your money, but you don't get to define any of the terms. That's just not going to work. President Obama in this case represents the cultural elite that loves the deal whereby Harvard takes the money and sets all the terms. And Harvard is Harvard. After all, we're headed for a showdown between the Trump administration and the world's richest academic institution. At the very least you know this. It is going to be interesting. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information go to my website@albertmohler.com, you can follow me on Twitter or X by going to twitter.com AlbertMohler for information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu for information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.