For much of the 21st century, Canada has been at the forefront of cultural change. It was the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex “marriage” in 2005, behind only the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain. It is currently on track to be the second country to legalize the consumption and sale of recreational marijuana (Uruguay was the first in 2014).

Now another milestone has been passed: It has joined a small handful of nations that recognize and protect the rights of transgendered individuals. Two landmark bills have been passed that have cemented transgenderism into Canadian culture.

Bill 89—Undermining the Family

The first piece of legislation was passed by the Ontario provincial government on June 1. Bill 89, as it is called, is meant to overhaul the province’s children’s aid societies and youth justice system. While the overall purpose of the bill hasn’t changed (“to promote the best interests, protection and well-being of children”), some of the new language in the bill is raising concerns.

Under the new bill, “gender identity” and “gender expression” are two new categories social workers must take into account when determining what is in the best interests of a child. Parents who try to dissuade or teach against transgenderism are at risk of having their children taken away if a social worker deems that it’s “abusive” to the child. Added to that, the new law deletes the parents’ religion as a factor to be considered. Under the new laws, only the child’s interests are to be considered. The bill states:

The matters to be considered in determining the best interests of a child are changed. The child’s views and wishes, given due weight in accordance with the child’s age and maturity, unless they cannot be ascertained, … must be taken into consideration. In addition, any other circumstances that are considered relevant, including a list of 11 circumstances similar to those listed in the current [old] Act, are to be considered. … [T]he current Act includes the religious faith in which the child is being raised [as a factor to be considered] while the new Act includes the child’s race, ancestry, place of origin, color, ethnic origin, citizenship, family diversity, disability, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.

Under the new legislation, the child and its wishes are the only things that are to be considered. While the government has a responsibility to protect its citizens, especially vulnerable youth, many are criticizing the bill because it takes away the parents’ ability to raise their children according to traditional Christian beliefs. If a child identifies as transgendered, the parents are not allowed to dissuade him or make him change his opinion because of religious beliefs. This extends to if the child identifies as being homosexual. The parent is not allowed to discourage those kinds of beliefs. Attempting to do so is grounds for having your child taken away.

It’s no surprise that the Ontario Liberal government has openly admitted that the law exists specifically to protect those young people who identify as transgender. Ontario Minister of Child and Youth Services Michael Coteau, who introduced the bill, told QP Briefing he sees questioning teenagers’ self-identification as transgender or telling them to change as abuse.

“I would consider that a form of abuse, when a child identifies one way and a caregiver is saying no, you need to do this differently,” he said. “If it’s abuse, and if it’s within the definition, a child can be removed from that environment and placed into protection where the abuse stops.”

That sounds so loving and tolerant, but think of what really is happening here. This new law undermines the parents’ ability, as private citizens, to raise their child according to any religious values. The state is now dictating how parents are to raise their children. Not only does it dictate to parents how they are to teach their children about transgenderism, it dictates how parents are to rear their children overall. As the Association for Reformed Political Action wrote, the bill undermines nearly all parental authority over the child:

The law currently states that the parent of a child in care retains the right “to direct the child’s education and religious upbringing.” Bill 89 changes this to say, “to direct the child or young person’s education and upbringing, in accordance with the child’s or young person’s creed, community identity and cultural identity.” In the new phrasing, the parent’s authority appears to now be limited by the “child’s creed”—or whatever the child tells the [Children’s Aid Society] worker their creed is or is not.

Under the new law, parents are there to raise the child according to how the child wants to be raised, the exact opposite of traditional parenting. This new law means that the children rule the parents! Think of the power this gives the youth. If a child doesn’t get what he wants, or doesn’t like a certain family rule, he could call child services on his own parents! This law effectively takes away all power from parents. Added to that, religion has been sidelined to make way for transgender and homosexual rights, and in all of it it’s the government telling parents what to do.

Bill C-16—Forcing Transgenderism on Canadians

The second piece of legislation passed at the national level on June 15, and now only requires royal ascent to be passed into Canadian law, is Bill C-16. This new bill adds the phrases “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code of Canada. This makes it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity or expression. It would also extend to hate-speech laws, making it a hate crime to target someone for being transgender.

The bill, which passed with overwhelming support, is groundbreaking and could make even the wrong use of pronouns a criminal offense. Should someone who opposes transgenderism refuse to use a transgender individual’s preferred pronoun, he could face penalties. In Ontario, it is already a violation of the Ontario Human Rights Code (ohrc) to use the wrong preferred pronoun. It states that:

The law recognizes that everyone has the right to self-identify their gender and that “misgendering” is a form of discrimination. … Refusing to refer to a trans-person by their chosen name and a personal pronoun that matches their gender identity, or purposely misgendering, will likely be discrimination when it takes place in a social area covered by the Code, including employment, housing and services like education. The law is otherwise unsettled as to whether someone can insist on any one gender-neutral pronoun in particular.

As LifeSiteNews reported, the federal department of justice has made clear it will use the ohrc guidelines in creating new transgender laws and extend it into private life.

Lawyer D. Jared Brown said, “Mandating use of pronouns requires one to use words that are not their own that imply a belief in or agreement with a certain theory on gender. If you try to disavow that theory, you can be brought before the Human Rights Commission for misgendering or potentially find yourself guilty of a hate crime. To sum up, on the subject of gender, we’re going to have government-mandated speech.”

