What Did You Say?

Facebook bans Christian prof. from platform for opposing Biden’s transgender military policy

A Christian university professor has been suspended from Facebook for voicing disagreement with President Joe Biden’s executive order allowing trans-identifying individuals to serve in the U.S. military.

Robert Gagnon, who teaches New Testament theology at Houston Baptist University and is a renowned scholar on the subject of sexuality, was locked out of his Facebook account for 24 hours on Tuesday after he posted a comment in defense of a friend who posted a satirical commentary about Biden’s executive order. Facebook suspended Gagnon’s account for what it deemed as “incitement” to violence.

In his post, Gagnon said the executive order will endanger women, and noted that those who promote transgenderism are allowing males to invade women’s athletics and shelters. He also likened transgender ideology to a “religious cult” and said it “is indeed a pseudo-science,” in that it forces people to reject basic biology. That Facebook suspended his friend for similar comments proves the cult-like dimension, he said.

Facebook subsequently sent Gagnon a notice, informing him that his words violated their “Community Standards on violence and incitement.”

“There was absolutely no incitement to violence on our part. We abhor violence done to any person,” Gagnon told PJ Media on Tuesday. “This is just a thinly veiled and pathetic excuse for censorship of any critical views toward trans-tyranny over our consciences, religion, and reason.”

“Only one point of view is being allowed,” he continued. “Trump was not the great danger to the Republic. Left-wing canceling is.” 

After the day-long Facebook suspension was lifted, Gagnon posted on his page Thursday: “We are in the midst of rapidly accelerating public censorship of our views (with compelled speech) but we are not the victims. Neat trick.”

Gagnon’s friend, Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute, who was also banned from Facebook, had expressed her exasperation in a Facebook comment in which she pointed out that women who signed up to serve in the Armed Forces will now have to shower and bunk with males as a result of the executive order. Higgins referred to transgender advocacy as a “cult” whose goal is to spread “alchemical pseudo-science” globally “before the truth can pull up its pants” and continue to accuse Republicans as being “science-deniers.”

Higgins was banned from the social media platform for seven days and remains locked out of her account as of Thursday. The Christian Post reached out to Gagnon for additional comment on this article but did not receive a response by press time.

Conservative critics of Biden’s executive order have said that the change in policy imperils military readiness and that it’s tantamount to “social engineering.” Opposition to the order, however, spans the political spectrum.

In comments sent to CP earlier this week, Miriam Ben-Shalom, the first lesbian to ever be reinstated to the U.S. Army after being dismissed from service on the basis of sexuality, said she would “bet that no one thought to ask military women how they’d feel having an intact [male] in their barracks, showers, etc.”

“Military women already face difficulties when they serve — witness the recent spate of murders and the shocking statistics on rape in the military. Now, men have had the lack-witted brainlessness to add to the burden of military women. And wait until a female to trans wants to serve in the men’s barracks. What will the military do when such a woman is raped or assaulted — or killed?” she said.

Ben-Shalom, who describes herself as a “moderate independent” added that the move is a “slap in the face” to the military.

“This is pandering to a community that has many, many problems in terms of mental health and stability. This is pandering to Big Medicine, Big Pharma, and Big Money,” she said.

The Pentagon has said that approximately 9,000 service members identify as transgender, though independent estimates have put the number at around 16,000, according to The Wall Street Journal. Fewer than 1,000 have received a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

In 2016, the RAND Corporation published a study on Pentagon medical expenditures and found that the costs incurred by U.S. taxpayers to pay for trans-identifying service members’ medical costs fell somewhere between $2.4 million and $8.4 million each year.