April 5, 2020

By Bill Berkowitz

While Franklin Graham recently appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree on a Holy Week ceasefire, there is no ceasefire in Graham’s war against transgender youth and the LGBTQ communities. Graham also blasted Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Jackson: "Where are we going as a nation when a nominee for our highest court will not define what a woman is?" Graham wrote in a March 25 post on Facebook.

No one expects Franklin Graham to be silent. In fact, on any given day, Graham, the son of the late Billy Graham and the head of the relief organization, Samaritan’s Purse, and currently oversees the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, will bloviate with the best of the country’s Christian nationalists. During the past week, Graham denounced the Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV), calling the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services’ guidance, titled “Gender-Affirming Care and Young People,” “one of the most wicked initiatives that we’ve seen come out of Washington.” He followed that up by attacking The Walt Disney Company for opposing Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

Graham called HHS’s statement that “Research demonstrates that gender-affirming care improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents,” a “lie from hell.”

Graham went on: “All of their manipulated research saying that it improves mental health or increases happiness is just a lie from hell. What it really does is destroy the lives and futures of these children.”

“Churches and followers of Jesus Christ must stand against this evil agenda,” Graham preached. “Politicians who support this shouldn’t be in leadership, and we need to work to get them out of office in the next election — whether they’re Republican or Democrat.”

“Speaking of regime changes — we need one in this country,” Graham said.

Then, Graham took out after The Walt Disney Company after the entertainment giant denounced Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

“Disney is indoctrinating children with the LGBTQ agenda — and they don’t even try to hide it,” Graham declared, linking to a Fox News article titled, “Woke Disney: 10 families who are swearing off Disney due to its left-leaning politics.”

“I certainly hope parents wake up to what Disney is trying to do and protect their children and grandchildren from the lies this once-great company is now so willing to promote,” he added.

According to rvamag, “Graham followed that attack on Sunday by posting the vile 2021 video of North Carolina’s Republican Christian nationalist Lt. Governor Mark Robinson that made him infamous. In it Robinson calls the transgender movement “demonic,” and “full of the spirit of Antichrist.”

“They’re dragging our kids down into the pit of Hell,” Robinson adds.

"When USA Today names [Dr. Rachel Levine, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services] a biological man as a 'Woman of the Year'?" Graham asked.  "And when biological males are allowed to participate in women’s high school and college athletic programs and take titles away from females who have worked their entire lives to achieve excellence in their sport? Can you believe it has gone this far?"

"Those pushing this agenda want everyone to ignore science, biology, and fact—and most importantly, to ignore the truth of God's Word," said Graham. "Men and women are made differently—That’s a Fact. They have different chromosomal makeup—That’s a Fact. God, our Creator, designed it that way—That’s a Fact."

Graham has had an interesting relationship with Putin. According to Religion News Service’s Mark Silk, Four days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Franklin Graham tweeted, “Pray for President (Vladimir) Putin today. This may sound like a strange request, but we need to pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost.”

Silk pointed out that Graham’s prayer went unanswered.  “Since Putin’s heart to date shows no sign of softening — … he[‘s] likened his opponents to a plague of gnats — Graham might assume the righteous prophet’s voice. As he did in 2015, for example, when he railed that then-President Barack Obama ‘has stood defiantly against God. And against his teaching. And the teachings of the Scriptures.’”

Thus far, Graham has not issued any statement condemning Putin.

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