With one fell swoop, the Canadian government has imposed the belief in transgenderism on all citizens. As one Canadian senator said, “This bill is not only about the protections it provides, but also the message that Parliament is delivering to all Canadians about the need to treat everybody equally.”

It’s not just about extending rights to a certain section of society. It’s about sending a message. It’s a message from the Canadian government to its citizens that says, You go along with it, or else. Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Jody Wilson-Raybould said following the passing of the law,

In Canada we celebrate inclusion and diversity, and all Canadians should feel safe to be themselves. Trans- and gender-diverse persons must be granted equal status in Canadian society, and this bill makes that status explicit in Canadian law. … These changes would also require a court to treat the commission of an offense that is motivated by hate based on gender identity or expression as an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes.

Hardly a veiled threat! Canadians who disagree with transgenderism better take note, because the full weight of the law is coming against you if you disagree with that movement. Bruce Pardy, professor of law at Queen’s University, wrote in a recent column that defiance of this law could lead to “orders for correction, apology, Soviet-like ‘reeducation,’ fines and, in cases of continued non-compliance, incarceration for contempt of court.”

Losing the Culture War

This is what things have come to in Canada: Soviet-like totalitarianism and indoctrination. You have to go along with the beliefs of the state, or you could face punishment. The government has decided for and forced on Canadians what they should think about this issue. At the provincial level, the government is telling parents how to raise their children and what to teach them; at the federal level, the government is telling people how they can and can’t talk about someone else. Traditional Christian views, together with the traditional family unit, are now in direct violation of Canadian law, all because the government says so.

For years, the Trumpet has declared that a culture war is taking place in America, Britain and its former colonies. Canada has been losing so many of those battles, and it just lost another one, just as the Trumpet has been forecasting. It was only last week that Joel Hilliker, senior editor of theTrumpet.com, sent out a Trumpet Brief detailing the course of this trend (if you aren’t already a subscriber, be sure to sign up for the Trumpet Brief’s daily news updates):

Society is hurtling down this weird, delusional road—seemingly without considering just how bizarre and treacherous it must inevitably get. Denying the very existence of male and female necessitates restructuring whole segments of our culture. Sex segregation naturally occurs everywhere. The contortions this will put us through over public facilities, sports participation, military service, family composition, the role of science in reproduction, and countless other areas are impossible to foresee. Not even Karl Marx—with his abolition of the family and advocacy of a “community of women” in place of marriage—conceived of a completely sexless society.

But most alarmingly, such a revolution cannot take place without force. When a lie becomes orthodoxy—when truth must give way to fantasy—when it becomes expected that everyone enthusiastically endorses pure deceit—such utopianism can only be brought into being with the bullying power of the state. You simply cannot rewrite reality on such a scale without the muscle of authoritarianism.

It is coming—and fast.

Look how fast the transgenderism movement has grown in just the last couple years. And as we forecast, look how the movement has been forced onto Canadians. As Bruce Pardy wrote in his column, “Few Canadians realize how seriously these statutes infringe upon freedom of speech.” What has happened is akin to tyrannical rule! Pardy wrote (emphasis added):

Some senators expressed the view that forcing the use of non-gendered pronouns was reasonable because calling someone by their preferred pronoun is a reasonable thing to do. That position reflects a profound misunderstanding of the role of expression in a free society. The question is not whether required speech is “reasonable” speech. If a statute required people to say “hello,” “please” and “thank you,” that statute would be tyrannical, not because “hello,” “please” and “thank you” aren’t reasonable things to say, but because the state has dictated the content of private conversation.

This is exactly what has happened in Canada: Free speech has given way to authoritarianism and state-sanctioned speech! Canadians have been left with no choice but to go along or face the consequences. Try to teach your children otherwise, and they’ll be taken away. Refer to someone by their biological gender, and you could face “Soviet-like ‘reeducation.’”

This is all happening in Canada today, and it’s all happening just as the Trumpet has forecast. If you haven’t yet, be sure to read Joel Hilliker’s insightful Trumpet Brief from last week. The July 2017 Trumpet magazine is also chock-full of articles regarding the moral decline taking place in the United States, Britain, Canada and other Western nations. A culture war is taking place, and the West is losing. But as editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote recently, “[I]t is really much more than a ‘culture war.‘ It is a war against the Bible and God Himself! The traditional family—the strength of the nation—is already mostly destroyed!”

These new laws in Canada prove that statement to be true! Freedom of religion is literally being purged out of Canadian law, and is being replaced by liberal secularism that directly opposes what God has outlined in the Bible. It has turned family authority upside down, giving all the power to the children (Isaiah 3:12). It has undermined one of the first, and most basic, concepts introduced in the Bible: male and female (Genesis 1:27). And in all of it, the leaders of Canada have cheered the destruction of traditional families and values. Will there be consequences? Can a nation of upside-down families survive? While Canada wants to celebrate its “diversity” and push God out of the way, the Bible is clear about the consequences of these actions. There are curses for rejecting God’s laws. And just because someone says that they won’t come doesn’t make it true.